Homunculus

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Homunculussssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What-what? 600 people favorited this one? Are you freaking serious? Damn, Ya'll are crazy motherfudgers. I picked this manga up out of curiosity thinking like what's up with that manga cover, and I haven't read the synopsis that time. Yeah, I know stupid me, and I remember It was really terrible year for me, aanddd that's a different story. Anyways, so here I go flipping through the pages, and boom he drilled his freaking skull. I'm like whaaaaaaaat! To tell you the truth there's lots of stuff in this manga that I do not understand what's going on, Its like me having a brain seizure ... because I'm trying too hard to comprehend where the story goes. Of course, there's lots of weird shockingly icky moments and that made me keep on reading till the end.

Definitely will not re-read Homunculus, not trying to say it's terrible, it's just me telling myself how about give yourself a slap in the face and get some manga which you can actually understand and enjoy.

Tragic.
A story about a man searching for his true self. It hurts to read, as I think it shares a lot of common with a lot of people (yes, me included). Nakoshi's journey is lonely and at the same time its complicated. He deals with lies from other people, from the world, and from himself. He had to endure with himself all his life.

Story? Unexpected. A wild read through the end.
Art style? Amazing. Some scenes were portrayed beautifully.
Characters? Ito's iconic! Others have a good composition with the story.
Enjoy? Absolutely! You might get confused in some parts but just go and you will understand.

Btw listening to ... Ichiko Aoba is just perfect for reading this manga.

Hideo Yamamoto sucessfully created a story that explores the hollowness of humanity and how it damages people turning them into souless/shallow beings.

A gripping manga with a very interesting premise. Not something for sensitive people as the story deals with mature themes such as violence, rape, and major psychological issues that the characters had to deal with throughout. It is an intense manga with a blend of mystery, horror, and drama.

It also explores the fragility of humans, and how it expresses itself as "homunuculi" or in the form of monsters that is hidden in the subconscious of people which only the protagonist could ... see through when he underwent the Trepanation process.

An exciting read, highly recommended for those fans of horror/psychological drama.

I wrote, re-wrote, and re-wrote some more before deciding on a final draft of this review. The reason why is because Homunculus is a tough manga to put into words. However, after much thought, I think I can sufficiently describe my thoughts on this manga.

Homunculus is a manga that is exhausting, but can also be enjoyable to read.

Homunculus seems simple to understand on the surface: a story about a man who can see people’s inner being manifested into a physical state. An inner being that reflects their feelings, thoughts, fears, past, and etc. As such a manga that uses a lot of psychology and back ... and forth between what’s true, what’s not, and etc, Homunculus utilizes a lot of imagery and symbolism. And I really do mean a lot of imagery and symbolism as virtually every page has it in some form.

Which is why I describe the manga as exhausting to read.

There’s really very little time to digest and think the situation over before the author tries to subject readers to new imagery/symbolism or to revoke old thoughts/misconceptions to form ‘more correct’ ones within the context of the plotline.

At times, the intense imagery/symbolism feels almost oppressive because nothing becomes straightforward anymore. All actions taken by the characters and all scenery shown become symbols themselves. As if the author is trying to force understanding in a very extreme way.

Some would view this as meaning the manga is ‘deep’. I can certainly see that way, but from my view, it’s also a clumsy way to be deep. A manga that tries very hard to be deep and meaningful is alright, but when you have to rack your brain virtually every page because seemingly everything you see appear to be a subtle point by the author to say something, it turns the effort of reading into a great one and, counterintuitively, the author’s point is more likely to be lost.

So would I count the overuse of such plot devices a flaw? Yes, I would. However, as I said, this doesn’t mean Homunculus is a bad manga and it can be enjoyable to read.

The premise combined with the author’s method of art and depiction can make the manga suspenseful and engaging. Sometimes, you want to know what the symbolism means because it seems so strange and interesting. Sometimes, you want to know how the characters will resolve the issues they’ve encountered.

So the actual plotline and the characters (as repulsive as some of them may be) do a decent job at driving reader interest and moving the plot at a good rate.

Overall, I would recommend Homunculus as a read, but I do it hesitantly. This kind of manga really is an acquired taste.

I dare to say few things about this series. There isn't much you can say without spoiling this masterpiece. The story is so amazing, the art is truly eye candy, the story direction is so intriguing. I started this manga on a whim and I don't regret it at all. The ending is a perfect fit to the overall story, although some may get confused. I was par and par with this story, enjoying and understanding it through and through. The story really gives a lot to think and chew on. I love how I was kept guessing as to whether the story would stay ... linear and loved the misdirect ions. Homunculus is definitely a story to read and love. I very much recommend any lover of deep stories and interesting plots to read this midlife crisis of an adventure!

