Homunculus

Hideo Yamamoto's fifteen-volume psychological story follows Susumu Nakoshi, a well-dressed man who is, for unclear reasons, living out of his car in a Tokyo parking lot. A young medical student offers him money to undergo trepanation, an old procedure that drills a hole in the skull. Afterward Nakoshi starts seeing people as distorted figures, "homunculi" that externalize their damage and their secrets. The premise is a hook for a long descent into Nakoshi's own evasions. The manga keeps asking whether his new sight is real insight or a story he's telling himself to avoid looking at his own life. It's strange, uneven, and goes to genuinely uncomfortable places.