So a few days ago the last two volumes of Homunculus finally got translated into English. Honestly, it's one of the best endings I've seen for a seinen manga. Just a quick warning, but there's gonna be a few spoilers here and there in the next paragraph so I'd look into reading the series now before continuing on.
Where do I start... Might as well start from the beginning. Homunculus is about a homeless man (Mr. Nakoshi) who lives in his car, who is offered money to be part of a trepanation experiment to potentially awaken his 6th sense. Just a quick disclaimer but trepanation does not actually work, so don't go drilling holes in your head. Either way, Nakoshi soon discovers that he has the ability to see things with his left eye that normally cannot be seen. These things are called homunculus and they are more or less a mental manifestation of the person being viewed. However, as he begins to experience the world of homunculus, he soon realizes that the things he sees are actually manifestations of his own homunculus, which is why the homunculus become a part of his body after he discovers the secret behind them. Thus begins Nakoshi's quest to discover his homunculus; to discover who he truly is. His quest takes him on a journey through the minds of the people who have a homunculus, and thus he ends up discovering repressed memories and secrets that these people hold. Once he discovers the root of the homunculus in others, it becomes a part of his body and the homunculus is no longer visible in the person who had it.
Just a fair warning but some of the homunculus reveal some rather disturbing aspects of both the personality of the person who has it, and Mr. Nakoshi's own personality. The final form of Mr. Nakoshi's homunculus is revealed in the final volume of the series, which of course means that Mr Nakoshi has come to terms with who he is as a person. I wont' reveal what happens in the later volumes simply because it takes the fun out of reading the series. The series is 15 volumes long. Each volume takes around 45 minutes or so to read on average so it should only take around 10 hours to completely read through it. It's definitely 10 hours wells spent. The ending raises questions about the quest for human knowledge, and speaks volumes about what it means to know ones self. The ending itself is also incredibly open to interpretation as several people have several different views about what the ending means. Some believe Mr. Nakoshi went insane because he was obsessed with himself, I'm of the camp that believes he discovered the truth behind himself and went insane because there was nothing left for him to discover about himself or those around him. It's a great read either way, and I'd be more than willing to purchase the entire series should it ever become available in North America.
I just finished reading through this manga (actually did it in one 8 hour marathon session) and I have to say this is one interesting manga. Just a warning that it only gets really interesting by the end of the first chapter. I actually picked it up about a year ago, glanced through the first chapter and got the impression that this was just about a young tramp living in his small car. It looked boring so I just put it down again. Just started reading this again yesterday and boy was I wrong the first time around. Like I mentioned earlier this time it hooked me and I just read through all of it (guess it's about 2400 pages) in one go. Time well spent. I haven't really checked it, but the style and tone it's similar to mpd psycho, I suspect it's from the same guy. It's better though. As far as "quality" goes this work - in my opinion of course - comes close to 20th century boys and Monster. So yeah, it's pretty good. As mentioned in the review the end is pretty cool as well. Won't spoil it for you though, but I actually think that the end feels "right". Somebody should make a real-life movie from this story. I'd definitively watch it.
ReplyDelete