Homunculus (manga)

Homunculus (ホムンクルス, Homunkurusu) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hideo Yamamoto. It was serialized in Shogakukan's seinen magazine Big Comic Spirits. The first volume was released by Shogakukan on July 30, 2003,[3] the last volume on April 28, 2011.[4]

Homunculus
Cover of volume 1 of Homunculus
ホムンクルス
(Homunkurusu)
GenrePsychological horror[1][2]
Manga
Written byHideo Yamamoto
Published byShogakukan
MagazineBig Comic Spirits
DemographicSeinen
Original runJuly 30, 2003 – April 28, 2011
Volumes15

Plot

Trepanation is the procedure of drilling a hole in the skull. It is said to increase the blood circulation and improve pressure inside the skull. It is also said to bring out a person's sixth sense, including the ability to use ESP, see ghosts, and move objects with one's mind. This is speculative fiction based on the concept of trepanation.

Susumu Nakoshi is a 34-year-old homeless man living out of his car. For two weeks, he declines his fellow homeless men's invitations to set up a tent with them, preferring to sleep in his car. One day he is accosted by a strange-looking man searching for participants to subject themselves to trepanation. Nakoshi tells the man to leave, and discards the flier the man placed on his windshield. However, when his car is towed, he agrees to let medical student Manabu Itoh drill a hole in his skull in exchange for 700,000 yen. Itoh claims to be interested in trepanation for the sake of science; he is interested in humans, fascinated with ESP and the sixth sense, and wants to disprove the existence of the occult. Itoh's father owns a lab facility, as his father is a rich hospital director. Itoh performs the trepanation surgery on Nakoshi and does a variety of ESP tests. When Nakoshi reveals that he sees distorted humans when using only the left side of his body, Itoh researches and discovers that Nakoshi can see homunculi.

Itoh explains psychoanalytic theory to Nakoshi after the yakuza incident.

Characters
  • Susumu Nakoshi is a 34-year-old man. At the beginning of the series, he is shown to be recently homeless and living out of his car. He is living between two worlds, that of the upper class and that of the homeless. He is a former employee of a foreign bank, and a pathological liar. After the trepanation procedure he gains the ability to see peoples homunculi, or "distortions".
  • Manabu Itoh is the 22-year-old medical student who proposes the trepanation experiment and investigates material relevant to Nakoshi's reports. She dresses in an overtly flamboyant manner, but hides this fact from her ailing father, with whom she has a somewhat strained relationship and who is a high ranking doctor at a hospital. First appearing as a male, she is however revealed to be a trans woman toward the middle of the manga.
  • Yukari, or #1775, is a 17-year-old girl working in a burusera salon and one of the first homunculi Nakoshi interacts with.

Volumes
No.Release date ISBN
1 July 30, 2003[3]4-09-187071-6
2 April 30, 2004[5]4-09-187072-4
3 July 30, 2004[6]4-09-187073-2
4 December 24, 2004[7]4-09-187074-0
5 February 28, 2005[8]4-09-187075-9
6 August 30, 2005[9]4-09-187076-7
7 November 30, 2006[10]4-09-180772-0
8 June 29, 2007[11]978-4-09-181068-7
9 February 29, 2008[12]978-4-09-181747-1
10 August 28, 2009[13]978-4-09-182129-4
11 December 26, 2009[14]978-4-09-182250-5
12 February 27, 2010[15]978-4-09-183018-0
13 July 30, 2010[16]978-4-09-183353-2
14 December 25, 2010[17]978-4-09-183535-2
15 April 28, 2011[4]978-4-09-183790-5
gollark: You could just use a better codec, too.
gollark: What, even the item quantity labels?
gollark: GregTech looks !!FUN!!. The most annoying automation stuff I frequently deal with is just stuff like AE2 processors.
gollark: And they don't even instantly kill anyone who gets zapped!
gollark: Immersive Engineering has tesla coil thingies, but they're quite short-range.

References
  1. Loo, Egan (February 14, 2011). "Hideo Yamamoto Ends Homunculus Horror Manga Next Week". Anime News Network. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  2. Loo, Egan (July 13, 2009). "Hideo Yamamoto's Homunculus Manga Returns from 1-Year Break". Anime News Network. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  3. ホムンクルス / 1 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  4. ホムンクルス / 15 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  5. ホムンクルス / 2 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  6. ホムンクルス / 3 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  7. ホムンクルス / 4 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  8. ホムンクルス / 5 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  9. ホムンクルス / 6 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  10. ホムンクルス / 7 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  11. ホムンクルス / 8 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  12. ホムンクルス / 9 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  13. ホムンクルス / 10 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  14. ホムンクルス / 11 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  15. ホムンクルス / 12 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  16. ホムンクルス / 13 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  17. ホムンクルス / 14 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.