Monster: The Perfect Edition, Vol. 3: The Perfect Edition

Naoki Urasawa’s unforgettable thriller follows a brilliant doctor’s journey into the darkest depths of the human soul.

Johan is a cold and calculating killer with a mysterious past, and brilliant Dr. Kenzo Tenma is the only one who can stop him! Conspiracy and serial murder open the door to a compelling, intricately woven plot in this masterwork of suspense.

Could Johan have a dual personality, like Jekyll and Hyde? Tenma calls on Dr. Gillen, an authority on criminal psychology, to psychoanalyze Johan. But Dr. Gillen secretly concludes that it is not Johan but Tenma who has committed all the serial murders. Dr. Gillen then tries to lure Tenma into various traps, intending to use him in his own experiments.

Karl, a student at Munich University, visits a blind billionaire every week to read books to him as a way to pay for school. One day he encounters another young man named Johan who once did the same job for the billionaire. From that point on, strange events continue to befall Karl. Who is this young man named Johan? Is he the Johan that we know?

Naoki Urasawa’s career as a manga artist spans more than twenty years and has firmly established him as one of the true manga masters of Japan. Born in Tokyo in 1960, Urasawa debuted with BETA! in 1983 and hasn’t stopped his impressive output since. Well-versed in a variety of genres, Urasawa’s oeuvre encompasses a multitude of different subjects, such as a romantic comedy (Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl), a suspenseful human drama about a former mercenary (Pineapple ARMY; story by Kazuya Kudo), a captivating psychological suspense story (Monster), a sci-fi adventure manga (20th Century Boys), and a modern reinterpretation of the work of the God of Manga, Osamu Tezuka (Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka; co-authored with Takashi Nagasaki, supervised by Macoto Tezka, and with the cooperation of Tezuka Productions). Many of his books have spawned popular animated and live-action TV programs and films, and 2008 saw the theatrical release of the first of three live-action Japanese films based on 20th Century Boys.

No stranger to accolades and awards, Urasawa received the 2011 and 2013 Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia, and is a three-time recipient of the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award, a two-time recipient of the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize, and also received the Kodansha Manga Award. Urasawa has also become involved in the world of academia, and in 2008 accepted a guest teaching post at Nagoya Zokei University, where he teaches courses in, of course, manga.