From the back cover:
In the little mountain town of Ruhenheim, life is simple and peaceful. Neighbors greet each other on the street, and the biggest case the local authorities have to worry about is a lost dog. But this bucolic splendor is about to change. Will Tenma, Grimmer, and Inspector Lunge be able to prevent the massacre Johan is planning for this sleepy village and its unknowing inhabitants? Or will the cobbled streets of Ruhenheim soon run red with innocent blood?

Review:
Of the unanswered questions listed in the review for volume sixteen, only the fifth is answered. The identity of the child who was taken to Red Rose Mansion and what they experienced is, indeed, cleared up.

Plotwise, we get one of those situations where some characters seem to know where to go and what Johan’s planning without the audience having any idea how. Eventually, some explanations are given, but I think my confusion over that kind of hampered my enjoyment of the malevolent happenings going on in a secluded mountain town. It’s fairly interesting, but not nearly as good as the previous half a dozen volumes or so have been, even if Grimmer and Lunge are awesomely working together.

At this point, it’s kind of hard to say anything that isn’t a spoiler of some kind. If it’s not evident by now, Monster is not a series without flaws, but it’s got an exciting story full of twists, turns, and random awesomeness.

Oh, and I still love Dieter.

From the back cover:
Tenma is lying low, but his brief respite is doomed to be short-lived. Milan, one of Tenma’s new friends, is planning to assassinate a man with deep ties to “Red Rose Mansion.” Can Tenma dissuade him from this drastic line of action? Also, a seemingly unrelated string of murders by various serial killers hints at a sinister connection with Johan. How many more people need to die before the monster’s work is complete?

Review:
A tremendous lot of stuff happens in this volume, but I shall resist the temptation to summarize. Instead, I have a new list.

Answered Questions:
1. What is the story of the twins’ parents and birth?
2. Who are the last two people running the organization in Frankfurt?
3. What’s the story on the “devil’s apprentice”?

Kind Of Anwered Questions:
1. What’s Johan’s agenda?

Unanswered questions:
1. How are the recitals at the Red Rose Mansion inducing the kids into violence? What, really, is the experiment?
2. Who was the guy who came to the Lieberts’ house the night they were killed?
3. Whatever happened to the other Lieberts pretending to be Johan’s parents?
4. What about the MPD theory?
5. What’s the deal with Nina’s memory of welcoming herself home? “The man in glasses” made a possibly telling remark, then Johan seemed to swing it one way, then the final panel threw all into a muddle again.

I also want to take this time to praise Urasawa’s chapter beginnings. They’re always interesting, unique, and immediately engaging. Too, I applaud the two strong female characters that kick some butt in this volume, and once again, am kind of surprised I am cheering for Eva. Taking a bitchy person, making her even more unlikable, and then suddenly turning her into someone sympathetic is quite an achievement!

From the back cover:
Dangerous men of influence hoping to exploit Johan’s frightening mind for their own shadowy purposes are also hot on the “monster’s” trail, and they’re willing to use Eva, Tenam’s ex-fiancée, to identify him. But what will happen to Eva when her assistance is no longer required? Will her only chance for salvation rest on the shoulders of the very man who’s been hired to kill her?!

Review:
It’s late and I’m tired, so it’s definitely a list this time.

Awesome Things:
Nina goes back to Munich and enlists the aid of Doctors Reichwein and Gillen to recover her latent memories. The resultant session with Gillen is terrifically creepy.

Super Awesome Things:
There are two perfect chapters in this volume, and both feature Eva, believe it or not. In the first, Martin defies his boss’s orders to kill her and faces the consequences, and in the second, Eva and Tenma share a somber conversation over coffee. I adore Martin, and I really hope Eva’s on the path to redemption this time.

Confusing Things:
I still have no idea what’s up with a particular scrap of memory Nina keeps remembering, but I’m sure it isn’t good. I just hope that we don’t get some utterly kooky explanation that makes no sense.

From the back cover:
Tenma’s long quest for justice, Johan and Nina’s search for identity—all roads converge on the mysterious “Red Rose Mansion.” Is Nina prepared to confront the dark memories this cursed house will awaken in her subconscious? If Tenma gets there in time, will he find a clue that will help him save the life of his ex-fiancée Eva? Or will Johan, as always, remain several steps ahead of everyone?

