A review by apechild
Naoki Urasawa's Monster, Volume 1: Herr Dr. Tenma by Naoki Urasawa

4.0

This was so good, and annoyingly ended on such a cliffhanger. I am going to have to hunt down the next book. Set in Germany, starting off pre the end of the Berlin wall, it's about Dr Tenma, from Japan who is working at a hospital. He's going out with the director's daughter, the director is using his papers and taking the credit, so he's unknowingly playing the game and is destined to go far. But then one night a family of deserters from the east are attacked and shot. The parents die, the little girl is ok, but the little boy is shot through the head. Dr Tenma is about to go in to operate when he is told that the mayor is coming in as he has collapsed. The director wants all attention on the mayor, who had said he was going to put a lot of funding into the hospital. Tenma is told to switch cases, but the boy was first so he doesn't. It's the ruin of his career, but he thinks he has done the right thing as all human life is equal and saving lives is his priority. Although as the years pass, perhaps saving that particular boy's life wasn't such a clever idea....