I just finished the first volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, and that’ll probably be the last one I read. Partly, I’m annoyed by the conspicuous and painful contrivances — I mean, how many times can simultaneous brain surgeries on a poor person and a rich person be required in the same German city in the same week, anyway?
But while the melodrama is over-determined, the real problem is that the book is glib in other ways. The point of the first volume is the various moral dilemmas faced by Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a amazingly accomplished Japanese brain surgeon living and working in Germany. The stumbling block is that the book never really contemplates for an instant presenting Tenma as anything but a moral paragon, which rather undercuts the efficacy of said dilemmas. Really, Tenma’s big bad sins in the first volume are to (a) be mildly ambitious, and (b) to spout off out loud to an unconscious person about how he’d like to kill the folks who wrecked his career and life. Those are barely even sins, and the rest of the time we see him running himself to exhaustion to save lives, neglecting his own career advancement and romantic life, and generally being a paragon of virtue.
Having such a strong moral beacon in the central role pretty much vitiates the ethical questions that appear to be the heart of the book. In Middlemarch, as a contrast, the doctor, Lydgate, is both really likable, morally upright — and actually swayed by money and romance to do some fairly awful things. Because Lydgate is a flawed human being, his choices are much more involving; the fact that he occasionally falls makes his occasional triumphs — and those of others — have an actual weight and beauty.
Tenma, on the other hand, comes across as a hollow prig; the dilemmas he faces have to be ridiculously contrived, because he simply, and improbably, isn’t subject to normal human failings. The result is sententious and irritatingly stupid; every demonstration of Tenma’s nobility just makes me want to say, “give me a fucking break.”
Adding to the annoyance is a fairly strong suspicion that part of the point of the manga is to allow the Japanese to pat themselves on the back for their purity and general moral superiority. The giant noses of all the Caucasians are fun to look at, but the standard noble-Japanese-struggling-to-retain-his-purity-in-corrupt-old-Europe thing is a lot less enjoyable. Nor am I all that taken with the hoary idea that serial killers have something important to tell us about the human condition/human morality/our inner selves. I’ve seen that film, thank you, and as far as I”m concerned Kevin Spacey and Anthony Hopkins can be sealed in a concrete container and dropped in the Mariana Trench where they can overact at each other and various species of deep-sea fish for all eternity.
I know lots of folks have liked Monster, and it’s certainly possible that things get less stupid at some point later in the series. And the art is quietly skillful in a Tezuka vein. But I think I’d much rather pursue the trashier Gantz, which manages to be a lot more thoughtful and truthful about morality by the simple expedient of not idolizing its central characters.
Must say that I had the opposite reaction. Dumped Gantz after reading one volume and promptly forgot about it, and persisted with Monster despite its horrible first few volumes (implausible plot; stupid if not irritating hero, tedious Javert-like detective etc.).
While I haven’t had any contact with Monster since I saw the final episode of the anime about 5 years back, I think the decision paid off. Monster definitely improves and I vaguely remember some chilling moments in the narrative towards its mid and tail section (which is more than I can say for The Silence of the Lambs). I don’t think the hero gets idealized as well – he gets somewhat deranged and twisted by his “mission” later on.
Can’t be more specific than that since I’m not a Monster fanatic. My recommendation is borrow and persist if you have the time. Or watch the anime.
Huh. Well having the hero go insane certainly wouldn’t hurt at all. Maybe I’ll pick it up again at some point. I’m committed to Gantz for the moment though; it definitely has some interesting things going on.
Noah: Have you written on Gantz at all? I don’t recall seeing that, and I’m curious to hear what you have to say about the series.
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Hey Derik. Not yet! I just read the first volume; I’m going to read further in the series and then see what I have to say about it.
I picked it up on Tucker’s recommendation. His review is really entertaining if you haven’t seen it.
Funny, I made the same decision about Monster, but I faulted the villains and supporting cast more. I found to be Tenma a workaholic, and generally upstanding, and that was alright. Maybe I’m a prig or something, and it’s been a while, but the corrupt, greedy, plagiarist, immoral father of the golddigging daughter, and the rest of them was the portion that felt off, and I fault the characterization there for my disinterest. By the time the mystery hit, I was waiting for someone to twirl their mustache.
