Tří Žába, or the Three Frogs (later changed in the Perfect Edition of the manga to U Tří Žab or At the Three Frogs), is an inn located in Prague, Czech Republic. It was where Věra Černá, the mother of the twins Johan Liebert and Nina Fortner, lived with her children for roughly 6 years.
The building is known for having a signboard with three frogs on it.
History[]
Pre-1900s[]
The inn was thought to have been erected around the year 1800. At that time, it was used as a local tavern. Even after the pub closed, it still remained standing through many wars and other bouts of chaos.
1975-1981[]
Shortly after giving birth to her twins, Černá managed to escape captivity with her children and went into hiding at the inn. According to neighbors, she did not leave the building very often and was thought to be involved in some form of political activism. While living there, she met with Hans Georg Schuwald, who was looking for his former lover, Helenka Nováková, a good friend of hers. As the two conversed, Schuwald noticed that the twins were listening in on their conversation.
During her time there, Černá dressed up her twins in a similar way to trick people into thinking she only had one female child.
In 1981, Černá and her children were discovered living in the building by Franz Bonaparta and his associates, and she and Nina were promptly removed from building, leaving Johan by himself for several days. During this period, Johan spent most of his time reading The Nameless Monster, a picture book written by Bonaparta under the pen name Emil Šébe. The contents of the book would heavily influence Johan's worldview from that point forward.
When Nina came home after escaping from the massacre at the Red Rose Mansion, Johan welcomed her back, and from there she told him for several days about everything she witnessed, which Johan would come to mistake for his own memories. Afterward, the twins burned down the inn and ran away.
1990s[]
The building still remained standing in 1997, though seemed abandoned. Schuwald, through his son, Karl Neuman, directed Kenzo Tenma to the inn. He later came upon it and asked a few people around the neighborhood about Černá and if she had twins. One man answered that there was only one child, though he was not sure whether it was a boy or a girl, and told Tenma of the arson incident. Tenma also crossed paths with Jan Suk, who found the building while trying to search for a blonde "girl" (in actuality, Johan disguised as his sister) he met at a bar.
Nina Fortner frequently visited the inn with Dieter after leaving Munich in order to regain the memories she had lost. She reenacted the scene where Johan was taken away, thinking it would help her remember, but all it did was confuse her as to what her and her brother's names were at that time.
Nina entered one of the rooms, holding The Nameless Monster and utterly convinced that she had been the one reading the picture book while waiting for her brother to come home. However, she also had visions of "her" greeting "herself", which prompted a myriad of confusion. When Nina was about to be hit with a revelation explaining the aforesaid experience, she had a panic attack and Dieter interrupted her memory recovery, telling her she did not have to remember everything, that sometimes painful memories are better left unveiled. Convinced by his speech, Nina agreed to return to Munich.
Despite being associated with Johan's past, the inn survives the series, unlike the Red Rose Mansion, which Johan burned down.
Trivia[]
- "Tři Žába" is grammatically incorrect, as it literally translates to "Three Frog", since "Žába" is singular. The correct form would be "Tři Žáby".
- In the Perfect Edition of the Monster manga, the Tří Žába panels were redrawn and changed to "U Tří Žab". However, not all instances of the original "Tří Žába" panels were redrawn.
- The choice of frogs as the theme may correspond to the Bible verse Revelation 16:13 - "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet." (KJV) Since Urasawa already used a piece from Revelation referencing "the beast" to open the series, it is not farfetched to assume he used this as inspiration, too.