When I started to dive a little bit more into the manga media, I often looked for series that were considered as classics, and others that were a little bit out of the standard by proposing innovative ideas, in terms of graphics or narration. But with Homonculus I really enjoyed this manga by Hideo Yamamoto. This is a quite complex psycological manga, with several ins and outs not so simple to understand. First of all, because the characters are quite atypical. Hideo Yamamoto took care to work the psycological aspect. All along the manga, we dive gradually in the strange world that the protagonist discovers ... after the acts he committed. During all my reading, I had the impression to swirl in a maelstrom by saying to me "What I am reading?"
This cryptic aspect is reinforced by the graphic aspect of the manga. Hideo Yamamoto is a very imaginative person and it shows. In most of his mangas, he explores each time interesting ideas, as for example in the violence (see Ichi the Killer). With Homonculus, he plunges us into an incredible supernatural universe, where the elements clash every time. It is grandiose and it is rare to be able to attend such a show in the manga media.
In the end when you put all the pieces of the puzzle together you understand everything and you remain a bit amazed by it all. The only regrettable point of the manga for my part is probably the work on the dialogues towards the end of the manga. I remain confused on some passages but maybe it is wanted by the author.
In short, I think Homonculus is very well written manga and important to discover at some point. Some sequences are grandiose and we really have a work on the visual metaphors subtly approached.

It's a very poignant psychological drama with some horror touches. It's a very good read in 15 volumes, even though some parts of the story seem to linger a bit too much.

The story follows the kafkaesque journey to self-discovery of Nakoshi. Nakoshi, living in his car between a fancy hotel and a park populated by a group of homeless people is approached by a strange man, Itoh, with a lucrative proposition: agree to be subjected to a trepanation (drilling a hole in his skull) that could supposedly unlock psychic potential against as substantial amount of money. Thus begins the strange and disturbing "awakening" of ... Nakoshi.

I really recommend it it's a good read. It takes a deep dive in the characters' psyches and is a bit cerebral in its concepts but the artwork, beautiful and terrifying, really shines and makes the manga very visually compelling.

Warning : contains mature themes and some disturbing scenes/imagery.

Every human most of the time has the same pattern, or the same context rather.. and each person you may encounter can be a representation of yourself, even the sick side of them can be a piece of your own puzzle that you can connect to the past and the present to move forward to the future..

..but eventho you think you've found the answers there will be more questions.. It's like a neverending "why"...

Homunculus is a really good and well researched manga. The content or the main idea of this manga has a mix of philosophy and psychology that is and can be ... applicable to one's self.

I don't really know how I feel about this manga. The concept and art is unique and refreshing and gripped me in from the beginning but the further into the manga I got, the more of a chore it became. I feel like it was a messy train ride from about chapter 4 till the end. A lot of repetitive bs and just down right weird sexual rapey scenes that tried and attempted to be deep, meaningful and philosophical but failed. Some parts of the manga were done really well and got the point across nicely but that was rare.

In hindsight I would have ... stopped reading half way through but didn't want to feel like a quitter and also lowkey wanted to see what the hype was about

After finishing Volume 5 I just couldn't bother with this anymore. An intriguing premise, overall great art and a very strong, well-written start didn't make up for all the drawn out pseudo-philosophical dialogue that would follow, as well as symbolism that varied between blatantly obvious and just exhaustingly weird and uncomfortable. The author approaches interesting topics, but tries way too hard to make them seem deeper than they actually are, killing off both suspense and enjoyment in the process. This manga went in a completely different direction from what I had expected and in my opinion it turned out very disappointing.

Homunculus is the only manga that made shed a tear that gave me a reason to five star this (Not like it would make a difference without the tear.) This protagonist is the only character in all the manga that I read (that is very little) who has a relatable feat that affects me deeply and its a very silly insecurity but to me it's the very thing that I question about. Nakoshi is a very good character he is probably top 2 or 3 main character in my list, The end is sad and questionable it's similar to the ending "Monster" but this manga ... has a one year time skip so it's very interesting what happened to our protagonist in that span of time. Ending this review this manga is the best I read so so far only by it's relatable way by myself, Tomato 🍅.

this could've been good but it really DOES insist upon itself and keeps beating you over the head with empty symbolism and surface level takes, its like a normal person trying to sound smart . i don't mind the dark themes but it really doesn't go anywhere, it just repeats the unironic " we live in a society " rhetoric over and over through dialogue instead of just showing you or giving a new perspective on the subject . i kept reading thinking i was missing something since every1 praises it so much but it really has nothing to offer and now im convinced its ... all empty praise . im disappointed i wasted my time with it honestly , the only redeeming quality was Manabu .

