Hello everyone, I keep marching on with my look at horror series for October. This week I look at Katsuhisa Kigitsu’s comedy horror series Franken Fran. Franken Fran follows the serial adventures of Fran Madaraki, a young woman who looks like Frankenstein’s monster. She was created by Dr. Naomitsu Madaraki, but she unfortunately falls apart occasionally.
Now that's what I call eye popping . . .
Fran is a medical genius, capable of doing a variety of insane medical procedures. Often times, though, Fran’s operations could be viewed as cruel or unusual punishment, leaving people in less than human states. This is in no part Fran’s fault, as Dr. Madaraki drilled into her mind that at all costs she must save lives when possible. Fran also has two “sisters”, one older and one younger, both created by Dr. Madaraki as well. Whereas Fran was made to save lives, her sisters, Gavrill, her older sister, and Veronica, her younger sister, were made to end lives.
As Franken Fran is a series of stories that often aren’t connected to each other, I’ll be doing something different this time when it comes to taking a look at the story in the series. I’ll be giving quick looks at the first two stories in the series, just to give you an idea of how the series goes.
Chapter one tells the story of a man searching for Dr. Madaraki to help bring his son back from the dead, as his son died in a car accident. Fran agrees to help the man after hearing his story. It is later revealed that the man had killed his son because his son inherited 90% of his father’s estate. The man plans on having Fran revive his son so that he can spend his son’s inheritance. Fran arrives at the man’s house and asks the man to show her his son’s body. Fran then has one of her assistants give the man anesthesia and begins operating.
This isn't going to end well, is it?
When the man wakes up, he finds that his son is alive once more. Only one slight problem, as his son’s tissue has decayed quite considerably, Fran simply stuck the son’s head to the back of the man’s head and connected their brains.
Just what I always wanted, eyes in the back of my head!
Chapter two follows a young man as he confesses his love to the girl he likes. The problem is, she doesn’t like him at all and storms off after he confesses to her. He tries calling out to her to warn her of an oncoming car, but she ignores him. As a result she is hit by the car and is badly injured. He stumbles upon the Madaraki house in his search for help, and asks for Fran’s help. She agrees to help after it is revealed that the car that hit the girl belonged to a supplier for Fran that dropped off a new shipment. Fran takes her broken body back into the house and begins operating on her. When the girl wakes up from her operation, she sees in horror that she now has the body of a caterpillar.
Yeah I got nothing.
The young man takes care of the girl while she’s in this state. At first she’s angry at the young man for her having the body she currently has, even wishing that he’d kill her. After a while, she slowly changes her outlook of things, growing to accept, and even liking, her new body and slowly starts to grow close to the young man. One day while Fran was checking up on the girl, Fran tells her that they will soon begin her rehabilitation so she can regain her old body. After a few days the girl sheds her caterpillar husk and takes the form of a chrysalis, in a not entirely subtle reference to puberty.
Subtle . . .
The girl hatches from her chrysalis with a brand new human body and the young man tries to leave now that she’s back to normal, but the girl tells him that since he helped give her her new body, that he must take care of it, thus making them a couple again. The two of them later go to a love hotel to have sex, but the girl transforms into a human/insect hybrid and eats the young man, much like how some predatory insects do during mating.
The series currently consists of 57 chapters bound into 7 tankobon volumes. Franken Fran is still ongoing, and unfortunately it has not been licensed for a release outside of Japan yet, though I really hope it does.
Franken Fran is one of my personal favorite ongoing series, as I love the dark humor used in the series, and I love how the series has a “be careful what you wish for” theme. This is something that makes the series remind me of one of my favorite shows growing up, Tales From the Crypt. Franken Fran is a funny series, but be warned, there is a lot of gore and nudity throughout the series, so it is not safe for work and kids should not be allowed to read it. Looking beyond that, I highly recommend Franken Fran to everyone.