Manga Review: Homunculus Volume 1-2 by Hideo Yamamoto
“Car Man” is called that because he’s living in his car. For the last few weeks, he’s placed his automobile at the edge of a city park, marking the border between a homeless camp and the fancy hotel he used to visit frequently. He hasn’t quite fit into the homeless community, but isn’t hostile either. No one knows anything about Car Man’s past and if asked he just lies. But sleeping in your car in the middle of December gets chilly, and it’s not clear how sustainable his lifestyle is.
One day, Car Man is approached by a shady-looking medical student, who offers him a great deal of money to participate in an experimental medical procedure. Car Man initially turns this proposition down, but when his beloved automobile is towed, has little choice but to agree.
After the deal is struck, we start getting more information. Car Man’s birth name is Nakoshi Susumu, and he’s 34 years old. The medical student is Ito Manabu, age 22. Ito’s a nepo baby of a wealthy hospital director, which is how he can afford to be doing this. What he wants to do is a procedure called trepanation, cutting a small hole in the skull. It’s not illegal per se in Japan, but no reputable medical facility offers this service, as it serves no known legitimate medical purpose.
However, it’s been reported that some people who’ve had trepanation experience what seems to be an expanded consciousness, and even developed a “sixth sense.” Ito, who for reasons of his own is desperate to delve into human consciousness, wants to perform this operation on a likely subject, and Nakoshi has the right combination of desperation and intelligence for the job.
After the operation, nothing seems to have changed at first, but a couple of days later, Nakoshi starts to see monsters….
This horror/suspense seinen manga is from the creator of Ichi the Killer, and that pedigree is helpful here. The beginning of the manga is very leisurely paced with no action or scary bits; it’s about a hundred pages in before we even get to the operation, and that’s done off-camera. But because I know the creator’s track record, I know that there will be a gruesome payoff for all the tone setting and atmosphere building in the early going. Plus the art is good.
When Nakoshi covers his right eye, he can see a person’s “homunculus”, a symbolic representation of their psychological issues. For example, someone who has had neck-related trauma has a homunculus with its neck retracted into its body to protect it. At first, Nakoshi is overwhelmed by these visions and stands around in the middle of the street, accidentally bumping into a Yakuza boss.
Despite how scary the man is, what Nakoshi sees is a robotic shell around a small, weeping child committing self-harm. He can’t help but reach out to that child, trying to comfort it, which confuses the yakuza thugs who would ordinarily be attacking him.
Ito comes up with a sciencey-sounding explanation of what’s going on–it turns out he has a fear of spooky supernatural stuff so is all too eager to accept a more “rational” version of Nakoshi’s abilities. It mostly seems to track. An interesting wrinkle is that apparently Nakoshi can only see the homunculi of people whose psychological issues in some way reflect his own. Other people appear perfectly normal to him.
A second encounter with the Yakuza boss has he and Nakoshi bonding over similar forgotten childhood trauma, which gives the criminal enough courage to work through that trauma and realize his lifestyle is harmful to him and those around him. His homunculus vanishes.
Ito wants to explore the possibilities of this more, and drags Nakoshi into investigating “1775”, a schoolgirl who moonlights at a peep show. Nakoshi isn’t all that interested in teenage girls, but the “show” reveals that her homunculus is a sand chameleon, shapeshifting in disturbing ways. Ito is fascinated by this news, and arranges a meeting….
Nakoshi is an interesting protagonist, not the best guy but with a certain vulnerability, and enough mystery to him to keep reading to find out more. We know he has more trauma in his past, but how did he wind up unhoused and unwilling to go back? He also seems to vibe more with inanimate objects like his car and drywall.
Nakoshi is a habitual liar, but he has a tell that anyone who interacts with him for very long can spot. He’s broke, but the one set of clothes he has is decent quality, and the “mayor” of the homeless encampment is reminded of the “salaryman homeless” that joined the community when the economic bubble broke back in the 1990s, who wore their business suits for years as though they were going to be called back to the office at any time.
Itoh is off-putting in a mad scientist gone punk rock sort of way, less concerned with whether he should do something as opposed to if he could do it. He’s selfish, but under that there seems to be good intentions. His homunculus is a clear, shapeless glob of water, so we know there’s more to him than even he’s letting on.
Oh, and the homunculus designs in general are interesting.
Content note: Self-harm, harm to children, sexual exploitation of minors. Full male nudity in a non-sexual situation. 1775 does some “sexy” posing while clothed but the nature of her homunculus makes it more disturbing than erotic, at least for me. Discussion of sex, sexual situations and body parts. Nakoshi has a hole in his skull, but we don’t see it in this volume. I am told that future volumes get more graphic, so consider this not safe for children.
By horror standards, this first omnibus volume is pretty sedate, but it’s likely to get a lot rougher by the end. Recommended for people who like their horror on a slow burn.
