Naoki Urasawa's Monster, Volume 5

Naoki Urasawa's Monster: Kanzenban #5

by Naoki Urasawa

Había una vez un monstruo sin nombre, que se moría por conseguir uno. Así que decidió salir de viaje a ver si encontraba un nombre. "¿Por qué esta extraña historia checa para niños ha descentrado tanto a Johan? ¿Es posible que encontremos en ese libro alguna pista sobre el misterio de su nacimiento? Un misterio oculta otro misterio. Tenma intenta colarse en Chequia para buscar a la madre de Johan. Un policía fronterizo le descubre, pero logra escapar con la ayuda de Grimmer, un periodista autónomo. Los dos hombres parten sin preguntarse uno a otro qué les ha llevado hasta Chequia. De hecho, Grimmer también está muy interesado en el kinderheim 511 de la Alemania del Este. Ahora la historia pasa a tener lugar en Praga.

Genres: Manga, Monsters, Comics, Thriller, Mystery, Graphic Novels, Horror

405 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Urasawa Naoki (浦沢直樹) is a Japanese mangaka. He is perhaps best known for Monster (which drew praise from Junot Díaz, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner) and 20th Century Boys.

Urasawa's work often concentrates on intricate plotting, interweaving narratives, a deep focus on character development and psychological complexity. Urasawa has won the Shogakukan Manga Award, the Japan Media Arts Festival excellence award, the Kodansha Manga Award and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. In 2008 Urasawa accepted a guest teaching post at Nagoya Zokei University.

Series list (not including short stories collections):
- Pineapple ARMY (パイナップルARMY) 1985-1988, written by Kazuya Kudo;
- YAWARA! 1986-1993;
- Master Keaton (MASTERキートン) 1988-1994, written by Hokusei Katsushika;
- Happy! 1993-1999
- MONSTER 1994-2001
- 20th Century Boys (20世紀少年) 1999-2006
- 21st Century Boys (21世紀少年) 2007
- PLUTO 2003-2009, based on Tezuka Osamu's Tetsuwan Atom
- BILLY BAT 2008-2016
- Master Keaton Remaster (MASTERキートン Reマスター) 2012-2014
- Mujirushi (夢印-MUJIRUSHI-) 2017-2018, collaboration with Musée du Louvre
- Asadora! (連続漫画小説 あさドラ!) 2018-ongoing

Reviews

[Katie Colson · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️4.5

This series is so rich and in depth that it takes me an absolute AGE to read but then when the final pages arrive, I'm shocked that it's over.

This one didn't have the tab-worthy moment's that 1 through 3 had but it is still so damn good. I can't recommend this series enough. It's stunning.

[Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

[Victor *You Bow to No One* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight from my notes... actually they're the only notes I took as I was too busy reading: this psychological suspense keeps getting better and better.

[Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ya me voy oliendo unas cuantas cositas en torno a Johan pero nada es seguro porque bien malo soy para teorías.

Este tomo me ha traído nuevo personaje con buena relevancia en la trama y me ha conquistado. Como siempre.

Espectaculares personajes secundarios.

[James DeSantis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the fastest volume yet as all the plots begin to move forward while somehow introducing two new characters that are great.

So first off we pickup where we left off. Tenma has a gun and he's waiting for Johan Liebert to make his grand appearance so he can finally kill him. On top of that we learn what Liebert true plan is this whole time. Nina finds out what's happening and heads to the scene. Lunge, the detective, also begins to figure it all out. The second half of this book takes a break from the characters we know and focuses on Grimmer, a extremely interesting journalist who was once spy trying to uncover the background of Johan and his childhood.

Everything about this volume worked. The pacing, the death of certain characters, the discoveries. Just everything comes to a head in a great way. Love Tenma's quite moments at the start reflecting on his childhood. Loved seeing Liebert for what he is. The new character Grimmer grows on you quick and you sense a sadness behind him that's just asking for you to discover more.

Honestly, this is probably my favorite volume yet and we still have 4 more fucking volumes. Goddamn Urasawa is one of the best. A 5 out of 5.

[alittlelifeofmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something I absolutely love about this manga series is that while it strays extremely far from the main plot, everything ends up getting connected back to the main story. I am definitely a huge fan of this series, I think even more so than Deathnote.

Side note: if anyone knows why like 5 random pages in the middle of the manga are coloured instead of black and white, please help a girl out.

[the reading teacup | ~☕️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

the storyline continues to blow my mind! and yes I am pretty much obsessed so far 🤯🤩

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continues to be superbly gripping. I can see myself reading the whole series again back to back once I’ve finished it.

