Tenma

Bought for 250g. I'm back on the fandragon bandwagon, this time with a manga/anime from the late 90s/early 2000s. I just finished watching the anime after binging episodes for a week and man...it was really good lmao but 8^

So now I have a fandragon of the MC, Dr Kenzo Tenma. Perpetually on a mission to put an end to a monster he feels like he never should have saved, even though he believes every life is worth something and that it's the duty of a doctor to preserve life as much as possible.

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GENERAL INFORMATION Gender: Male Age: 28 (1986/beginning) 37 (1995/post-timeskip) 41 (1999/ending) Date of birth: January 2nd, 1958 Relatives: Unnamed father Unnamed mother Unnamed half-brother Unnamed half-brother Nationality: Japanese Occupation: Neurosurgeon Status: Alive FIRST APPEARANCES Manga debut: Chapter 1 - "Herr Doctor Tenma" Anime debut: Episode 1 - "Herr Dr. Tenma" PORTRAYALS Japanese: Hidenobu Kiuchi English: Liam O'Brien PERSONALITY: Tenma is a workaholic who prioritizes his patients and their well-being more than anything. Although he's a highly skilled neurosurgeon, he confesses to Inspector Lunge that during a surgery he's jumping out of his skin due to the fright of committing a mistake. Tenma is often obsessed with saving as many lives as he can. Johan enjoys toying with this mindset, sprouting several massacres possibly to challenge Tenma to prevent them. His kindness is prevalent throughout the series - in contrast to Johan's unscrupulous nature - and he sometimes ponders about the moral of his actions. When he is worried (often with Johan) he neglects his own self care and goes as far as collapsing from lack of food or sleep. Other than that, he is overall an optimistic individual, or tries his best to seem so to others, giving words of encouragement to the people around him. When Lunge enters Tenma's psyche he discovers that Tenma doesn't fit in either Japanese or German society. Nevertheless, Tenma isn't too unsociable, and ironically in several flashbacks he can be seen happily hanging with groups. He does prefer to work alone rather than in a team if he can help it though. "All lives are equal" Tenma's motto and the reason he disobeyed Director Heinemann's orders to save the person who arrived first regardless of social status. This ideal is not just a matter of work ethic, much of Tenma's psychology stems from this principle, and it is one of the reasons he struggles so much with his own decision of killing Johan. For instance, Tenma becomes wracked with guilt at shooting Roberto in spite of the apparent necessity of his actions, believing that he had killed the man, and expresses such great remorse over his seeming death that he feels himself unworthy of being called a doctor. There is even a personality shift when Tenma starts to doubt his own belief. Many close friends of Tenma interviewed in Another Monster, including Eva, mention the reason they love to be around Tenma is that he never looks down on them, and regardless of his exceptional skills, he treats others as equals or puts more value in their abilities over his own.

TRIVIA:
- He shares his birthday with Naoki Urasawa, January 2nd.
- In an issue of Casa Brutus ft. Urasawa's work, he ranked 3 in Genius/Talent and 1 in Self-Indulgent.
- The kanji of his name (賢三天馬) mean Wise, Three, Heaven and Horse respectively.
- Although in the first volume Tenma says his father is a small-time medical practitioner, Another Monster disproves this by explaining that his father was in fact the director and manager of a city-owned hospital.
- His all-time favorite song is Let's Stay Together by Al Green.

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