As I love a good graphic novel I decided to go and look for a Japanese manga, with the same criterion, it had to be good in multiple ways. I enjoyed my search very much and in the beginning it was hard to find a manga in a style I would appreciate (and even better I finally came to love). Everyone knows the cliches, the big eyes, blue hair, the overload of action and when it only becomes a slightly bit more in the direction of an adult book it shows awkward pictures of schoolgirls in too short skirts and tight blouses. The other manga might not pop up in Google immediately, but they sure are there. That's how I found Matsumoto's work, Gogo Monster and it is one of the best books I've read this year so far. Apart from saying that it was a very intense read, I felt overwhelmed and touched by the way Taiyo Matsumoto told and depicted it, though I find it hard to express myself and tell exactly why.

Gogo Monster is situated on an ordinary Japanese primary school where we follow three children and the care-taker, they're all in a way loners not fitting in as other people do and therefore outcasts. The main character is Yuki Tashibana, a boy in the third grade, living in his own imaginary world of Super Star and monsters on 'the other side' non of the other kids can see. And then there is his fear of growing up: 'When people turn in grown-ups, their insides melt into a mushy glop and their brains get hard and stiff. They're rotten.' That is except for the care-taker Ganz, who has been working on the school for 30 years now. Yuki likes the old man and starts the day talking and working in the school garden together with him. Than there are Makoto Suzuki and Sabaki IQ. Makoto is the new boy, who is weird because he cares for Yuki. IQ is the 5th grader with the box on his head with a hole in it watching from a distance, moving along the edges of the story.

On the outside the book is looking delightful with it's colourful cardboard sleeve on which you see the monsters inside Yuki Tashibana's head pictured. And once you've drawn the book out of the sleeve you find a hardcover book with red-printed page edges where, if you look close, find monsters decorated too. Opening the book I had to start with a mind switch, turning and reading pages from right to the left for the very first time. I liked that, it immediately gave an extra Japanese touch to it. Matsumoto is a very talented mangaka and varies his style to fit the story he is telling. In Gogo Monster, which is in black and white, he makes line drawings, a slightly bit shaken that once you get used to it fits the story entirely. He leaves a lot of white space in the daily school life drawings and turns very dense, dark and detailed, creeping up on you when the story is getting more intense and emotional.

Reading it you need to take your time, the story is layered in many ways, the words don't always match what you see and the pictures tell a story of their own. It is full of fantasy and surrealism. Reaching the end of the 465 pages I turned back to the beginning, I saw so many things in a different light it made me want to start all over again, and I will.