Last weekend at a manga café full of original Japanese comic books, I finished reading Monster 8 with the N2 Japanese ability that I had almost returned to my foreign language teacher.
As a close-up reader, I was poked in the XP, and when I got home, I spent about a night chasing the update, and it was almost dawn when I looked up.
"It's really good-looking!"
Maybe you haven't heard of Naoya Matsumoto, the original author of Monster 8, which is normal, and Nao matsumoto is not a well-known manga artist with a book, and before this work, I was quite unfamiliar with this name. After becoming interested in Naoya Matsumoto in Monster 8, I looked up information about him. About his story, it is actually quite inspiring.
Shortly after his debut, Nao Matsumoto won the JUMP Junior Twelve New Artist Manga Award in 2005, when he was just 23 years old, and I thought he would never have imagined that this would become the only award he would have won in his career. After working as an assistant to other manga artists for a few years, Nao Matsumoto was also appreciated for his debut serial "Cat Boy" in Shonen JUMP, but "Cat Boy" was cut off after only 13 episodes, setting a record for the fastest waist cut in the history of even JUMP that year.
Since then, his works have not been serialized for more than 1 year. In 2012, "Four Seas Martial Arts" serialized 10 episodes, and in 2014, "Po chikulo" serialized 43 episodes. Until 2020, Nao Matsumoto may also be the kind of second- and third-rate manga artists that many readers call it, working as an assistant under many well-known manga artists (Tamura Takahira, Iwashiro Toshiaki, etc.), and there are no masterpieces worth mentioning.
It wasn't until Monster 8 began to be serialized on the e-comic platform Shonen JUMP+. I have to admit that "Monster" is indeed a traffic password for the Japanese to attack, "Monster 8" quickly accumulated a fan base similar to the same site work "Spy Over the Family", and also became this year's comic critics, ordinary readers and other people from all walks of life jointly selected "This manga is really powerful!" 2022 "Third Place.
Reader feedback can be subjective, but business data will never lie - the game has nearly 100 million hits on the JUMP+website, the first week of sales of the first volume of the physical book is 289,000, ranking third in the total sales list of JUMP comics, for comparison, "Shonen JUMP+" is the other current top card "Spy Over home", the first week of the first volume is 129,000, "Monster 8" is the fastest comic book in the history of JUMP+.
From a few "most", it is not difficult for you to feel the popularity of this game in the overseas phenomenon, and in August this year, "Monster 8" also announced animation.
"So, what's so good about Monster 8?"
Different from traditional close-up works, "Monster 8" has a unique sense of realism and a taste similar to "entering science", which should be the driving force behind my reading.
The story of "Monster 8" takes place in the near future of Japan, where monsters (divided into the beast and the accompanying remnant beasts) ravage the country mercilessly, so the government has formed a defense team to fight monsters, and in a world without the giants of light, the defense team guards people's daily life...
The biggest difference from the shonen manga is that our protagonist is a "middle-aged man of waste wood" named Hibino Kafka, Kafka is 32 years old, working in the "Monster Cleaning Co., Ltd.", the manga begins with a monster appearing in Yokohama, and waiting for the defense team nearby to fight the monster, and then dissecting and disposing of the monster's body, which is his day's work.
This mundane routine was soon broken, and after being injured and hospitalized by a beast and accidentally eating a strange monster, Kafka was not only revived in the same place full of blood, but also transformed into a very famous monster "Monster 8", because of the powerful power, he finally joined the defense force as he wished.
The transformation hero who needs to hide his identity may remind everyone of Ultraman, and the setting of the same origin as the monster enemy and me reveals the taste of Kamen Rider, and when you see this, you may spit out "Isn't this still open?" ”
But after really reading it, you will find that "Monster 8" is not the kind of traditional royal work in which the protagonist gets the plug-in and hangs all the way to the peak of life - even if it becomes Monster 8, this work does not simply abandon Kafka, a person who is a "former employee of Monster Cleaning Co., Ltd."
This is actually also done around Kafka's social relationships: Kafka's green plum bamboo Maya Baimina is the leader of the third force who has already crusaded 300 monsters, and Kafka is the ultimate social animal who has observed and "dissected" 300 monsters on the quasi-front line.
