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  • GoGo Monster


    Rating:
    5
    Image of GoGo Monster
    Author / Artist: 
    Taiyo Matsumoto
    Publisher: 
    Viz Media
    Volumes: 
    1 (complete)

    A poetic tale of a young boy’s overactive imagination. GoGo Monster is a nuanced tale of a young boy and his overly active imagination. Nine-year-old Yuki Tachibana lives in two worlds. In one world, he is a loner ridiculed by his classmates and reprimanded by his teachers for telling stories of supernatural beings that only he can see. In the other worlds, the super natural beings vie for power with malevolent spirits who bring chaos into the school, the stduents lives and nature itself.

    GoGo Monster

    Reviewer's Rating: 
    5
    Pull Quote: 
    First grader Yuki Tachibana is different than his classmates. He scribbles mysterious doodles on his desk and seems to see monsters. His classmates think he's strange, and his teacher thinks he's disturbed -- but Yuki and the school groundskeeper know better. There are two factions of supernatural forces at school and they're about to go to war.

    Robot reviews: GoGo Monster

    Reviewer's Rating: 
    0
    Pull Quote: 
    GoGo Monster bears a number of resemblances to Matsumoto's other, more well-known (at least in the U.S.) work, Tekkonkinkreet. Both, for example, feature two young boys as protagonists, one of whom is in touch with more primal, perhaps supernatural forces and possibly even in need of "saving." Both feature a wise elderly man who serves as guardian for the pair. Both feature enigmatic narratives that tease at meaning. And both trade highly in allegory, with readers being able to draw all sorts of thematic possibilities from the elliptical roles the various character serve.

    Flipped!: David Welsh On GoGo Monster

    Reviewer's Rating: 
    0
    Pull Quote: 
    "Yeah, well..." a grade-schooler opines early in Taiyo Matsumoto's GoGo Monster (Viz), "There's a kid like that in every class, right?" He's talking about Yuki, a classmate who claims to sense things no one else can, an invisible population of mischievous creatures and a new insurgence of more malevolent beings. And the classmate is right; if manga is to be believed, the schools of Japan are well stocked with young people who traffic in the eerie. None of them are quite like Yuki, though, probably because not many creators are quite like Matsumoto.

    Manga Monday: GoGo Monster

    Reviewer's Rating: 
    0
    Pull Quote: 
    Matsumoto puts a lot of thought into his storytelling and how it's arranged on the page, making for some very interesting panels, but very beautifully-rendered illustrations that are a little rough or loose at the author's whim, Matsumoto hardly being shy of experimenting with the medium.

    GoGo Monster

    Reviewer's Rating: 
    0
    Pull Quote: 
    Matsumoto doesn’t offer an easy read. His plot twists and turns. The dialogue is spare and often consists just of overheard comments that are not necessarily relevant. The characters are mostly inscrutable. And frankly, that is much of the fun of reading GoGo Monster. It is a story to dive into, allowing it to wash over you, and then, later, after it has swirled around in your brain for a time, to dive into again.