Upon Sasa’s recommendation I am now up to date with Homuculus, unfortunately (or fortunate) this series is still ongoing. The mangaka, ????, Yamamoto Hideo , has also done other series which can be located here. The story itself revolves around Nakoshi Susumu, who appears to be a homeless man, due to certain circumstances he decides to take part in an experiment that would get him money, trepanation. This procedure involves opening a hole in his skull in order to develop his sixth sense. Being a well educated person he did not believe in super natural powers, but soon he was shocked to find himself using his new found powers to help others.

To be perfectly honest I had no idea what type of manga Homunculus was going to be, the first thing that came to mind was most probably Full Metal Alchemist. Well if I were to find similarities between the 2 series, I would say there are very few, if at all. Homunculus is a very surreal series yet it made me think fair a bit about myself, about what sort of person I am, about my true self. The idea of seeing someone as their “real self” was quite a fresh idea to me, while Nakoshi experiments with his new sixth sense, he was continuously changing.

At times the story can be touching while in another scene it could be a lot of concepts and ideas to take in. It is definitely a very psychological based series with lots of terminology, some may describe it as “mind fuck”. I think it’s also very interesting to follow Nakoshi’s transformation, since we still have no idea what he is turning into, although it has been hinted that he will die since all other participants has died in a short period after the procedure of trepanation. I also think that Homunculus reflects quite a bit in the everyday world, since we all have our individual problems and certain ways in how we see ourselves.

The art itself is quite well done as well, although some times it can get really freaky seeing all these homunculus. So, I think Homunculus is a a unique manga series which first appears to be something freaky and psychological but I feel underneath that it does say one or two things about our everyday lives, however it probably isn’t one for the younger audience