With Naoki Urasawa’s “Monster” Video, Rodrigo y Gabriela Let the Story Lead
- The Real Ding
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
The most interesting thing about Rodrigo y Gabriela’s “Monster” is that the collaboration does not feel bolted onto the song after the fact. The new single, taken from the duo’s upcoming album OurHome, was inspired by Naoki Urasawa’s manga Monster. The accompanying video was then created by Urasawa himself. That full-circle path gives the release a depth that a standard music video announcement would not have.
Urasawa’s participation is a serious headline. He is one of manga’s defining storytellers, responsible for Monster, 20th Century Boys, Pluto, and Master Keaton. His work has sold over 140 million copies worldwide, and his storytelling has influenced readers well beyond manga circles. For him to create original visuals for a Rodrigo y Gabriela single makes “Monster” feel like a meeting between two established creative worlds.
Rodrigo y Gabriela are hardly strangers to that kind of crossing. Since emerging from Mexico City and building an international career around two acoustic guitars, Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero have often pulled from metal, flamenco, rock, classical ideas, and filmic tension without settling into a single category. Their music has always left room for outside reference points.
Still, “Monster” has a distinct mood. It is lean, tense, and shadowed, with the duo’s percussive drive giving the song an almost chase-like momentum. Gabriela’s right hand turns the guitar into something drumlike, while Rodrigo’s melodic figures move through the piece with a nervous clarity. The performance feels tightly controlled, but there is unease inside that control.
Photo credit: Enrique Levya
That unease connects naturally to Urasawa’s Monster, a story that deals in psychological dread, moral ambiguity, and the question of what people carry beneath the surface. Quintero has said she was drawn to the work because it is disturbing and hopeful at the same time. That is a difficult balance to strike in music without words, but “Monster” finds a way through texture and pacing.
The album that follows, OurHome, arrives September 18 via ATO Records. It was recorded in Japan at NK Sound Tokyo and self-produced by the duo. That setting is central to the album’s identity, with Quintero describing Japan as a place tied to beauty, inwardness, and reconnection.
The collaborators on OurHome deepen that Japanese thread while expanding the record’s sound. Marty Friedman appears on “Simurgh,” Hiromi appears on “Akatsuki,” and the album also includes Hiyori Okuda and Yukihiro Atsumi. With Dave Sardy mixing and Stephen Marcussen mastering, the record has a broad studio pedigree behind it, though the lead single keeps the attention squarely on the guitars.
The album title grew from a moment of accidental clarity. While walking in Melbourne after touring Japan and Australia, the duo passed a public housing tower displaying the words “OUR HOME.” Sánchez photographed the scene, and the image became the album cover. The phrase became a way into the record’s larger theme: finding a sense of home from within.
The backstory of the album’s creative rebirth is equally telling. After a period of pressure and uncertainty, the passing of the duo’s studio cat, Pelusa, unexpectedly opened the writing process. Sánchez wrote a song for her, and the music began to move again. In Quintero’s telling, the moment reminded them to stop forcing ideas and return to the heart of their playing.
A major tour will carry OurHome into the world, beginning in North America this fall with stops at Austin City Limits, The Anthem, Bowery Ballroom, The Castro Theatre, The Moore Theatre, and many other venues. The duo will continue through Ireland, the U.K., and Europe in spring 2027.
“Monster” is an effective first single because it refuses to flatten its influences into branding. Urasawa’s involvement is major, but the song does not depend on name recognition alone. It stands as a tense, focused piece from a duo who sound newly grounded, even while reaching into darker territory.
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