Homunculus is a dark seinen manga that tells a story that has a message. There is a lot of symbolism throughout and it may seem pretentious to some, however I finished this manga many years ago, and, over time, it has become a manga I think about almost every day.

What follows, contains spoilers, but only of the backstory to give perspective:

The story is fantastic. Some of the themes may be difficult to discern at first so I will be clear here my take on it. Homunculus is a story about a man that was ugly and ended up getting plastic surgery to better his life. ... This theme has been explored many times, but nothing like Homunculus. Homunculus deals with the mental breakdown of everything feeling fake. Nakoshi, the main character, achieved the great riches and the status he wanted, but he was never satisfied. Everything he had, had felt built up on how differently people treated him after he became better looking. It felt like nobody loved or cared about him for what he really is. This brings him eventually to a mental breakdown, and he throws everything away and becomes homeless. This brings us to the start of the manga, with this perspective in mind, the themes are much more clear. The trepanation is used to explore various themes surrounding the other characters and himself, it is also a form of escapism from Nakoshi's own problems. Despite being homeless for instance, he can't bring himself to make a decision of what he truly wants, he lives between his ultra wealthy past and a homeless encampment physically.

I greatly enjoyed symbolism with this and believe the work is by far best enjoyed viewing it as a whole instead of its parts. The themes were excellent and have stuck with me for many years, making this truly one of my favorite manga of all time. The difficulties we deal with in day to day life, would it be worth not being ourselves any more if we could artificially solve them all?

Overall this is a timeless manga. It provides many themes for the reader to think about. I just gave my example of what was most meaningful to me, but there are plenty other themes to discover throughout this brilliant work.

First off I would never recommend this manga to anyone, unless they wanted a recommendation for a psychological horror manga. First off the story is great, it isn't your average plot you would find in an animanga. A man named Susumu Nakoshi is living in his car between a lavish hotel and a park full of homeless people. One day, an eccentric young man approaches Nakoshi in search of subjects willing to partake in trepanation the procedure of drilling a hole in the skull. This mysterious person claims that Nakoshi is the perfect man for the experiment. Initially rejecting the offer, he doubles back on ... his decision after his car gets towed off. Nakoshi agrees to let Manabu Ito, a 22-year-old medical student, drill a hole in his skull in exchange for 700,000 yen. The procedure bears no results at first, with Nakoshi showing no abnormalities. This normalcy comes to an abrupt end, however, when Nakoshi begins seeing the homunculus in every person. With his perception distorted, he sees the person's true personalities and what they really are. The art is amazing, the mangaka is definitely very talented when it comes to drawing the characters and the structure of the manga. The characters are outstanding, Susumu Nakoshi is easily one of my favorite animanga characters of all time. And the side characters are also amazing with ear arc introducing another quirky or amazing character. Now enjoyment wise, I loved the journey of Nakoshi and how he handled people with the disorientated homunculi, but some panels were really disgusting and that is the car rape scene, like many other people I didn't enjoy it as well, but if you can get through that then your in for the enjoyment. After I finished the manga, I went through an existential drive, I really questioned myself and was offline for 3 days. Its the only media that made me do this and thats why I give it an overall of a 9/10.

This is one of the most thought provoking pieces of media I have ever seen. Right from the start the characters are so intriguing and there's already such a good air of mystery and as it goes on it just never gets less interesting. You never wanna stop reading (the physical release not separating chapters definitely helps this lol) yet at the same time you HAVE to because you need to let everything sink in. There is SO much the author wants to convey and so many genuinely important and worthwhile messages to the reader which are not forcibly thrown into the story but rather ... conveyed through actually well written characters with amazing development. At the same time there's so many aspects of the story that keep you thinking about it after you finish it, whether that be the extremely profound thematic stuff or intentional mysteries that aren't entirely cleared up. Oh and obviously the art is unreal levels of amazing.
Can be beautiful, disgusting, funny or horrifying, but most of all very very tragic and profound. It has some very heavy content & isn't exactly for everyone (watch out if you have s.a. trauma) but in my opinion this truly is easily a 10/10.

I think it’s a really interesting manga if you’re tired of a typical story. I liked the character work and there’s even some trans representation in it. It gets a little drawn out and repetitive towards the middle end but I think overall it was good and the ending was satisfying. For warnings I would include - Rape, Self Harm, Body Horror, and I cant think of anything else off the top of my head.

Honestly I do think Itou is good representation for trans women especially in a Japanese piece of media from the 2000s. I can’t say I would recommend this manga to ... everyone though, it’s really weird and some parts are gross and messed up.

