Urasawa Naoki - Monster, vol. 01-04 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

Dr. Tenma ends up ruining what could have been a very prosperous career and an engagement to the daughter of a very influential man when he opts to operate on a boy instead of another very influential man. Unfortunately for him, the boy grows up to be a depraved monster serial killer. Since Tenma feels very guilty about this, he tries to track the boy down.

This sounds like a very boring thriller. So far, it's not.

Tenma is the key to the entire series (or at least, what I've read); he's truly a good man caught up in increasingly bad events. Usually I don't like the heroes of thrillers, but Urasawa manages to give Tenma an innate humanity and kindness that I really like and feel drawn toward.

The eponymous monster is much more boring; I don't buy people being naturally soulless and evil, as this boy apparently is. And the series does tend toward "natural evil" as a justification for the increasingly violent measures that Tenma and others end up taking, which bores and disturbs me.

On the other hand, I like moral questions in general, and Tenma really is a compelling character, because he does try to be good and is faced with hard choices.

There is an interesting female character who pops up in vol. 2, which makes me happy, as Tenma's ex-fiancee is your standard rich bitch blah blah.

Anyway, I think I'll keep reading, though maybe this will be delegated to tachiyomi or library loans.

Links:
rilina's review (scroll down)

Also, I swear coffeeandink wrote it up because that's how I heard about it, but I can't find the post.

ETA: coffeeandink's tags