20TH CENUTRY BOYS by Naoki Urasawa
English Edition – Viz Media
Japanese Edition – Shogakukan

Genre: Manga/Science Fiction/Mystery

I doubt whether this can seriously be called a “review,” and as such I’ll be titling this sort of thing “Mini-View” in order to emphasize that it’s short, to the point, and doesn’t go particularly in depth about the story itself. But I’ll be happy to discuss anything further in the comments should anyone be curious about my take on things.

Today I finished reading 20th Century Boys and 21st Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa. I’m afraid I got tired of waiting around for the volume by volume releases, so I borrowed someone else’s translations. Frankly, I wanted to get to the point already. This is a wonderful series, but after a while, the complete lack of clues as to the identify of Friend gets absolutely maddening.

Of course, having already read the series isn’t going to stop me from buying all the volumes as they come out. But it was all I could do short of reading spoilers which, you know, I wouldn’t.

So, having gotten to the end of 20th Century Boys, all I really know is…Urasawa has a twisty turny mind. I have serious doubts as to whether I could create such a complex story. In fact I doubt that most people could and still have it come out coherently.

So, the two obvious questions:

Was it good?

Yes, it was quite good. Of course it was good. We are talking about Urasawa. His stories are epic. This one spans almost 20 years in 22 volumes (plus however many volumes are in 21st Century Boys, which functions as the conclusion of the series).

Did I like it better than Monster?

Actually, no. I still like Monster best. This has nothing to do with the quality of one story over the other. It’s just a personal preference.

You’re still my favorite, Johan!

So, here are a few things I’ve noticed about Urasawa stories based solely on Monster and 20th Century Boys (sadly, Pluto doesn’t really fall into this same pattern, but then Pluto isn’t solely an Urasawa work):

1 – Everything is about your childhood. If you turn out to be the most evil person on the planet, it’s because someone did something to you in your childhood that probably made you feel unwanted or unloved. And oh…you remember. You remember for a loooonnggg time. And you get your world takeover plans started early. If you don’t have it worked out by 6th grade, you’re slacking. In fact, you’re not even a proper Urasawa villain. Get out.

2 – Even if we start out with a male protagonist, there’s going to be a formidable female protagonist coming along anytime….

3 – Regular old bad guys can be turned into good guys. They’re not really bad if they don’t have Questionable Childhood Memories.

4 – Ordinary dark-haired protagonists get a power-up halfway through the story and become UBER.

And that’s about the gist of it.

Well, no, not really. That would be giving 20th Century Boys WAY too little credit. So much happens in this story that it’s near impossible to summarize in a reasonable length. It, along with Monster, would make great fodder for some kind of analysis paper. If only I felt like writing one….

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What’s all this? I won something? That never happens. The last contest I won was in high school—for neatest handwriting on a set of collegiate applications.

That’s not a joke. The college gave me a T-shirt.

No, really–I can’t even choose between two sealed Netflix packages to guess which one is the DVD I want to watch first. You would think that, eventually, the odds would fall in my favor, but no. Even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern didn’t have this kind of trouble.

All of this is leading up to my announcement: I’m one of the winners in the 365 Days of Manga giveaway offered via Suvudu.(!!!)

For this contest, the odds are actually really good. There’s a new name chosen every day, and that person receives five free manga from the writer of the 365 Days of Manga reviews, Jason Thompson (author of Manga: The Complete Guide).

I said I’d post a photo of myself with the manga I received, so here it is:

This is probably the only time you’ll ever see my photo (unless I end up at a convention somewhere, and I simply have to post about it). Call me camera shy if you like, but we all know it’s really just paranoia. ;D

The titles that I received include the following:

Speed Grapher
Category: Freaks, vols. 1 & 2
Flesh-Colored Horror: The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection
Tomie 2: The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection

Having seen half of the anime earlier this year, I’m somewhat familiar with Speed Grapher, and now I’ll be able to see how closely it follows the manga. Category: Freaks is a title I’ve never seen, and I’m definitely looking forward to trying it out. As for Tomie 2 and Flesh-Colored Horror, I think I was just surprised to see a ComicsOne manga show up at my door. I haven’t had one of those in years. I’m pretty sure the last ComicsOne title that I owned was Maico 2010 (wow, why don’t I just keep dating myself?).