It is precisely after years of in-depth study of the monster's body structure that Kafka knows very well the fighting methods, life habits, and history of different monsters, and after becoming a defender, this has become his biggest advantage over others with stronger combat ability.
—— In the face of the fungal monsters that appeared in the Sagamihara Crusade, Kafka keenly discovered the core location of the monster when dealing with the remnant beasts, and judged that "even if the spores of the remnant beasts are scattered in the air, they can reproduce and grow the remaining beasts", and finally the members of the third force crusaded the monsters with the smallest losses, and Kafka also let the vice captain officially recognize himself;
——When Monster 9 invaded Tokyo with an underground monster, Kafka, who could not transform into Monster 8 because of a heart disease, still judged the habits of insect-type monsters, and vaguely felt that the purpose of Monster 9's invasion of the city was not simple.
Therefore, in "Monster 8", Kafka's transformation ability is more like a means of bottom-up, in the series of 68 episodes so far in several major battles, Kafka often does not think of the first time to transform when fighting monsters, but like a real adult, first think about using rich monster knowledge to create favorable conditions for themselves to defeat monsters.
In my opinion, this is a creative idea that deconstructs and caters to the needs of readers, and it has become a successful path for Monster 8.
If it is said that the special photographs of different eras are often given different styles by the aesthetics, economic life and ideology of the people at that time, compared with the chaos brought about by the rapid development after the defeat of the war, the Showa special photographs that satirize the reality and care for the humanities, after the Great Depression, the old Heisei special photographs that emphasize light and courage to bring people hope, the new Heisei special photographs can be said to represent a rather "arrogant" attitude of the creators and even human beings.
For example, in "New Godzilla", in addition to the incompetence of the Cue wave of the Japanese government, Hideaki Anno also deconstructs and ridicules the Japanese people's obsession with "giant monsters" by explaining Godzilla's ultra-high-speed evolution from "fish→ amphibians → reptiles";
There is also last year's Netflix investment animation "Godzilla Singularity", Godzilla in 99% of the length is a skeleton image appears, the animation is more focused on another time and space monster how to cross the singularity of the world, the impact of the monster appearance on the earth's ecosystem, which is mixed with complex computer knowledge, time and space view, with an academic tone of nonsense The origin of the monster, let me a liberal arts student brush 2, 3 times can not say that I can not fully understand.
And when people stopped being afraid and began to understand these huge "gods" in a more systematic and scientific way— Godzilla was biologically just a lizard that swallowed a few cans of nuclear waste and became a little bigger.
"Monster 8" is also the same, in the story Kafka is often assigned to deal with the intestines of monsters, after transforming into Monster 8 need to be excreted with the chest, different monsters have their own ecological circles and eat and drink Lasa daily, you will find that the author is constantly enriching the setting of monsters, these seemingly "low-level fun" memes, but also to a certain extent to make the world view of this work more close to reality.
In addition to the "Monster 8", which is quite a bloodline, "Monster 8" is definitely an excellent royal blood comic.
Works that can be serialized on JUMP, the battle scenes are generally passed.
In "Monster 8", the defense team members are not only the same as the kote team and the victory team in people's impressions, they can only use guns and fighter jets to cause no harm to the monsters to scratch the itch attack, each has a good combat effectiveness, and the combat effectiveness of individual battles is even more able to single out the beast.
——There is a fairly easy to understand combat effectiveness setting in the story, the combat suit will determine the combat effectiveness of a team member with a degree of liberation of 0%-100%, and the degree of liberation of the captain level of the current defense team has ranged from 92%-98%, if you want to continue to serialize as a medium-length comic, it is not difficult to imagine that a new combat power similar to the "One Piece" file and domineering will be introduced later.
- Also added the "numbered monsters" and "numbered monster weapons" setting, monsters will be similar to the magnitude of the definition of danger, 9.0 or more of the large monsters will be given a special number in order, the defeated numbered monsters are all treasures, the corpse is often made into a powerful weapon after the disintegration, in the hands of the strongest defenders to fight against the new numbered monsters.
