Beneath the twisted characters, weird, unrealistic surgeries and bizarre, over-the-top situations, there is quite a bit of cleverness that has gone into the writing. People who prefer standard, tried-and-true or realistic plot-lines and those with a dislike of cynical humour will definitely hate this manga.

The plot is quite original, but very episodic. If you are the kind of person who expects every single character to have an angsty past and a romantic interest to rescue them from their 'inner darkness', you should just leave right now.
In writing Franken Fran, Kigitsu Katsuhisa intends to depict the true nature of the human mind and explore the lengths to which people go when trying to achieve their goals. That being said - the characters that Fran operates on are very extreme examples of certain mental illnesses and negative personality types...but that is where the black humour lies.

People claim that this is guro, but I strongly disagree. There are definitely no attempts here to make the bloodshed and violence seem erotic or pleasurable. All gory scenes are depicted in a strictly matter-of-fact fashion; and while there is a fair amount of nudity (after all, most operations can't be performed while the patients have their clothes on!), it is by no means brainless ecchi.

As for LUEser's claims on the manga's repetitiveness - as I mentioned before; Franken Fran is an episodic story that follows different people under different circumstances, with Fran and her surgeries being the only thing that binds them together. The categories section is here to help people; so if you can't do without a continuous plot-line, don't start reading anything with the 'episodic' tag!

All in all - quite an interesting series; a nice, refreshing change from the typical, forgettable nonsense that reigns supreme in the shounen demographic.

Edit: The ending, however, leaves much to be desired. In fact, the final chapter reads just like all of the preceding ones; but even an episodic series needs something...more for its finale in order to be wholly satisfactory -- something Kigitsu Katsuhisa failed to deliver. I'm not quite sure why the rushed ending was necessary, seeing as how the series was reasonably popular in Japan, but while the conclusion was disappointing, my previous opinions still stand.

... Last updated on February 6th, 2012, 11:31pm

Franken Fran is possibly one of the best mangas I have ever read, if only for the psychological and societal implications that it brings into focus.

Rather than a horror or gore manga, Franken Fran is, first and foremost, a satire, a harsh criticism on human society. For instance...



And so, one of the biggest reason I love Kigitsu, and I love Franken Fran, is that there is simply so much to analyze in every chapter. There's always some little subversion or aversion of traditional morals, and there's so many different ways to dissect these themes.

Strangely enough, this is what come to mind when reading this series, in between all the "'Is that? Yeah, it is! This is... Awesome/Disgusting? Disgustawesome?" and the "I'm glad no one else is in this room right now..." and the "Holy Fuck! thats hillarious."
In the end, it's about an Insanely nice/Batshit insane/Fucking evil girl who saves lives, fucks around with the natural order, has very strange ideas of love and looks pretty adorable in the process.
You will laugh, go "awww" and maybe throw up a little in you mouth from time to time.
Enjoy.

I've been avoiding this manga for a while because of some of the comments, but now that I've read it, I found that I really loved it. Honestly, some of the cases are so ridiculous that it's hilarious. xD (Or maybe it's because I have a twisted sense of humor.) The main characters are great, and I like the art. Hugely recommended.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...." When you read that chapter, you will either love the series or hate it. I'm still haunted by nightmares of what I saw on that page, but I keep coming back for more. The stories are horridly fascinating in a way I can't even begin describe. Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes gut-wrenching, and sometimes just plain sickening, Fran has a way of climbing inside of your head and staying there.

I was randomly reading other manga when this came up. i was shocked, not at the fact this was so gruesome and horrific, but the fact i was enjoying it and even laughed. i continued to read knowing how gross it was yet i felt quite touched by the sense of morals. This type of manga is hard to find and a good read with a lot of fucked up moments which are surprisingly entertaining. This manga is based on messed up disasters, but there are times when there are happy endings. And when something happy happens it makes you feel really really really really happy (i guess because your used to bad things going on in this manga ). i personally hate fucked up shit like this but man i could just keep reading this manga (i think i went a bit insane after reading it a bit LOL)

all in all not much to say about this manga, but i do say it is one hell of a read. but not for the squeamish. i hope it develops a bit better than it is but i still enjoy it. So just read it if you can handle it.

... Last updated on September 5th, 2009, 5:46pm

Can't commit to a single tone. There are comic chapters, straight horror chapters, mystery chapters, even sappy chapters...moreover, the characterization of Fran is highly inconsistent. Sometimes she's committed to helping others, sometimes she’s a cold-blooded surgeon-for-hire (sometimes directly harming people), and sometimes she just screws around with mad science, sometimes canny, other times naive. It doesn’t hang together very well. The pure comedy chapters do tend to be pretty funny, though, and black comedy series are never in great supply.

One of the few horror mangas I have ever read so far, Franken Fran was something that stood out from most well known mangas out there.

From the savage deaths of certain characters to moments that are quite amusing and humorous, Franken Fran is rather entertaining to read, and a refreshing as well.

That's one f*cked-up Manga...
Gore, morbid, disturbing... And sooooo good ! <3
(Well at least, let's say, the first 20 chapters, because, as pointed out by other readers, it kinda tends to run out of steam lately...)

I'm not gonna lie, I felt very disturbed reading certain parts of the Manga, (feeling like mentally puking sometimes, yes butterfly-girl at the very beginning, I'm thinking of you.) I sometimes felt the urge to go & read some really dumb and cliché shoujo (which I usually hate) after reading, because sometimes you just need flowers & sparkles & pink scenery. XD

But, well, definitely a must-read imo. I don't rate Mangas, but I would give 10 to Franken-Fran (to the beginning of Franken-Fran, actually) because in its own weird category, it's a masterpiece.

XD For a graphic horror/medical manga (think pet shop of horrors on mega steroids), it has a pretty good sense of humor. I thoroughly enjoyed the Spaghetti monster and Hachiko chapters! Honestly, anything with a spaghetti monster gets an A in my book But yeah, it's twisted, gory, sinister. I find its episodic format kind of refereshing