Heads

Romanticization: ヘッズ (Heads)
Author: Higashino Keigo 東野 圭吾
Artist: Mase Motorou 間瀬 元朗
Status: Complete
Span: 2003
Volume #: 4
Wiki page: none
Series can be read at: here


I haven't read anything overly serious in a while. Oh, this is not only serious, this is serious drama. Things take some pretty wild turns, and you are forever on the edge of the seat. I suppose that is why Higashino Keigo is such a successful mystery/thriller novelist in Japan. Many of his novels have been made into films. As to the artist, Mase Motorou, I rather enjoy his down-to-earth style. Makes everything more realistic, which is all the more terrifying.

Plot: Naruse Junichi is a gentle, shy young man who loves to draw and paint. Life often bullies him, and he just takes it passively without arguing. One day, he randomly gets the courage to ask out the girl who works in the art supply shop that he always visits (mostly because he's had a crush on her for a while and wants to see her). And she actually accepts. Life may finally work out for Junichi. He and Kei (the art shop girl) fall madly in love.

When he visits a real estate corporation for information on bigger apartments (so they can move in together), he is shot in the head by a robber when he attempts to save a little girl. Of course. The next time he wakes up, he's in a hospital. Apparently he became vegetative and went under a radical brain transplant and was subsequently revived. Everything seems miraculous as the crying Kei runs back into his arms and he recovers and is released from the hospital.

But then he gradually starts experiencing emotions that are not his own. Kei's freckles, which he used to love so much, now seem the flaw on an otherwise unremarkable specimen (yes, even his love for Kei seems to fade). He has random outbursts of reckless rage, and he now refuses to get screwed over by life. What exactly is causing all these changes? Who was the mysterious brain donor? What is going to happen to Junichi as his consciousness slowly loses out to the invader's thoughts and feelings?

The story is based on things that could happen in reality (though we are ages away from successful (?) brain transplants), but it has some faint flavours of science fiction and explores a lot of philosophical questions, all the while remaining a page-turning thriller. Junichi and Kei's love is also heartbreaking. Combined with the very fitting art style, this is one comic series that you do NOT want to miss. I'll also try to track down more novels by Higashino Keigo.