Review:
These books really are quick reads. I think it’s because there’s nothing extranneous in the panels. The art is fabulous, to be sure, but there’s nothing like shrinky-dink text or frenzied panel layouts that might detract from the story. Back to a list this time!

Awesome Things:
1. Someone—it isn’t clear who—recalls some events from Nina and Johan’s childhood, including when they were initially found near the Czech border, a photo op with the Lieberts after they made it to West Germany, and the night Johan asked Nina to shoot him. It’s good to finally get some detail on this, and I love how it’s internally consistent with what has been previously established.

2. We see a few more of the stories by the picture book author, as creepy as the first.

3. I actually kind of love the last chapter, told from the point of view of a thug assigned to guard Eva. He hates taking jobs involving women, and she drives him crazy, but he eventually feels the urge to protect her and ends up getting shot. I’m not a fan of hers, but his reaction to her is great.

Confusing Things:
1. Some guy arrives at the Liebert’s house before Nina finds them all shot. Who was that?

2. When Nina and Johan are near the border, she calls him Johan and asks him to say her name. He replies that they have no names. Later, General Wolf says, “They didn’t have names when I named him Johan.” So, is Johan really his name or what?

A Note:
Sometimes, with this series, one just has to give up asking, “Now, how did he know that, again?”

Fairly major spoiler in the back cover blurb, so enjoy this nice cut.

From the back cover:
After his arrest in Prague, Tenma is deported to Düsseldorf to stand trial, but the odds are terribly stacked against him—one of the lawyers is a devoted follower of Johan. When his ex-fiancée Eva’s life is threatened, Tenma realizes that if he wants to save her, his only option is to escape captivity. With Eva still bearing a nearly bottomless grudge against him, can Tenma reach her before it’s too late? And even if he does, will she be willing to accept his help?

Review:
The timeline’s been corrected as of this volume, and now reads “1996-97” for all of the action happening in Munich and Prague. That reminds me that I should commend this series for being set in such interesting places. The inclusion of European architecture is definitely welcome, and it’s also nice not to have to rationalize why so many characters are fair-haired.

This volume is particularly suspenseful, since while Tenma is incarcerated, one of his lawyers (a familiar face that was wholly unexpected) threatens Eva’s life. Tenma takes some unexpected actions to achieve escape, although he arrives at Eva’s hotel after she’s already checked out.

Urasawa once again introduces a bunch of new characters and makes them interesting. In this volume, these include Fritz Verdeman, a defense attorney whose own father was falsely imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, and Gunter Milch, a petty crook with a flair for prison escapes. I particularly love how Fritz, while working for good causes, is shown to be flawed. For example, he’s more concerned with showing up the government’s mistakes than he is with his clients’ wishes, and he’s also shown to be kind of mean to his wife.

Also multi-faceted is Eva, who thinks back on her early courtship days with Tenma and, though she blames him for ruining her life, eventually decides that she will testify about having seen Johan on the scene of one of the crimes. Even though I’m not at all fond of her, seeing her change her drink order from booze to coffee was also kind of a cheer-worthy moment.

My favorite moments of this volume are the reactions of Tenma’s supporters to the news reports of his arrest, confession, and escape. I’m not sure why, but I just love those segments. Also great is when Verdeman reads a bunch of names of patients who had asked him to defend Tenma. Even though Tenma is on his own a lot of the time, his network of friends working on his behalf continues to be one of the best things about the series.

From the back cover:
The Nameless Monster, a mysterious children’s picture book, holds the key to unlocking the secrets of Johan’s past. The startling discovery that it was created by an official from the Czechoslovakian secret police leads Tenma to the ominously eerie Red Rose Mansion—an estate with a dark and tragic history covered up and sealed away for decades. Meanwhile, a serial murderer in Prague has been identified as a beautiful blond woman. Who could she be and what is her connection to Johan?

Review:
Um, blurb? That last question was answered in volume eleven. Not to be outdone, the story recap (dubbed the “Monster Chronicle”) says that when Tenma gets to Prague, he discovers that Johan was once in 511 Kinderheim. Except he learned that back in volume three.

Before I proceed, I’m gonna talk about a pretty major spoiler in my review, because one of the things I loved best was in direct reaction to it, so avert your eyes now if you don’t want to know.