[Michelle Curie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, this is so gripping. It's so grim, twisted and really hard to predict. This part of the story was definitely one of the strongest bits so far.



We've come such a long way! In the 5th instalment of Monster, Tenma is trying to smuggle himself into the Czech Republic to look for Johan's mother. It doesn't go as smoothly as he would have liked, but gets help from a freelance journalist named Grimmer, who himself is interested in finding out what happened to the Kinderheim that once existed in East Germany.



Poor Tenma. It's been so fascinating seeing his character progression. He went from being the morally untainted and untempted, highly renowned professor to a confused and innerly torn soul. We don't actually get to see all too much of him in this volume, but he does feel very present as people keep looking for him (for various reasons, good and bad).

The journalist Grimmer gets a wonderful story arc. As a reader in this series, we've learned to question every new character we're being introduced to and Grimmer at first appears shady and questionable as well, but quickly turns out to be one of the good guys and just as innerly haunted as many others. He's got his own narrative and mission and there's a scene involving him and some violence that I thought of as quite wonderful and emotionally adept.

It's quite a cinematic volume! There's quite some action we get in this part, with visually stimulating scenes and powerful dialogue. I enjoy how every twist and turn of the story has a deeper meaning as well – there's always some moral implication that is fun to think about. It's probably what ultimately makes this series so successful: it's not just shocking or surprising, but also thought-provoking and not quite as easy to untangle.



Do we have some romance blossoming? Nina (who no longer goes by that name, but is confused about what else to go with), has a new suitor and I'm not entirely sure where this is going to go. I haven't warmed up to him yet and don't particularly love them together, but I might also be misinterpreting all of it. I enjoyed her independence and strength thus far, but obviously the more she finds out about her past, the more confused she is getting and I am curious about how she's going to develop with her new identity crisis at hand.



Now that I'm back on it I can't believe I ever left it! It's literally been a year since I read Volume Four! Definitely not going to wait for another one this time around. The closer we get to the end, the more intense this is becoming and I'm really excited about the prospect of another four volumes.

[Ema · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não achei tão interessante, porque a segunda metade (originalmente, o 10º volume), segue um arco paralelo e fiquei meio perdida na história. Preciso de ler o próximo volume.

[Milan Konjevic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evo me na pola, i ovo je sve bolje i bolje. Neverovatno.

[Rory Wilding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chomp-chomp, munch-munch, gobble-gobble, gulp!

This is a recurring phrase from the fictional children’s book titled “The Nameless Monster” within Naoki Urasawa’s manga. It tells the story of a monster in search of a name and upon meeting several people, the monster is allowed to be swallowed into a human being, who becomes healthier and stronger, and eventually being eaten from the inside by the monster, who once again is lacking a name.

So, what does this have to do with the main narrative of a Japanese former doctor hunts the serial killer he saved when he was a child? Apart from the end of the children’s story in which a monster is one with the young boy named Johan – possibly the inspiration for naming the main antagonist of Monster – the story itself reflects on the recurring theme that Urasawa has explored, which is the monster within everybody. A nice interval just before the climax, though not necessarily the end.

Tenma sneaks into the library with the rifle, preparing to take the life of Johan, now the personal assistant to the billionaire Hans Georg Schuwald, who is presenting the book donation ceremony. This is certainly the most action-orientated the manga has ever been, in how it builds up to the moment where Tenma is about to take his first life, whilst the likes of Dr Reichwein, Nina and little Dieter are desperate to save Tenma from making a terrible mistake.

In this race against time, the most menacing thing about this whole section is the presence of Johan, who through his stillness speaks volumes and during the eventual hellfire that occurs, the words he says towards Schuwald are truly chilling, whilst evoking the storytelling of “A Nameless Monster”.

Halfway through this volume, the narrative takes a shift as follows the aftermath where there is some tying up of loose-ends, Tenma takes a seat-back as during his journey to Prague, he crosses paths with Grimmer. As a freelance journalist, Grimmer investigates the experiments in 511 Kinderheim, the place that made Johan into what he is. Upon finding the former director of that address, Grimmer discovers a group of young boys who seem to be going through a similar experiment in what happened years ago.

What makes Grimmer an instant favourite is his happy-go-lucky charm, even when he confronts danger or is confronted by such. Despite his upbeat attitude, there is something else within Grimmer, especially when he discovers the true purpose of the current experiment, where the children are happy in the best sense of the word. Was Grimmer ever that happy at that age?

With a stronger emphasis on action, Urasawa’s strength as an artist relies more on dramatic conversations, where he proves to be a master of illustrating facial expressions. One supporting character, in particular, who is introduced as obviously a nice guy, only to be revealed to be a baddie and thus his presence just reeks of evilness, especially when a torture involving forcibly removing fingernails occurs.

