20th Century Boys (manga)

[unguanime]

This manga is the work of Naoki Urasawa, who is also known for Monster and PLUTO. I began to read Urasawa’s work starting from Monster (I’ll write a review about it later ‘cause I haven’t finished it yet). I rent it from a rental near my house. The rental only has 6 volumes of Monster so I moved on to 20^th Century Boys while waiting for Monster.

It turned out to be the right decision.

 

20^th Century Boys tells about how scary child’s play could be. In 1980s, Kenji Endo and his childhood friends built a secret base camp made of grass and a symbol of their friendship. They wrote the “Book of Prophecy”, their vision about the future. According to their tale, the future would be in danger, there would be a pandemic caused by a virus and a chain of disasters. They will appear as heroes of justice and save the world.

In 1997, a mysterious group was formed by a man called “Tomodachi” (English: “Friend”, Indonesian: “Sahabat”). Tomodachi always wears a mask with the symbol that Kenji and his friends created in their childhood times. And one by one, the incidents in the “Book of Prophecy” came true.

This manga would never let you stop wondering what’s going to happen next. The mystery was built in such an interesting way. The flashbacks of Kenji’s childhood days were cunningly written to guide us as Kenji and his friends tried to remember those old times. There are a lot of flashbacks, the past is an important key to find out who Tomodachi is and how to stop him.  

 

 

If you enjoy suspense, it’s the right manga for you. If you’re not a fan of this genre, you could still give it a try. One of my classmate is the proof. She is a fan of shoujo (girl) comics and don’t like mysteries or “hard” stories. She doesn’t even like continuous manga. But she found 20^th Century Boys as enjoyable. She is a fan of it now. She even haven’t read the earlier volumes of the manga, she read it from volume 13.

The downside of this manga is the ending. It’s not that it’s not good, but it’s not better than the earlier volumes. Tomodachi ruled the world, Kenji and others tried to stop him. Tomodachi died and then Kenji tried to find out the real Tomodachi in “21^st Century Boys”, the sequel and end to 20^th Century Boys. I guess the story lost a little of its suspense after the “ruling the world” thing. I don’t know why, but same goes to Code Geass after Lelouch became the Emperor of Brittania. But the most unexciting part of the ending is when Kenji tried to find out who Tomodachi is. It’s too bad that the ending couldn’t excite me as much as the earlier volumes. But still, it’s not a waste to read this.