I liked Monster, especially the parts where Tenma is trained in wilderness survival by an insane Vietnam vet (I think).
In the beginning volumes, I liked the way Tenma’s fiance was drawn: very pretty, until things don’t go her way. I also liked the idea that Tenma could have continued to live as a *mostly* morally upright person, AND gotten the babe and the hospital, if he’d just overlooked his ethical sense one or two times. The idea is that it’s only when people are forced to choose between what’s right and being rewarded that you find out what kind of people they are.
Tenma turns out be a ridiculously, exaggeratedly moral person, in keeping with the “moral fable” nature of the story. I think this kind of construction is fair, and meant as a rebuke to all of the people – in Japan, as well – who smugly consider themselves to be good without ever having given much thought to what, if anything, they have had to sacrifice to uphold their principles.
Like a lot of Urasawa manga, it has a pat ending, which in my mind does more to negate the “moral” message of the manga than any amount of virtue in the main character, since I also subscribe to the idea that moral = complex. This is, however, in keeping with Monster’s preoccupation with fables and fairy tales.
Overall, I like 20th Century Boys more. Since it’s about thwarting a villain who is using shared childhood comic book fantasies to achieve world domination, you can’t really complain about overdetermined writing. The whole point is that the writing is overdetermined and the villain’s worldview is simplistic.
Gantz is a moral black hole. Seriously.
I don’t think anyone will deny that the first volume is full of contrivances. I’m not even going to try. However:
How do you get off thinking for even a moment that the ethical questions at the center of the manga are whether or not giving in to corrupt hospital politics is the ethical option? Because those are about the ONLY questions in Monster that are dismissed on the grounds of Tenma’s general uprightness and only because almost everyone is going to agree that sort of bias in patient treatment is unethical. The larger questions regarding his relationship to a certain serial killer cannot, by nature of the manga, be invalidated by his virtue because the questions being asked are targeted at the very actions that supposedly make him virtuous.
It might be the case that from where you stand that those questions are pointless because Tenma obviously did the right thing. But that’s YOU invalidating the ethical questions by pre-empting them, not the manga doing so. I think it’s interesting to question and challenge what we normally take to be virtuous. You’re welcome to find that silly, but that doesn’t mean the manga does.
Not subject to normal human failings? Give me a break. Tenma is shown to drink heavily, express inappropriate levels of anger and it’s implicit that he has been a passive and submissive individual complicit with institutional corruption. He’s shows himself capable of being an upright individual, yes, but it’s not like those don’t exist.
Finally, the moment you start feeling tempted to read in any kind of implicit xenophobia or nationalism you should definitely (at least before posting such accusations in a review) try and do some research on the author to find out how plausible that reading is. And if you did, you’d find out that big noses are a staple of Urasawa’s style, that Urasawa is far from uncritical of Japan and Japanese society, and that Tenma is much less a representation of Japan’s moral uprightness and more of a representation of Osamu Tezuka who heavily INFLUENCED Urasawa, was a (non-practicing) medical doctor and who shared similarly uncompromising views.
And you’ll excuse me if I ignore the section on using serial killers as an exploratory tool as a result of you calling it “hoary” and then exemplifying it with two Hollywood slasher flicks made in the last twenty years.
You clearly have a visceral bias against many of the components of early Monster. I suggest when you have a reaction like that you take a moment to discern what are products of a projection of your bias and what aren’t, so that you can more clearly seperate them in your review from statements about the actual work.
I know how annoying it is when you say you don’t like the first volume of something and you get told “It doesn’t get really good until vol. 7,” but unfortunately that’s the case here. Like you, I quit after the first volume. (I didn’t dislike it, though, I just wasn’t interested.) Eventually, nagged by all the great reviews, I checked the next few volumes out of the library, and these improved enough to keep me reading; but it wasn’t until around vol. 6 or 7 that I became a fan.