What begins as the grounds for a very promising story and a narrative that begs the question of many what's--and more importantly /why's/--lands disappointingly flat, in a painful fall from grace. Perhaps the word "fall" would be giving Homunculus too much credit, as it suggests there was any kind of impact upon contact with the ground in the first place. (There wasn't.) More fittingly instead would be to describe the entire ordeal as a steep, upward climb on a hill, potential mounting with every step and very much peaking at its summit, only to be met with the arduous journey downhill afterward. In the end, ... we find ourselves unsurprised, from all the previous indications we had been given on the direction the story was headed for, but disappointed to be in the same place as we were when the journey started--with more questions than we had answers to. I kept hoping for a sudden, shocking recovery towards the end, one that would allow the manga a final re-redemption before its conclusion, but it never came.

It's the shame that it is because the manga started off with so much potential, really. The art was and is fantastic, that's one constant throughout all its chapters, beginning to end; it's Asano Inio with its deadpan moments that are cleverly drawn to suggest so and its surrealism that sets the tone of the story as perfectly as it does. But the characters, disappointingly, show little growth throughout the series: Nakoshi remains as narcissistic as he he had been from the beginning, and Itoh, one of the manga's most intriguing personalities, had, upsettingly, been reduced to a mere side character by the end of it. I did like what Hideo Yamamoto tried to do with the other men at the park, but I do wish they played a bigger role in the story--more than just the few filler panels they were given.

What Homunculus lacked everywhere else though it definitely made up for in story. (For the most part, at least.) Intriguing in the beginning and gripping later on through the chapters, it does a perfect job in reeling its readers in and keeping them hooked by the scruffs of their necks, peaking in suspension at the MC's slow but gradual descent into insanity (the part where I can say I was /wholly/ invested in the manga)--only to let them down in the most disappointing way from the bullshit that was the Nanako arc onwards. After that there isn't much more substance to the story outside of the same pseudo-philosophical ramblings that Yamamoto repeatedly tries to drill into our skulls until the very end, grinding any and all sense of real progression to a halt. The dialogue became painful to read, and put simply: the whole thing just near-agonisingly repetitive, and for so much buildup only to end so rushed.

It's beautifully drawn, yes, and it's a page-turner, continuing to be one even towards its end--but that was, more likely than not, just myself hoping to find something that wasn't quite there. Homunculus tries hard to be philosophical--you could even say it was semi-successful in its first half--but it ultimately fails, ending in a messy, incoherent, try-hard ramble and not much else.

The manga started very promising and unique. To unravel the mysterious symbols that represented the supporting character's past was very clever and satisfying. The movement of the homunculi were very fluid and interesting for each representation. All characters were very well though out and multi-dimensional. However, when we've come to the main character's own personal history towards the end, the pace felt very slow and repetitive and the ending very meh for the tension that's been built up. It just didn't come all together at the end, and it left me wondering what the entire story was supposed to leave me know or understand.

Absolutely loved ... the author's tension building and characterizations through the homunculi. Fell extremely short on the ending.

Homunculus is one of the most unsettling works of art I've ever experienced.

Frankly, I've never been more morally conflicted on a work of art in my life. Narratively, artistically, and technically, this work is borderline masterful. Susumu and Manabu are incredibly well written characters as well, with Susumu in particular cracking the top 20 characters across all mediums. Most impressive of all of course is far and away the illustrations, which provide for some of the most gorgeously horrifying imagery I've ever come across.

Having said all that, Homunculus is deeply flawed in it's messaging. Whilst I can appreciate it's psychologically scarring takes on loneliness, ... sexuality, humanity, and inherent selfishness, it sometimes borders between being too 'we live in a society' to downright problematic in it's messaging. It's pacing towards the middle-end of the series is also arduously slow at times, with it feeling like many elements of the story are just being repeated.

I try to rate media in a way that reflects my enjoyment (worth 3 marks), perceived objective quality (3) and overall artistic merit (4), so admittedly, my personal gripes with the tone effected my enjoyment. This is why I'm giving it an overall score of 8, or 2/3/3, because if I can put aside my personal beliefs and biases, this work would be a 9/10 easily. I highly recommend anyone who's into psychological explorations or horror to check this out.

I really liked it at the beginning, the directing is amazing, the panel and the art are easy to follow and detailed, the character art designs are great and the backgrounds are fantastic.
So im ready, im sold , then the supernatural twist happens and its slowly losing me, as the supernatural twist is unfolding it starts getting very sexual and im almost out, the protagonist is trying to help characters with his supernatural abilities, but more and more its a woman with a sexual issue. How about bipolar couldn't you do that ? or a woman with money issues ? BUT no it has to ... be sexual. I started losing interested. So in the end the protagonist after helping all those people he starts losing himself and his identity, good for him, i was already out at this point.