Two weeks ago, while at work in the library, I came across this manga:
Monster by Naoki Urasawa.
I asked someone at work, who’s even more into anime and manga than I am, if he’d ever read it. He hadn’t but said that he might’ve seen the anime at some point. I took it home and LOVED the first volume. The manga is about a young Japanese doctor, Kenzou Tenma, who is lives and works in Germany. He saves the life of a 10-year old boy who was brought into the emergency room with a gunshot wound to the head. He finds out ten years later that the boy grows up to be a serial killer . . . or in other words, a monster. The doctor is falsely accused of the murders that the boy commits and goes on the run. He goes in search of the boy but uncovers a major conspiracy of disturbing and horrific events along the way. It’s a psychological thriller littered with blood and violence. Good reading, basically.
After reading the first volume I ordered the next seven from work. I read up to vol 8 in a matter of a few days. However, the series contains 18 volumes and the library only carries the 8 volumes. I was totally bummed out. I didn’t want to have to actually buy the remaining volumes. That’s when I remembered the anime!
I found all 74 episodes of the anime online. The anime is pretty much scene for scene the manga LUCKY ME! At about episode 36 the story picks up where I left off in the manga. So for the past 2 days I’ve been watching the anime non-stop. Thursday and Friday just happened to be my days off so I watched a whopping 32 episodes in the last 2 days! I think I’m on ep 69 right now and should be finished with the series tonight! Damn, I’m such an otaku-geek! But, I figure I have to wake up early for work tomorrow anyways, so it’s all the better that I just stay in tonight, hee hee. Eeek, I’m so eager to see how this story wraps up.