What makes Monster near-great is Johann, the villain, who is one of the greatest fictional villains I’ve encountered. (He’s much more than just a serial killer.) The Javert-like detective also gets more interesting in later volumes. And Urasawa’s plotting is terrific. Tenma himself remains irritatingly noble, but I was able to ignore that fairly easily. Unfortunately, the series’s ending is a disappointment; but the ride to get there is worth it.
Krill, you need to take deep breaths. Lots of them.
Individuals are complicated. It’s possible for someone to both criticize their society and present stereotypical images of other societies.
“You clearly have a visceral bias against many of the components of early Monster.”
Um…I’m biased against them in that I didn’t like them, yes.
Adam, with you and Suat and others encouraging me, maybe I’ll give the next few volumes a try.
“And you’ll excuse me if I ignore the section on using serial killers as an exploratory tool as a result of you calling it “hoary” and then exemplifying it with two Hollywood slasher flicks made in the last twenty years.”
Sure, you’re excused.
Of course that’s possible. I didn’t for one second suggest that the two were incompatible.
You suspected that Tenma was written the way he was as an expression of the author’s view of the Japanese as morally superior. THAT is incompatible with being critical of Japanese society.
The stereotypical image of Europe/Germany consists of a corrupt hospital, which I think is hardly grounds to suggest xenophobia, and big noses which as I indicated are not European exclusive in Urasawa’s style.
I’m not sure what else you thought I meant by bias. My point was, you don’t merely dislike them, you basically reject their validity with fairly weak justification (the biggest case of this being your dismissal of serial killer fiction).
We’ll just have to disagree on serial killer fiction. I think it’s hoary, pernicious, and quite, quite dumb. But mileage will differ. (I enjoy slasher films, on the other hand; less pretentious.)
Castigating the Japanese in the name of some sort of ideal Japanese (non-Western) purity is not at all impossible. It’s what’s happening in Lady Snowblood, for example. Not sure if this is what’s going on in Urasawa — but he’s clearly (to me) riffing on the idea of corrupt Europeans.
The big noses…Tenma’s nose is pretty unobtrusive compared to everyone else’s. Given my understanding of representations of Europeans in manga, I have trouble believing that’s not intentional. (I don’t actually care, I hasten to add. As I said, I think representing Europeans with big noses is pretty entertaining.)
You definition of bias seems to come down to the fact that you not only disagree with me, you strongly disagree with me. Which is fine.
I don’t see how him riffing on the idea of corrupt Europeans is at all clear at this point. What evidence do you have to suggest that outside of it being set in Europe and involving corruption? I certainly don’t recall any remarks made about Europeans by any of the characters indicating that the stereotype is being bought into.
I don’t see how those two facts are supportive of such an assertion at all. No sort of widespread corruption has been indicated in Europe. A lot more mind is paid to the fact that it’s a hospital being corrupt than it being a European hospital being corrupt.
I mean does every Japanese author who wants to write a story set in Europe have to contrive a plot-jump to another country and show the same stuff happening just to prove to you that there’s no essential connection to Europe? I think such a guilty-until-proven-innocent kind of reading is grossly unfair.
You seem to think that I have something against you being biased, which I don’t at all. I only think the role you let it play in your review is inappropriate. Your presentation of facts regarding the story is inextricably entwined with your own strongly negative reactions. This results in a caricatured presentation of the work.
“Your presentation of facts regarding the story is inextricably entwined with your own strongly negative reactions. This results in a caricatured presentation of the work.”
Yes. It’s a review, not an equation. You seem to think I had a negative reaction and then made up things which supported it. On the contrary, my negative reactions are based on the parts of the work I discuss. I don’t see why that’s illegitimate, though you can of course disagree.
The story is about corruption, with Europeans being the corruptors and the lone Japanese character being the beacon of purity (and no, I don’t think entirely appropriate expressions of anger, or very understandable bouts of drinking when faced with high stress situations constitute any kind of moral failing. The fact that this is the best you can do for your case seems to me, on the contrary, to prove my point.) That fits fairly neatly into the kind of narrative I discussed.
“The story is about corruption, with Europeans being the corruptors and the lone Japanese character being the beacon of purity”
That’s exactly what I mean. As a result of your bias, you present the story as being about something that it’s not even about.
