[Categories: Manga Reviews]
Monster volume 3: 511 Kinderheim
Tenma’s journey enters its third instalment as the trail left by Johan takes him to Verden, the old East Berlin and idyllic villages in the German countryside. More fascinating supporting characters are added and a few details surrounding Johan’s past are revealed. The most chilling clue of all is that of the orphanage where he was raised: 511 Kinderheim.
I remember seeing this story unfold for the first time on fansub but even now the sense of evil and foreboding that hangs over 511 Kinderheim still gives me the chills. It is amazing to think that, with all the supernatural types of horror and shocker around these days, realistic human tragedy and exploitation make for the most unsettling entertainment of all. The phrase ‘human experimentation’ and other stories surrounding this place only hint at the cruelty and suffering that the children must have endured, yet Urasawa’s storytelling delivers by what it doesn’t show as much as by what it does. In one particularly frightening showdown, Johan is described as a ‘monster’: not by someone who is terrified of him (as everyone who has seen his true colours invariably are) but someone who is in awe of what he has become.
The question of “Are monsters born or created?” is asked once again, with some semblance of an answer beginning to emerge; only when we learn more about Johan’s past will we get a clear answer however. The inner battle that Tenma himself is experiencing is also portrayed very effectively: as he continues his search that he intends to end with a cold-blooded murder, he saves lives and helps others in need. Quite a paradox, which is not lost on the story and the people who meet him; it is the succession of complex ethical questioning as well as the chiller/thriller aspect that has made me so hooked on Monster. Stirring stuff indeed.
Leave a Reply