20th Century Boys

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The originality and success of 20th Century Boys owes itself to creator Urasawa Naoki's creativity and drawing talent. This is the kind of manga that you can get excited about and engross yourself in its story. Small boys in a little town dream big about saving the world and becoming defenders of justice, but the one thing they couldn't imagine is how their ideas will end up affecting the future.

Art

The art is great. The characters and environments have a consistent and interesting style, and the drawings are a pleasure to look at. Urasawa-sensei does a great job at keeping the physical look of the characters ... consistent and recognizable at different ages. If there are any complaints to be had, it's that a couple of the characters look rather cartoonish compared to the scenery they're placed against, and that some of the women are hard to tell apart.

Characters

While 20th Century Boys has a large menagerie of characters, they lack any real personality and are mostly defined by their physical characteristics (i.e. Yoshitsune is timid and has small eyes, Maruo is fat, Keroyon looks like a frog, etc). I fear that the creator was too focused on involving the characters with the plot that the audience is never given time to share in the experience of the characters and connect to them on an emotional level. Even the heroine of the story is never placed in a recognizable human situation (i.e. having a crush, being pressured by school or work, dealing with a friend in trouble). She's just a fearless, determined go-getter, and we can only guess at where her unbridled confidence comes from, since we're never shown. Koizumi is perhaps the only character who acts rationally, and she simply serves as comic relief. I must say that having "normal human behavior" be comical is telling of the story.

Plot

The story follows a cyclic pattern of A Revelation / We Save The Day (at least, for now). Since this is a mystery at its core, the Revelations concern clues as to the identity of friend or his next evil plot. The "Who's the culprit? Find out next week!" scenario can be interesting, but it's extended throughout the entire manga and soon becomes tedious. Since there aren't many characters to care about, their actions and speeches more or less pad out the long trip to the closing action of a conflict.

What Conspiracy?

I have a problem with accepting conspiracy theories. It's difficult to believe that so many people in different levels of the plot are "in on" the conspiracy. Even more difficult to explain is the motivations of the conspirators, and moreover, their reasons for not rebelling against the plot or spilling the beans. 20th Century Boys waves a hand over the issue of millions of people blindly following the evil "Friend". There are quite a few plot threads that are left hanging by the end, but ultimately all the audience wants to know the identity and motivations of Friend, and I must say that this is handled brilliantly.

Love, Peace, & Rock'n'Roll

20th Century Boys makes numerous reference to classic American rock bands and world events, such as the lunar landing and Woodstock. Rock reverberates through the story and gives it a unique style. The rock and hippie vibe exuded by 20th Century Boys is perhaps its most endearing trait.

Social Commentary?

It's hard to say whether the bands mentioned are reflective of Urasawa-sensei's own taste, but he does thrust three manga artists into the story who act as his mouthpiece for the hardships faced by manga artists. They exist to showcase "Friend"'s suppression and censoring of the arts, but for me the mangaka were a constant reminder that I was, in fact, reading a manga. I'm still not sure whether creating such blatantly autobiographical characters is appropriate or distracting, but I will note that the ratio of manga artist characters to main characters is about 1:5.

In Closing

I don't recommend 20th Century Boys to the passing manga fan. The concept is very interesting and the events of the story are a fun ride, but ultimately it's stretched out to a tedious length. However, if you want to buckle down and enjoy a manga for a while, 20th Century Boys is worth it.

More like 22 (+2) volumes of blue balls.
20th Century Boys promises a lot, shows the most exciting teases and engrossing demonstrations but all the build up is hardly worth a damn when nothing comes after.
I held off from reviewing this until reading 21st Century Boys since that seemed to be the real conclusion to the story and while is does a better job of giving some closure it's still awful.

Art: one of the few things that are absolutely impeccable about this manga. Urasawa is good or nearly perfect at everything that comprises the visual aspect of the manga. His characters fit right ... into the world with their appearance, with normal and grounded deisgns they appear extremely human. It accomplishes two things, first if all it makes the story appear more realistic and second it ascribes depth to characters without even writing anything. Now I wouldn't call most characters in 20CB particularly multi-layered or well developed but their appearance is a lot of the time enough to assume their personality. Some faces show wear and tear after decades of hard or just miserable living while others give away that everyone is cranium department is on paid leave for the foreseeable future. You look at these characters and you can already assume who they are and how they act just cause you can likely find someone to compare them to in real life unless your flat is your universe and venturing outside seems like too dangerous of an idea. This description might make it seem like Urasawa is some genius of photorealism but while his backgrounds and inanimate objects look very realistic, his characters are anything but. They are cartoony and often exaggerated to highlight their defining features yet the range of emotion and human expressions on character faces is incredibly lifelike.
Also worth mentioning is fluidity with which everything moves. Urasawa is amazing at depicting movement, force and momentum so every time any of that is involved it's a joy to see. This talent also bleeds into paneling and helps pacing tremendously. Panels are done is such a way that scenes and particular actions never stay on page longer than they should, making the viewer to over pages with speed that a relative match to what happens in the story. Even dring drawn out dialogues he usually never overloads any page with too much dialogue, spreading it out so that the flow is always consistent.