The story is about a doctor’s choice to save a young boy on the grounds of a value that he takes hold of (that all lives are equal) and the disastrous consequences of making that choice which ultimately push the corruption to the side. But because you are quick to read Japanese xenophobia into it, you think you understand what the story is about after not only the first volume, but also in spite of clear indications to the contrary within the first volume.
Ah. Well, that’s called a difference of interpretation, you see. It’s what makes the internet go round.
I happen to love Monster, and was a bit obsessed with it while I was reading it, and I will say that I think it gets better as it goes on. That first volume is kind of laughable in its presentation of morality, with the ever-righteous Tenma having a horrified reaction to his fiancee saying something like “after all, not everybody is equal, are they?” But don’t worry, our hero will stand up for the common man against the rich and powerful! It’s kind of amusingly simplistic, but I will say it does get better, even as soon as the next volume, in which Tenma gets accused of Johan’s crimes and has to go on the run. He never really becomes all the complex, but he does get kind of tortured by his stated goal of killing Johan. No, the others that he comes across are the more interesting characters, like Johan’s sister Nina, Tenma’s ex-fiancee Eva, the Javert-like inspector, and Johan himself, who is chillingly intelligent and vicious. I love Urasawa’s storytelling as well, setting up chases, face-offs, meetings, mysteries, connections, etc., all so perfectly paced, and often very tense and downright requiring the reader to keep turning pages as fast as possible. I love the minor characters that pop up here and there too, like an alcoholic detective who plays into Johan’s hands or an elderly couple searching for their son, and how he introduces them so quickly and effectively, if only to be used for a short time. It makes a weird contrast to Tenma himself, who gets a lengthy set-up but remains remarkably simplistic; maybe that worked better as an anchor for the series, a foundation upon which to stack the other increasingly idiosyncratic personalities.
So yeah, I don’t know if there’s anything profound being said about humanity here, but it’s a hell of a story, full of twists and turns, exciting action and fascinating mysteries, and some really, really great comics storytelling. I hope you keep going with it past this first volume.
Thanks Matthew! I know Urasawa is a favorite of yours. With everybody urging me on, maybe I will manage to get to 2 or 3 at some point….
it’s been too long since i read monster to have a very nuanced reading of its morality or even much of its overall structure. with that caveat, here are some vague impressions.
urasawa is very good at plotting. it really doesn’t take much to get me to finish a book, i’m kind of a pushover for anything with mystery, adventure, bad guys, misunderstood good guys, etc. i even managed to slog through ann radcliff, so don’t even get me started about hoary mysteries and cliches. but i remember at the time feeling it really hard to put down monster until i got to the end… which was a dud, as is usual for an 18 volume manga. that’s worth something.
i suspect that you’re mistaking urasawa’s general misanthropy for racism or jingoism against europeans, because this one is set in europe. from what i recall of 20th century boys and happy! (the latter which is probably the meanest thing i’ve read by him) they follow the same moral formula faithfully: manipulative bad guys, capricious, salacious dupes (including the audience), super-goody-twoshoes heroes along with a few faithful admirers. these heroes are naiive and good to the point of being severely socially retarded.
yeah i realize that general misanthropy doesn’t preclude racism, but in my un-nuanced, long-ago reading of various urasawa manga i couldn’t discern much difference in his view of japanese vs. his view of europeans, outside of superficialities. they’re all there to either corrupt or ruin his heroes.
i didn’t have a problem with that, but that’s neither here nor there.
you should maybe read tezuka’s ode to kirihito before going back to urasawa instead. it’s shorter, more satisfying and consistent throughout, he’s a more versatile artist, follows pretty much the same formula, and i remember it being a lot more perverse.
i suspect noah will still like gantz better though (and it is better, a lot trashier but a lot crazier imo), based on some of his reviews and insofar as one big difference is the character/moral concerns of gantz are adolescent (get laid, awakening awareness that there are other people in the world) vs. monsters which are more “adult” (career vs. morals, can get somewhat preachy). i’ll be interested to see.
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You really should give Monster a chance. It’s a great manga. Nothing more to add since I agree with what Matthew said.