Wow. What to say about this manga. This is easily the craziest manga I have ever read. People get lured to psychological genre because it makes you think and question yourself. And if thats your thing, you are in for a treat. Homunculus will not disappoint. The story follows the life of Susumu Nakoshi, a 34 year old man who used to be rich but decided to take an extended vacation to discover himself by living as a homeless person. But having lived the better part of his life as a rich person, he is not able to completely indulge into the secluded life of a homeless. To cope with this internal struggle, he lives in his car, thus hanging halfway between the life of a homeless and a "normal" person. Meanwhile, he meets Manabu Ito, a doctor who offers him money which he direly needs. In exchange, he would become part of an experiment which would involve drilling a hole in his skull. This is a real life occult procedure called "Trepanation" and is followed by cults in some parts of the world. The procedure is supposed to help you use your brain to its full potential by increasing blood flow to your head. Rubbishing these claims, Nakoshi accepts the deal just for the money. But to his surprise and disbelief, due to the operation, he starts seeing illusions in the form of weird monsters, called Homuculus, which for some reasons, he ends up believing as hidden messages to him. The story which follows is about how these illusions change Nakoshi's life and depicts his internal struggle as he realizes how connected these illusions are to his own life.
Homuculus tries to showcase how empty our lives have become in today's industrialized world and how centred it all is around money. You get to see the world from homeless's point of view and so it also deals with issues like income disparity. You might also develop your own philosophy observing everything that goes on in the manga. Its difficult to talk about the story without spoiling things but you get to see inside the minds of various people, revealing their deepest desires, fears and most concealed (and significant) parts of their life.
But what makes this manga so crazy and different is how freely the thoughts of the characters flow without any barriers or censors. It takes complete liberty with even the most controversial and taboo thoughts that occur to us almost all the time and realizes their significance in shaping our personality. So if you get easily grossed out by weird sexual situations in fiction, then read this manga with caution. The story takes complete liberty with sexuality. In fact, the persona of a lot of major characters is in some way or other highly associated to sexual reasons. There are some gay scenes, cross-dressing scenes, rape scenes and some even weirder stuff you could never have imagined existed. At one point, I was compelled to doubt the mental stability of the author himself. There is just too much crazy stuff to talk of. Seeing the psyche of the characters getting so brutally opened up, you might end up messing your own mind by drawing conclusions from your own past.
The art is great and well suits the nature of the story. There are a lot of face close ups which serve the purpose of showing the enhanced expressions of the characters. The disturbing drawings do justice to the disturbing thoughts portrayed. Overall, I have no problems as far as art is concerned.
The only problem I have with this manga is that it becomes too difficult to follow in some parts. It becomes too difficult to draw conclusions from events so you end up completely confused. Confusion to some extent is understandable and expected since the whole story unfolds based on hallucinations that our disillusioned mc sees, but I think there should have been a tad bit more clarity. Even while reading some of the most important events, you will be confused as to how the plot lead to this point. So multiple reading might be required. But still many things are left to the imagination of the reader. This criticism is certainly not a deal breaker though. What's really astonishing is that, even with the heavy content, this manga makes for a very fast and highly addictive read. I marathoned it in just 8 hours. So if you are free one day and are looking for some psychological craziness, go for it. This is a great manga and something the fans of psychological genre can not miss at any cost. 9/10 (Great)
Homuculus tries to showcase how empty our lives have become in today's industrialized world and how centred it all is around money. You get to see the world from homeless's point of view and so it also deals with issues like income disparity. You might also develop your own philosophy observing everything that goes on in the manga. Its difficult to talk about the story without spoiling things but you get to see inside the minds of various people, revealing their deepest desires, fears and most concealed (and significant) parts of their life.
But what makes this manga so crazy and different is how freely the thoughts of the characters flow without any barriers or censors. It takes complete liberty with even the most controversial and taboo thoughts that occur to us almost all the time and realizes their significance in shaping our personality. So if you get easily grossed out by weird sexual situations in fiction, then read this manga with caution. The story takes complete liberty with sexuality. In fact, the persona of a lot of major characters is in some way or other highly associated to sexual reasons. There are some gay scenes, cross-dressing scenes, rape scenes and some even weirder stuff you could never have imagined existed. At one point, I was compelled to doubt the mental stability of the author himself. There is just too much crazy stuff to talk of. Seeing the psyche of the characters getting so brutally opened up, you might end up messing your own mind by drawing conclusions from your own past.
The art is great and well suits the nature of the story. There are a lot of face close ups which serve the purpose of showing the enhanced expressions of the characters. The disturbing drawings do justice to the disturbing thoughts portrayed. Overall, I have no problems as far as art is concerned.
The only problem I have with this manga is that it becomes too difficult to follow in some parts. It becomes too difficult to draw conclusions from events so you end up completely confused. Confusion to some extent is understandable and expected since the whole story unfolds based on hallucinations that our disillusioned mc sees, but I think there should have been a tad bit more clarity. Even while reading some of the most important events, you will be confused as to how the plot lead to this point. So multiple reading might be required. But still many things are left to the imagination of the reader. This criticism is certainly not a deal breaker though. What's really astonishing is that, even with the heavy content, this manga makes for a very fast and highly addictive read. I marathoned it in just 8 hours. So if you are free one day and are looking for some psychological craziness, go for it. This is a great manga and something the fans of psychological genre can not miss at any cost. 9/10 (Great)