Mystery continues to play a big part with not only Johan and his backstory, but there are forces of good and evil are about to forge. Will the next volume provide some answers?

[leynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of the strongest volumes in this series, which is mainly due to the introduction of the character of Grimmer in the second half and that shit finally goes down.

Johan plans to assassinate Schuwald at the ceremony. Tenma wants to stop him with all his might and positions himself at the library with a rifle. (Big dick energy, I'll tell you that!) Nina has also pieced the puzzle together, after Lotte showed her the picture book Obluda (which made Johan faint earlier) and is also headed for the library. So, everything is ready for a big showdown.

Johan just loves chaos. He loves to see the fear in people's eyes. He loves it when people scatter before him, when they behave like a line of ants, to be grazed at by him whenever he wishes. One of the more interesting aspects of this volume, is the fact that Tenma, when it ultimately comes down to it, is unable to shoot Johan. He can't bring himself to it. At heart, he's a doctor, not a killer. He doesn't take people's lives, he saves them. Whilst Johan finds this bemusing for now, it will later become more important as he desperately wants to evoke a violent reaction from Tenma.

However, when Tenma is threatened by Roberto at the library, Tenma shoots Roberto out of self-defence without much thought. Even though afterwards, he feels remorse because of his actions, but he's still glad he made it out alive, of course. On my first read of the series, I was contemplating whether Tenma was actually crazy and Lunge's suspicions that he made Johan up, and that Johan is actually a part of him, were actually true. I really like how Urasawa toys with the idea of insanity and how Johan is such an unreal character, that you really doubt whether he's a real person or not.

But enough on that, let's finally talk about one of my absolute favorite characters in this series: Wolfgang Grimmer. He's a freelance journalist and former East German investigating allegations of child abuse and psychological reprogramming in former East Germany orphanages. We meet him on the train to Prague, where he helps Tenma to escape out of a tight situation.

Grimmer is such a fantastic character because he's a good guy at heart but completely broken by his childhood trauma, which still makes you feel kind of on edge when you're reading about him. Like, you want to trust him so badly, but you cannot help but be spooked by his weird smile, by the fact that he doesn't seem human at all, his incapable of feeling. In that, he creepily resembles Johan. (Of course, later it is revealed that the two of them are products of 511 Kinderheim.)

Again, we had a couple of cheesy moments, especially with Grimmer and Tenma confronting Petrov about the new illegal orphanage that he's running but then realising that Petrov learned from his past mistakes and didn't repeat his inhumane treatments from 511 Kinderheim but instead deciding to raise the new boys with (you guessed it) love. Well, Urasawa is a cheeseball at heart. ;)

[Bas · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5/5 stars
Another excellent entree in the monster series and the quality of the series just stays amazing. I really enjoyed the time we spend in a new location in this volume.

[blok sera szwajcarskiego · Rating 5 out of 5]

me when im going FERAL

[Fereshte · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Darkness... hatred... apathy... destructive urges... are all things humans are easily controlled by."

wow this volume was amazing! it was so action packed and everything is slowly starting to come together. this is a masterpiece! every character, every little details have a point. i can't wait to read more!

[Minnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das ist bisher der beste, actionsreichste und spannenste Band! Wir bekommen nicht nur eine Menge Hintergrundinformationen über Johann und lernen wieder eine Menge Leute kennen, ich kann auch mit Sicherheit sagen, dass unser neuer Charakter, ein freier Journalist, ein Lieblingscharakter in der Reihe ist! Natürlich hoffe ich, dass er nicht stirbt, die Reihe hat es in sich neu eingeführte Charaktere schnell sterben zu lassen... Ich muss unbedingt weiterlesen! Richtig, richtig gut, ich habs in einem Rutsch gelesen!

[Murat Dural · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hikaye fevkaladenin fevkinde devam ediyor. Nasıl bitireceğiz, nasıl bu efsaneden ayrı düşeceğiz belli değil. Aynı zamanda sinema platformlarında dizisi de olan bir eser. Buna rağmen evvela kitabı, seriyi bitirme niyetindeyim. elimde 6. cilt bekliyor, sona saklıyorum . Birden tüketmemeliyim İnşallah, varsa diğer ciltler de gelir.

[King Crusoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck, this volume is good (pardon my French)! I can safely say that Volume 5 is not super overrated! To understand why I feel that way, let me back up just a tad.