Awesome Things:
1. The orphans Grimmer befriended a couple of volumes ago try to prove he didn’t have anything to do with the killing of the guy who ran the orphanage. They do this by staking out a street for a suspect and even have a little map and everything.

2. Grimmer reveals more about his background, and it’s really fascinating. It casts his typically jovial manner in a whole new light. I particularly love the scene where he tries to comfort Milosh, an orphan who has seen some pretty freaky stuff while searching for his mother in a bad part of town.

Super Awesome Things:
1. Lunge returns and tracks down some details on the writer of the picture book that freaked Johan out. He finds an abandoned old mansion, covered with vines, breaks down a wall, and discovers the most gloriously creepy room ever. It’s mostly empty, and yet its freaky atmosphere is perfectly conveyed.

2. Tenma is apprehended in Prague! The way in which this happens is great, but even better is the final chapter which, I know, is probably trying to make me all verklempt, but features a bunch of grateful patients and people Tenma has encountered while on the run wanting to rally together and support him. Since they’re not sure where he’ll be sent in Germany, Schuwald instructs his son Karl to line up the best criminal attorney around in each of the possible venues. I am kind of excited by the prospect of a trial in the offing.

Confusing Things:
So, whatever happened to the theory that Johan has Multiple Personality Disorder? That seems to have completely dropped by the wayside.

With Tenma’s apprehension, it really feels like the series is turning its final corner. I’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow to join it, however, since my brain is frazzled from reading Monster all day.

From the back cover:
More pieces of the puzzle to Johan’s past are uncovered in Prague! Everyone is after an old tape recording of an interview with Johan as a child, and Tenma learns more about Johan’s mother—a beautiful woman taken away by the secret police. And then Johan makes his presence known when a brilliant young detective of the Prague Police Department is accused of poisoning three of his superiors… with whiskey bonbons.

Review:
A timeline! Well, sort of. At least, there’s a chart with character descriptions and relationships, though it seems to indicate that the action in Prague is happening in 1996, which contradicts the letter Dr. Reichwein wrote a few volumes ago that was dated 1997. Maybe everyone is confused about the passage of time in this series! Anyway, on to the list.

Awesome Things:
1. The reveal about Grimmer’s background. I probably should’ve expected that, but I didn’t.

2. The truth behind the “Is Nina killing people?” subplot. I had considered this possibility, but the grand reveal was still nifty.

Super Awesome Things:
The tape! Any scene involving the tape is simply fabulous, the last chapter particularly.

Confusing Things:
1. Nina’s identity crisis. Nina returns to her childhood home and reawakens some memories, one of which involves welcoming herself home. Several times during this volume I had to remind myself that it’s confirmed that Nina and Johan are not the same person, because it kind of seemed that’s where the story was trying to go.

2. Johan’s agenda. It’s been stated previously that he enjoys playing with humans as if they were ants, just to mess things up. So, is he simply having fun making bad situations worse, or what? I still have no idea whether he has a grand goal or what it could possibly be. I also wonder how he always knows what’s going on, when shady organizations are making their move, etc.

I also have to wonder how exactly learning about Johan’s past is going to lead to some kind of resolution to the story. Granted, there are still seven volumes left, but as of right now, I have absolutely no clue how this will all end.

From the back cover:
“Cedok Bridge, the three frogs… the mother of the twins is in Prague.” A cryptic message from wealthy financier Schuwald sends Tenma to the city of a hundred spires. There, he meets Grimmer, an investigative reporter tracking down the former director of the infamous 511 Kinderheim orphanage. Could it be that the horrific experiments of the past are being recreated in Prague?

Review:
The intense events of Munich are left behind in this volume as Tenma travels to Prague to follow a tip from Schuwald. Most of the events are actually told from the perspective of freelance journalist Grimmer, who’s a very likable guy looking into abuse allegations at 511 Kinderheim.

The change of venue offered by this shift in the story is actually quite welcome, as it offers a slightly lighter read, even though there was a torture scene that was painful to watch. Two cool new characters are introduced, too. Grimmer helps Tenma out on a couple of occasions and discovers the location of a tape that will reveal more information about Johan’s past. Detective Suk is a newcomer to his job, very clean and earnest, but as he investigates the murder of his superior, he begins to realize that some people on the police force are not as respectable as they seem. Both are excellent examples of how Urasawa can introduce a new character and have him feel well-developed pretty much instantly.

