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Please note: This section is also still under construction, and might end up severely restructured.

What's what?

Frankenstein

Polar Route

coming soon

Story

The story is set in the 1890's in Europe, and tells the story of several people who, for one reason or another, come across a terrifying secret: There is a method to create a living being from a dead body - or several dead bodies; methods and preferences vary a lot. The original method was once devised by Victor Frankenstein, and this is why the monsters are still referred to as "Frankensteins".

Even though it is based on Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, the entire concept of the Frankensteins is different enough from the original idea. The manga boldly explains this by making Mary Shelley and her novel part of the fictional world: She has not appeared in person, but a character has read the novel, and commented on it, calling Mary Shelley's story a fiction merely inspired by the actual events and circumstances of Victor Frankenstein's work.

Unusually, Embalming does not have just one definite protagonist, but switches between different scenarios and point of views of main characters. And this makes it difficult to outline the main plot, especially this early on in the story when everyting is just barely beginning! So I shall attempt to introduce the circumstances of these characters, and how they relate to each other, without giving too many spoilers!

Avenger

The story starts off in Scotland, where two young boys learn the truth about the Frankensteins in the most brutal way imaginable. Five years prior, their parents were murdered by a Frankenstein, their bodies carried off to be used in its creator's experiment. Today, the boys are eighteen years old and have finally managed to hunt down the killer and defeat him, but their revenge comes at a high price: One of them, Wraith, dies in the battle, and his friend Fury is also seriously injured, falls unconscious and is rescued by a mysterious woman, who introduces herself as Dr. Peaberry.

She tells him all he needs to know about the Frankensteins:

This branch of science has nothing at all to do with reaching immortality, or bringing a deceased loved one back to life: Even if you only use nothing but the original body, "repair" its wounds, so to speak, you won't be reviving the exact same person: They will always return changed.

This can mean that they lose their memories, or it can mean that their personalities change. Sometimes both.

The Frankensteins are often insane, because the personality change works in the way that one of their personality traits becomes exaggerated and takes over their entire being. Even a positive trait, like affection for someone, can thus become a dangerous and deadly obsession.

Dr. Peaberry gives Fury a mantra-like warning: If you are ready to get involved with the Frankensteins, it means you are either evil or insane.

This begs just one question, really: Is Dr. Peaberry herself evil or "only" insane?

And most importantly, how is Fury going to react when he finds out that Wraith, his dead best friend, has been brought back to life as a Frankenstein?

In any case, Fury, who has been obsessed with avenging his family ever since their murder five years ago, has decided that he will destroy all Frankensteins and put an end to this science once and for all.

His first task is to find out who created the Frankenstein that killed his parents, and put an end to his evil work.

Lover

But there are others. And the Frankenstein creators are not simply a small number of crazy scientist scattered over Europe, some are actually organized.

There is a mysterious organization known as Polar Route, which operates internationally and has its headquarter in Ingolstadt in Germany.

Ashuhit Richter is a young man with close ties to this organization, although whatever goals they might have, he does not seem to be very interested in them. However, his father is a high-ranking member of the organization, and an acclaimed and famous Frankenstein creator.

Ten years ago, when Ashuhit was still only a child, he was attacked and grievously injured by a Frankenstein that his father and his colleagues were keeping. Ash lost a leg, but the friend who was with him at that time, a girl named Elm, was killed. At Ashuhit's request, Dr. Richter turned her into a Frankenstein.

While Ashuhit grew up into a sombre, misanthropic young man, Elm is still stuck in the body of a thirteen years old girl. She is the exact opposite of her companion: outgoing and optimistic, but also gullible and more than a little dense. Ashuhit's goal is to turn Elm back into a human, although this is considered impossible. (Or this was his goal in the oneshot that introduced those two. I'm not sure whether this has been changed for the series! We will find out.)

The organization appears to hold a lot of secrets. For example, Dr. Peaberry has ties to it, and she did not part with them peacefully)... and the Frankenstein who attacked Ashuhit and killed Elm does not look to be just any monster, either: he is only known as John Doe and his real identity is unknown... at least in the oneshots, it is expressed that he is particularly dangerous and powerful, and that it would be a disaster if he ever regained his memories.

John Doe has not appeared in the series as of yet (after six/seven chapters), but I think it is safe to assume that he will play a prominent role in the story.

The oneshots

Everything we know about John so far, we know from the two oneshots. The first oneshot had him as protagonist, while the second starred Ashuhit and Elm and only briefly featured John when he (probably in a blind fury) attacked the two children.

It's unclear if the first oneshot will fit into the series' continuity and whether everything that is said about John there will still apply to him in the series. but in any case: in the first oneshot, John works as an assassin specializing in the destruction of Frankensteins. He asks to be paid with human body parts of young, beautiful women, his ultimate goal being to build himself a Frankenstein bride. He's such a pleasant guy.

So far, Embalming is still only unfolding the weave of stories and relationships that make up its world.

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