Volume 4 previously started on relatively unsure footing, following on the last 4 chapters of Volume 3. The task of Volume 4 is to finish the set-up and start really developing and twisting the major conflict of what is colloquially called the Munich Arc of the series. The volume is certainly solid, especially the last handful of chapters as the tension really starts to mount, but the showdown of that arc comes in the finale of it - i.e. the first half of Volume 5. This showdown is fantastic, and really shows some major change for Tenma that will likely have a big affect on his attitude moving forward.

So that was awesome.

But what about the back half of Volume 5? Well. One word, one name: Grimmer. Fucking. Awesome. This guy was hyped to me ahead of time, but he lives up to already. Love this guy - also loved the chapters of Detective Suk near the end too. The dynamic between these characters with the mysteries around one particular mother (if you know you know, I don't need to specify) is amazing, especially considering how absent Tenma is from the Prague Arc so far! These extra characters are so deep and so well developed and all play such a deep role on what's going on that Tenma isn't necessary for it to be good - even if he is still my favorite character - and I heartily commend the execution of the arc so far.

But the Prague Arc continues through the near entirety of Volume 6 (the last 2 chapters are the start of the next arc after that), so needless to say: I am very excited to continue. I hate that it always ends up being weeks in-between short binges with "Monster", but I'm really enjoying this. Can't wait for more. (I will likely speed through the rest of the Prague Arc by the end of my work week depending on what the levels of snow in the mornings and my obligations with YouTube stuff in the evenings are concerned.)

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ho trovato un nome. Un nome molto bello."
Allora il mostro che era andato a Occidente disse "Io non ho bisogno di un nome. Si può essere felici anche senza. Perché dopotutto noi siamo i mostri senza nome."
Il bambino mangiò il mostro andato a Occidente. E ora che aveva infine un nome, non c'era più nessuno che lo chiamasse. Eppure Johan era un nome così bello.

Fremevo dal sapere la favola racchiusa in quel libro, e adoro il fatto che finalmente ci stiamo sempre più avvicinando al cuore della storia di Johan. Uno dei volumi che mi hanno fatto stare maggiormente con il fiato sospeso... Inoltre, ci troviamo a Praga, una città che amo immensamente e che viene dipinta meravigliosamente da Urasawa come la città delle fiabe. Ora resta da svelare il mistero delle tre rane e del ponte.
Ma l'esercito del 511 potrà realmente formarsi di nuovo? È questo quello a cui punta Johan? Ogni nuovo personaggio aggiunge quel quid in più che manca alle altre storie e rende questa universalmente bella.

[Rogerio Lopes · Rating 4 out of 5]

E aqui o autor desenvolve melhor o argumento lançado no volume anterior sobre o monstro sem nome, Ao mesmo tempo desenvolve todo um novo argumento sugerindo que todos sem exceção são mais do que aparentam ser. Seríamos todos monstros multifacetados só esperando o momento de uma dessas faces ocultas vir a luz? Cada vez mais interessante e complexo, me pergunto como o autor vai concluir essa história, cujo tema é quase clichê mas aborda questões tão complexas e profundas.

[Neil R. Coulter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume introduces perhaps the creepiest children's picture book ever, which—maybe?—has some connection to the twins. The setting moves to Prague, and the ever-expanding cast of characters chases down clues to the origins of 511 Kinderheim and other details in the mystery. Somehow, Urasawa continues to build the story in all kinds of new directions, yet always maintaining a tense focus with excellent pacing. I have no idea how this story will end, and I love that feeling.

[Kalil Zaidan · Rating 5 out of 5]

o melhor até agora????? socorro, o nível do suspense com relação ao passado do Johan se elevou a níveis altíssimos, com as histórias sobre o Kinderheim 511 e aquela reprodução do livro infantil q perturbou tanto o Monstro. a trama vai se complexificando, novos personagens entram no jogo, mas os mais antigos ainda têm seu espaço bem marcado. o gancho do final é covarde, vou precisar devorar o volume 6 muito em breve pra saber oq tem naquela fita!!!!!!!

[Miray🧞‍♀️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bis jetzt das beste Band obwohl alle meiner Meinung nach 5/5 🌟 sind. Wenn ich mit dem letzten Buch durch bin gibt es eine Review!

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Otro al baúl de los favoritos! por qué casi nadie conoce este manga!?

Ya se viene lo buenoooo (bueno, más), ya tengo conjeturas sobre Anna basándome en el cuento
(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bożeeee przerwac w takim momencie!!!!! To był jeden z lepszych tomów jak dotąd.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars

Me reading this going: ooohhhhh my goooood most of the time

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Character work and plot continue being phenomenal

[Sina Tavousi Masrour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intense as f***. Also introduces some great new characters to the already substantial cast.

[Celine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce volume 5 relance bien l'intérêt de la série.