Nina has also made her way to Prague and might possibly be killing people. It’s not certain yet, but it would be interesting if true. The picture book that freaked Johan out did make me think there might be a dark side to Nina, and it was she, not Tenma, who was capable of shooting at Johan during the book donation ceremony.

I like the direction the story has taken, and hope these new characters stick around.

From the back cover:
When an unusual children’s book causes a disturbing reaction in Johan, it may provide an ideal opportunity for Tenma to fire a well-aimed sniper shot. Could this curious book created by an obscure Czech writer also be the key to unlocking more secrets of Johan’s enigmatic past?

Review:
I doubt any book donation ceremony has ever been as exciting as the one in this volume! I seem, however, to be lapsing back into plot summary with my reviews (Connie had a similar problem with this series), so will try very hard to fight that tendency. Maybe if I limit myself to lists it’ll help.

Awesome Things:
1. Interesting older characters. There’s a whole scene occurring between two older guys—Schuwald and Dr. Reichwein. The latter is kind of badass, too, even if he does look like Wilford Brimley.

2. Tenma’s confrontation with Roberto (!) and later with Johan. I also like how he muses upon past events while waiting for his opportunity to shoot Johan. It’s a neat way to remind the audience how things got to that point.

3. The growing group of people who are trying to unravel the Johan mystery. This includes Dieter, who is absolutely adorable and keeps foisting kaiser rolls on distressed people who need to eat.

Super Awesome Things:
The picture book! I was totally blown away by the inclusion of these sepia-toned pages telling the story that so freaked out Johan. Not only are they beautiful, but the tale is nice and creepy, too.

Slightly Confusing Things:
1. The mystery of Johan’s already muddled past thickens, as there is evidently a connection between his mother and Karl’s (the university student who is Schuwald’s son) back in Prague.

2. I can’t tell yet whether Lunge believes in Johan’s existence or not. He seems to, but he is kind of crazy himself and prefers his version of reality where Tenma is the killer, despite any evidence presented to the contrary.

There. That did work out better.

From the back cover:
Tenma is hot on Johan’s trail and he’s more determined than ever. Now in top physical condition and armed with a high-performance sniper rifle, has Tenma acquired the keen hunter’s edge necessary to bag his prey? Or will his physician’s instincts prevent him from carrying out his dreaded task?

Review:
The first and last chapters were the best in this volume, though, as ever, the whole thing was consistently good.

In the first chapter, Inspector Lunge pays a visit to Dr. Gillen, having seen the classified ad for Tenma that the latter placed (in volume seven) in the paper. Gillen analyzes Lunge some, which is great, and also shares with him the data on the various killings surrounding the elderly billionaire, Schuwald. Lunge proves once again how awesome he is by pretending to be swayed, saying he might’ve made a mistake in disbelieving Tenma’s story about Johan, and getting Gillen to tell him where Tenma is likely to be now.

Throughout the volume, Tenma has been observing Johan and plotting when and where would be the best place to shoot him. He finally decides on a ceremony for the donation of Schuwald’s book collection to the university library, and the very end of the volume is him hiding atop a stack with his sniper rifle while the library gets locked up for the night. It’s a terrific cliffhanger, and a pretty clever plot, too.

And in between, there are some entertaining chapters about the students at Munich University, an old guy in a forest, a game Johan instigated wherein children fall to their deaths from rooftops, a teen underground doctor, a prostitute’s attempt to blackmail Johan, Lunge’s efforts to understand Japanese people, and a very peculiar Czech picture book that makes Johan break out screaming and collapse. Like always, the side stories are never dull, but the picture book was obviously the most interesting development.

The passage of time issue continues to bother me. For example, Lunge refers to the events of volume five, wherein Tenma was almost nabbed by police while meeting with Dr. Gillen, as having happened in “May of last year.” Later, Lunge says that the classified ad was scheduled to run “from the 1st to the 22nd of May.” Does that mean that several weeks passed between volumes five and seven, or a year? I’m inclined to think the latter, since in volume seven, Dr. Reichwein was seen writing Dr. Gillen on 1.3.97 (March, by the European date format), but in volume six, Eva was talking about the events of volume one as having been a year ago, which seemed about right, so… I’m all confused.