Just like the crusade against powerful monsters in "Monster Hunter" can use materials to make equipment and get skill bonuses corresponding to monster abilities, the early development of "Monster 8" is similar to a small unit drama, and it is also buried in the foreshadowing of "why can you transform after eating monsters".
"Middle-aged people who aspire to be heroes and move straight towards their dreams"
Kafka was selected the year before the 33-year-old cadet registration period to catch the last train to become the oldest rookie defense team member, which is hardly a true portrayal of Naoya Matsumoto, who is 40 years old this year.
After all, when "Naruto" began to be serialized, Kishimoto Kishiki was 25 years old, and when "One Piece" exploded, Eiichiro Oda was 22 years old, and even many readers may not have noticed that in the past two years, "Yan Fist" and "Chainsaw Man", which are highly respected by young people, the author Fujimoto Is actually a post-90s generation.
However, comic book authors do not have the same strict age limit as e-sports players, many comic book authors become famous at a young age but show their talents earlier, and those who are relatively less talented (compared to ordinary people may still be one of the best), can also hone their drawing skills and narrative skills with age and life experience, and finally hand over a good answer sheet for their efforts for more than ten years.
Hot blood, but not middle two, which also constitutes the interesting story of "Monster 8" drawn by Naoya Matsumoto.
There are many talents in the defense team, and the ome heroine Abaimina is the youngest defense team captain who appears now, and a strong candidate for the future defense captain;
The daughter of the heroine of the Heavenly Descent, the former defense captain, Shinomiya Qikelu, can liberate 55% of the combat effectiveness within 2 months of joining the team;
The younger generation, Erichi KawaLeno, was also a former employee of monster cleaning companies, and less than half a year after joining the Defense Force with Kafka, he had become the best qualifier for monster number 6 weapons.
As a comic that is partial to the group drama, the pen and ink of "Monster 8" does not focus on these geniuses - even when he did not become Monster 8, Kafka still saved the descendants who were about to be eaten by the remnant beasts as a human, and blocked in front of the remnant beasts to cover Leno's retreat;
It is worth mentioning another supporting role, Furuhashi Izumi.
Before joining the Defense Force, Furuhashi's life was quite smooth, he graduated from the Monster Crusade College with the first place, the first time he put on the combat suit, he liberated 14% of the combat effectiveness (most of the ordinary defenders liberated the combat effectiveness before retirement was about 20%-30%), and seeing that there were people outside the defense force, especially after being easily surpassed by Leno, who was halfway out of the house, he was angry, unwilling, and even wanted to give up on himself.
In the end, unlike Sasuke who ran away from Kibamura and then let Naruto plot develop hundreds of words, the belief to be a hero overcame the feeling of jealousy, Furuhashi stepped forward to protect Leno in the Battle of Sagamihara, when Leno almost failed in the certification of the Monster Number 6 weapon, Furuhashi, as Leno's "leg", helped Leno fight the monster and finally broke through the shackles of 20% liberation (as the mood improved, the maximum liberation reached 46%), they were like a pair of rivals who loved and killed each other, The pure sense of competition also made the two become friends who cherished each other.
Nao Matsumoto also focuses too much on Furuhashi and even makes people suspect that this is the role he pinched according to his own experience in reality
In any case, being a hero is an immutable theme of the Royal Blood Comics, and after being infused with poisonous chicken soup countless times by various pedigree theories, at least I would prefer to see the parts of ordinary humanity that shine brightly.
So you should be able to understand that the success of "Monster 8" is not just a simple grasp of the "monster" for most Japanese traffic code, mature painting skills, solid narrative, "Monster 8" is to give many readers a pair of "adult eyes", to read a different look, but are chasing "dreams, efforts and victories" of the juvenile manga.
Although after the early freshness has passed, and the "flat-headed brother" monster No. 9, which is considered by readers to be a dragon set in the early stage, often pretends to be the final boss, the Internet can already see the voice of "the plot is old-fashioned, the narrative rhythm is strange" and begins to sing down this work.
So can Monster 8 go further with Naoya Matsumoto, the manga's ten-year-old assistant?
At least I think that since you fans have seen this, you may as well try to believe in the power of miracles again.