"Body Worlds" is an international show that millions of people have seen -- and gawked at -- since it first opened in Tokyo in 1995. Since it arrived at the Milwaukee Public Museum on Jan. 18 -- and even before that -- there's been a lot of buzz about this exhibition of preserved bodies in publications and through word of mouth.

I saw "Body Worlds" on Monday, and found it engrossing (yes, with an emphasis on "gross"), educational, freaky and beautiful. For me, it lived up to the hype.

All controversies aside, "Body Worlds" forces us to molt our innate desire to dispel mortality. Like death, you cannot gloss over this show of human bodies -- called plastinates -- especially when one of them, for example, is a skinless man with exposed organs riding a massive horse while holding his brain in one hand and his horse's brain in the other.

At the same time, the show is designed with such gentleness and care, that it seemed less gruesome than I expected. There's a softness to the environment, in part due to billowy white sheets cascading from the ceiling, embossed with moving quotes about life and death. The eight-months-pregnant plastinate exposes an open uterus -- and I secretly dreaded seeing this -- but because the reproductive section of the show is curtained off, respectfully in its own space with soft music playing, it's easier to absorb.

Humor is an important ingredient in this show, too. I read that when "Body Worlds" first opened in Japan, the bodies were presented in simple, upright positions, but a lot of people found them scary. However, when the plastinates were contorted into lifelike positions -- such as the chess player and the basketball player -- people found the show less spooky. Hence, the smoker plastinate has graphite grey lungs pocked with black tar deposits, yet he holds a cigarette, and the muscles on "Wing Man" are splayed out, yet he wears a ridiculous Panama Jack-type hat.

Despite the larger-than-life-ness of this show, it's the minor details that moved me the most. The dirt sill present under one plastinate's fingernails, the crookedness of teeth and the still visible tattoos on the body that's sliced in vertical sections all remind that these are not artistic creations. These were living, breathing people who probably had jobs and friends and families, and they died.

Indeed, it's heavy, but it's fascinating, too.