Story: 20CB is the worst thing I've read by Urasawa and a massive disappointed overall. It's a mystery with build up and suspense of unparalleled intensity but what was the point of it? The actual mystery and resolution to it sucked. I'm gonna assume here you've read 21CB cause if you haven't then you didn't actually finish this manga.
I will make a note of how brilliantly done the perpetual cycle of reveal and further mystery is done. Every other chapter we learn something new while also getting to ask new and intriguing questions. Questions so interesting that they make thousands upon thousands greedily go through chapter after chapter just so that their curiosity is satisfied. This means Urasawa succeeds . He made you care for characters and care for what happens to them and their world. He made a mystery so interesting that no matter how drown out and repetitive his very formulaic plot progression is the readers still ask for more.
I will also note that while this all sounds amazing, it all falls apart in the end. Me and many other people will probably agree that despite all his flaws, Urasawa is an excellent writer, meticulously introducing new plot threads and having them carefully tie into overarching story which makes this manga all the more peculiar.
So many characters are introduced simply as convenient plot tools that push things forward and then fall dead or fade from relevance. This relates not only to some minor characters either. The circle of Kenji's gang seems to grow bigger and bigger all the time. Other group of children related to antagonists gain a new member just before the end and that (from this description) seemingly minor character is actually the big bad himself.
Think this is appropriate time to say that the Friend, the main driving point of this mystery is simply awful. I can't go in much depth without spoilers but I'll generalise my problem with them is that not only their motivation is rediculous but they're not even an actual character with nothing, absolutely nothing else.
I saw the point how the childish reason behind a huge chunk of planet bleeding to death is a brilliant thematic tie in of how children tend to overdramatize things, how they take silly things seriously and don't know how to finish stories but I think that's trash. Even if this was more than a theory sparked by hard to process gap between terrible writing of the last stretch of the manga and Urasawa's talent, even if it was more than that, what's the point to it? This virtually non-existent theme is not doing any favors to the story so why bother, what's there to praise? Nothing.
Another thing is paranormal and psychological elements of the manga.
First of all everything related to precognition, telekinesis and everything else supernatural is just there to make sense of the plot without bothering to make Friend's plan make sense in a real word. How did he gather so much power and people devoted to him to an extent that they will kill heretics or give birth to his children? "Charisma" and other "esp" garbage, it's never actually explained or used outside of convenient situations so why bother. There are two events that make more sense of his popularity but even then, the entire humanity here is a supremely impressionable bunch. I think if they heard war of the worlds radio it would end with mobilizing military and launching nukes into space instead of a mere "panic".
Finally my last point is that it just drags on too long, much like this review at this point Urasawa just keeps coming up with the new "real" threat until reaching some arbitrary goal.
The result: jumbled mess of a story with screw all instead of conclusion.

Fun factor: if you're into mysteries for the ride alone, give this a shot, you'll love it more than you might expect. If you prefer the ride had a point and went towards a certain destination I'm not sure there's anything here for you. While most of this manga was a thrill, the ending is so bad that if I knew beforehand I probably wouldn't bother reading it.

Pros:
The whole first arc was so masterfully done. It instantly hooked me. I like how hatable and relatable the first MC is. It like how much you hated the shit you did as a kid and try to move on. I also liked the other characters in their group of friends. They felt fleshed out.

Cons:
The series was just artificially extended. The future arc was so disapointingly done despite the how good the seeds that the first arc planted. There were also a lot of time where I had to suspend my disbelief at how absurd the explainations that were given about the events. And the ... 'Who is the villain?' schtick that kept on dragging on. Bruh, (SPOILER:) He already died at about halfway through! Why did you introduce an 'imposter'. Is this Among Us!? Why!? It would have been more interesting to see how his empire, that needed him as a figure to survive, crumbled.

