Naoki Urasawa's MONSTER

Doctor Tenma is a brilliant Japanese neurosurgeon who works at Eisler Memorial Hospital in Germany. He is doing well professionally and is even engaged to the director's daughter, Eva. One day, a boy with a gunshot wound to the head is brought to him.

In the end, Tenma chooses to treat the boy Johan before the mayor. His surgery is a success. However, other doctors operate on the mayor, and their surgery is not a success. Tenma is punished for disobeying orders.

The director of the hospital and two of Tenma's superiors are found murdered. Johan and his twin sister Anna disappear from the hospital. Inspector Lunge of the BKA [German Federal Criminal Police Office] suspects that Tenma is the murderer.

Several years later, Tenma operates on Adolph Junkers, a key witness in a case involving the multiple homicides of middle-aged couples. Tenma hears Junkers say that a monster is coming...

Nina Fortner is a student at the University of Heidelberg. She is an upbeat girl who works hard at her studies, club activities and part-time jobs. She also likes to imagine the "prince charming" who sends her romantic anonymous emails. Nina has no memories from before the age of ten...

Tenma uncovers evidence that reveals Johan will meet his twin sister Anna in Heidelberg when she turns 20. Tenma reveals everything to Maurer, a journalist for a local newspaper, and asks for his help in finding Anna. Maurer is unwilling at first, but he investigates with Tenma, and the two of them finally pinpoint Anna's location...

Tenma is reunited with Nina (Anna). But when they return to the Fortners' home, they discover that Maurer and the Fortners have been killed. Was it Johan's doing? Nina is shocked and faints, but this event revives her long-lost memories!

Nina has regained her childhood memories, and the things she remembers are horrifying! Nina disappears, leaving a note for Tenma telling him that he's not at fault for what happened. Tenma returns to his work at Eisler Memorial Hospital, but secretly he has made a decision...

Tenma decides that he must stop Johan himself and disappears from the hospital. He goes to a training ground owned by Hugo Bernhardt, a mercenary who once worked for the French Foreign Legion. He learns how to shoot guns to prepare for his confrontation with Johan.

A city council member and his wife are killed in Verden, Germany. Tenma believes that Johan could be the murderer, so he breaks into the council member's home for clues. There he meets a petty thief named Heckel. Heckel says that he saw the murderer and leads Tenma to the murderer's house...

The Lieberts are the couple who raised Johan and Anna (Nina). Tenma visits the house in Berlin that they lived in before they defected and learns the twins were adopted from an orphanage. That orphanage, 511 Kinderheim, is now in ruins...

Hartmann knows about 511 Kinderheim, the orphanage where Johan was raised. Hartmann repeatedly abuses his foster son, Dieter. Tenma saves Dieter and searches for a new home for the boy. At another orphanage, he meets a woman named Elna, who says that she knows Johan and Anna...

Tenma learns a little more about Johan's secret and goes on a journey for more clues. Dieter joins him even though Tenma tries to tell him that he can't come. In the village of Poser, they save a villager who got into an accident and meet an old doctor named Schumann...

Inspector Lunge of the BKA has been pursuing Tenma as the prime serial murder suspect, but right now he is investigating a different case. Lunge pays little attention to his family, and his wife and daughter have grown tired of him and have left. Meanwhile, Tenma's former fiancée Eva is trying to recover from her degenerate lifestyle.

In order to find Johan, Nina is in a bar in Frankfurt dressed like a prostitute. She wants to meet "The Baby," a prominent right-wing extremist. But it turns out to be a trap. Meanwhile, Tenma confronts Mesner, one of the detectives who killed Nina's parents, and hears that Nina has been caught. Tenma quickly rushes to the bar.