A review by trauty
Monster: The Perfect Edition, Vol. 2 by Naoki Urasawa

dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 Reread #1 — 4.5 -> 5*

Another amazing volume 🫶 has one of my favourite side stories with Tenma and the country clinic - plus gives us some stuff on a bunch of characters including Eva, Lunge, Nina, etc.

The Country side story is one of my favourites because of how much the characters are similar in aspects.

Tenma and the doctor are virtually the same - both used by the higher ups as they wanted to climb the ranks. The doctor ended up marrying the director's daughter - only to ignore her and her symptoms in favour of climbing the ranks. He only took notice when it was too late to save her.
In comparison, when it comes to the policeman's mother - he refuses to let it happen again and let history repeat itself. He tries to force her to see a doctor, however he doesn't have the best temperment and so his good intentions aren't recieved so well. Which is where Tenma came in because he is good with people and his patients especially.

You also have how the policeman reflects the doctor - he climbs the ranks in the police force and ignores his ill mother, doesn't bother to visit, etc and if it wasn't for the doctor keeping an eye on her, she would have died like his wife did.

Johan and Wolf -

Another key part of this volume was finding out more about Johan's past.  I found this part interesting because you have a situation of people and how they see Johan.

You have a few people from the facility in this volume - namely wolf and Dieter's adoptive 'dad' (should have done this after reading the vol bcs can i remember names? No). Wolf is noted as 'the person who knows Johan best' by this other facility worker - and theres such a difference between how he and Wolf see Johan.

This worker is, similar to the neo-y'know introduced later, of the opinion that Johan is some god. That his 'evil' side of him is amazing and needed and etc etc. They worship him and idolise him in a sense.
Vs Wolf doesn't. Wolf knows what Johan is first hand - knows from the fact that he has no one left that 'knew' him due to Johan killing them all off. And also knows that Johan didn't develop into a monster while at the facility - he already was that way upon their first interaction.

This idea of 'x knows him best and doesn't idolise him' is also shown via Nina, his twin sister. The Neo-y'know (idk if you can say that word on here so I'm avoiding it) try to claim they are doing it for Johan, in Johan's name, etc. However Nina knows thats not what Johan wants - same with Tenma in how he says Johan isn't racist he just wants everyone dead equally. However Nina knows from her experience during the shooting + a message she saw that there is something wrong with Johan too.

Eva —
Finally one of my fav parts of this vol was seeing more of Eva. Eva is a character i don't like so much but i can definitely see her having a really good character and development - maybe not perfect development but i honesty prefer wehen the development isn't squeaky clean tbh. 

In this vol its still early on for her character- but you get some of her hatred for Tenma which i think is grown from the fact that, which is discussed in this vol, he was the perfect partner and she blew it. And she hates that now that she has lost everyone. Because she only goes against Tenma completely after she sees her gardener back with his wife - who she maybe thought she may be able to start a life again with. 

After that she burns everything and continues to blame it on Tenma - despite having a picture of Johan and her father which could help Tenma in some way. Does she believe Tenma killed her dad? Or is she just really pissed at her own choices and projecting that onto Tenma? 

I think she could be a really interesting character moving forward.