What begins as the grounds for a very promising story and a narrative that begs the question of many what's--and more importantly /why's/--lands disappointingly flat, in a painful fall from grace. Perhaps the word "fall" would be giving Homunculus too much credit, as it suggests there was any kind of impact upon contact with the ground in the first place. (There wasn't.) More fittingly instead would be to describe the entire ordeal as a steep, upward climb on a hill, potential mounting with every step and very much peaking at its summit, only to be met with the arduous journey downhill afterward. In the end, we find ourselves unsurprised, from all the previous indications we had been given on the direction the story was headed for, but disappointed to be in the same place as we were when the journey started--with more questions than we had answers to. I kept hoping for a sudden, shocking recovery towards the end, one that would allow the manga a final re-redemption before its conclusion, but it never came.

It's the shame that it is because the manga started off with so much potential, really. The art was and is fantastic, that's one constant throughout all its chapters, beginning to end; it's Asano Inio with its deadpan moments that are cleverly drawn to suggest so and its surrealism that sets the tone of the story as perfectly as it does. But the characters, disappointingly, show little growth throughout the series: Nakoshi remains as narcissistic as he he had been from the beginning, and Itoh, one of the manga's most intriguing personalities, had, upsettingly, been reduced to a mere side character by the end of it. I did like what Hideo Yamamoto tried to do with the other men at the park, but I do wish they played a bigger role in the story--more than just the few filler panels they were given.

What Homunculus lacked everywhere else though it definitely made up for in story. (For the most part, at least.) Intriguing in the beginning and gripping later on through the chapters, it does a perfect job in reeling its readers in and keeping them hooked by the scruffs of their necks, peaking in suspension at the MC's slow but gradual descent into insanity (the part where I can say I was /wholly/ invested in the manga)--only to let them down in the most disappointing way from the bullshit that was the Nanako arc onwards. After that there isn't much more substance to the story outside of the same pseudo-philosophical ramblings that Yamamoto repeatedly tries to drill into our skulls until the very end, grinding any and all sense of real progression to a halt. The dialogue became painful to read, and put simply: the whole thing just near-agonisingly repetitive, and for so much buildup only to end so rushed.

It's beautifully drawn, yes, and it's a page-turner, continuing to be one even towards its end--but that was, more likely than not, just myself hoping to find something that wasn't quite there. Homunculus tries hard to be philosophical--you could even say it was semi-successful in its first half--but it ultimately fails, ending in a messy, incoherent, try-hard ramble and not much else.