Thanks, Jason! I’m really looking forward to reading them.

Additionally, I picked up 20th Century Boys, vol. 5 over the weekend. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet (deadlines will prevail over my pleasure reading) but I’m absolutely itching for the chance to get started.

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20TH CENTURY BOYS, vols. 1 & 2 by Naoki Urasawa
Viz Media, 2009, 210 pages, 978-1-59116-922-2, Paperback, $12.99
Viz Media, 2009, 206 pages, 978-1-59116-926-0, Paperback, $12.99

Genre: Manga/Science Fiction/Mystery

Having been a Naoki Urasawa fan from the moment I saw the first episode of Monster back in 2005, I was incredibly excited to find out that 20th Century Boys was receiving a U.S. manga release. Thanks to Viz Media, we now have not one, but three Naoki Urasawa titles available in the States (Monster, 20th Century Boys, and Pluto), and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. In fact, I’d even go so far as to humbly apologize to Viz, in general, for the amount of ridicule I privately heaped upon them for all of their errors back in the late 90s. Of course, that was before anyone really knew what manga was, and when all you could get in the store were titles like Dragonball Z, Inu Yasha, and Banana Fish, so no one really noticed when they got something wrong.

But three Urasawa titles? All forgiven.

I’ve heard 20th Century Boys described as a science fiction mystery, and I suppose I can understand why. Of course, having only read the first two volumes, I can really only speculate as to what’s going to happen. But true to Urasawa’s style, the implication is that it’s going to be something massive and amazing and potentially mind-blowing.

Maybe I’m hyping it up too much, but given how much I respect this author, I feel I have good reason.

The main character, Kenji, lives an ordinary life running a King Mart with his mother and looking after his sister’s infant daughter. Excitement isn’t exactly a part of his day to day life, and he certainly doesn’t have the time to go looking for it. But when a domino effect of unexplained events begins—including the disappearance of a university professor, the death of an old school friend, and the sudden outbreak of a viral epidemic—Kenji finds himself just as involved as anyone else. Central to all of these occurances is a symbol that Kenji finds familiar but can’t quite identify, and a cult whose leader is known only as the “friend.” Somehow these events are tied into Kenji’s childhood, but after so many years he can’t quite figure out how, exactly, it all fits together.

It took me a little while to figure out what was really happening in 20th Century Boys, as the beginning of the manga is a bit slow, and the timeline changes between two or three different years. Granted, the book informs you of what year you’re reading about, but, all the same, flashbacks (or flashforwards) can be occassionally disconcerting in any medium. It’s all build up, of course, and you get your first real taste of what’s to come at the end of volume one. By the end of volume two, most of the major players have had an introduction of sorts, and you can begin to theorize as to the shape the story is going to take.

It’s all very mysterious and sinister, but since Urasawa is the king of sinister, one could hardly expect anything else.

I’m interested in Kenji, the main character, because he’s at the other end of the spectrum when compared to Dr. Tenma from Monster. Tenma was a successful doctor, on his way to achieving everything he’d ever wanted, when he was thrust into a complex series of events. Kenji, by contrast, is just an average guy with his own personal issues who is barely making it by running the King Mart convenience store. He, of course, is being asked to rise above his ordinary life to achieve something, whereas Tenma had to turn his back on everything he had in order to chase the monster that was haunting him. All very intriguing to me, and I’m already seeing the changes in Kenji’s character that promise to make him a great protagonist.

This is also one of those stories that takes every moment of background and ties it into everything that’s happening at the present moment. I love stories like that, because the intricate weaving of plot, when done well, can be fantastic. It also means that you can’t trust any of the characters, because who knows what part they really play. I’ve already been surprised no less than twice, and that was just in volume two.

20th Century Boys promises to be an excellent and engaging series. Volume three comes out on June 16th, and I’m looking forward to it immensely.

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