Conclusion:
It should have ended at the first arc. The rest of 100+ chapters were a drag to read through. The new MC was basically a mary sue and it was bad. The final reveal of the mystery and motivation was so disapointing. The series built it up so much that when it was revealed, it just disapointed me.

This story has many great traits but suffers from repetitive themes and the lack off some satisfying payoff. Since my enjoyment varied heavily from arc to arc, I want to rate them separately:

1st arc: 9/10
What I enjoyed here was the way the conspiracy was built up and the characters were sucked into it. This really had me on the edge of my seat. Also the link between the harsh adult life and the childhood nostalgia was a strong point.

2nd arc: 6/10
The enjoyment soon vanished, when I realised that the second arc offers pretty much the same progression as the first but with less interesting characters ... and less nostalgia. It becomes a drag to read due to the many chapters and the late reveal of one of the very few actual secrets of this story.

3rd arc: 5/10
What once started as a thrilling conspiracy story is now some sort of post apocalyptic adventure that lost any sense of threat. Unnecessary comebacks, the power of music and again the same story progression as in arc 1 and 2 really take the enjoyment out of this manga. It becomes painfully obvious, how Urasawa stretches the little actual mystery there is to endless lengths while recycling the same plot progression over and over.

Despite the good art and nostalgia qualities this manga became a frustrating experience to me because of several things. Most of the stuff you read doesn't affect the outcome of the story, an important character ends up being totally useless and the great reveal everyone was hoping for turned out kinda lame. Also you have some doctor that basically holds the key to all the secrets being kept out of the story with lame excuses just to avoid early reveals, someone becoming a public leader by hiding from public for most of the story and way too many implausible constructs (like that game and most of friends far from fail-safe plans) that had the single purpose of keeping the story alive for as long as possible. I would recommend you to read the really good first arc and google everything that happens after that. Safes you a lot of time and disappointment.

20th Century Boys is three different stories, each of varying quality, all packed into one package. It's a fascinating case of good but misguided intentions. I'm sure given the time to package it all up into three individual manga, Urasawa might well have created one of the greatest works of the early 'oughts. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Twentieth Century Boys begins passionately, a gripping and unsettling mystery. It begins with a simple dual narrative, following failed dreamer Kenji. There are two threads- one of Kenji's nostalgia for his childhood, a distant and long forgotten place- and Kenji's drab day to day life as a ... shop owner. And then, it suddenly all changes, with the arrival of Baby Kanna into Kenji's life. And around Kanna, strange things begin to happen. There isn't much more to say there. From that point on, the story rockets forward through plot points and characters, through suspicions and murders and suicides. The plot develops quickly, led on by these mysterious happenings centered around a mysterious cult leader.

The dual narrative becomes a brilliant narrative device, with warm nostalgia suddenly coloring themselves ominously. It is a race through Kenji's shared childhood to discover what he as forgotten. Paranoia. Fear. Conspiracy. This is one of the aspects of twentieth century boys that made me incredibly uncomfortable, because after all, nostalgia is just our faulty recollections of forgotten memories. I have little to fault here. It is evident, that Urusawa is a talented and capable storyteller.

But his brilliance in the minutae- dialogue, and panels and feelings- that is all lost for a lack of vision. I see Twentieth Century Boys as a three act tale. The first is Urusawa at his best, direct and purposeful in his story, dragging the reader along through a Kafkaesque maze of terror and apprehension. The first act left me biting my nails, worried about our protagonists and their struggle against some unknown greater evil. And that feeling, that heart-racing tension builds and builds and build. And then finally, we come to

And then, nothing.

Nothing at all.

All of a sudden, the story collapses. The tension goes away. Our characters see themselves out the door. Where twentieth century boys had once been an incredible thriller, all of a sudden we are faced with a parable of some kind. I don't know what to call that second act. There are feeble attempts at political commentary that don't ever go beyond whimpering cries of "freedom" or "fascism". Without that same purpose and intention driving the story forward feverishly, I found myself bored by the tale. Things happen, but they are all drab and droll, and the characters cliche now. Where the first act seemed like a seminal genre work- one of the best thriller manga in years- the second act is miserable and dragging.

The third, is even worse. Lacking any intention at all, the third is an amalgamation of loose story threads and a rushed ending. Urusawa tries to bring a variety of different points, from references to the American outsider culture of the sixties, and seventies- references to peaceful protest and Ahimsa, and then somehow manages to pull a full on Nuclear Gandhi move amidst it all. To top it off, the story ends in the direst cliche of shonen manga- happily ever after.

I think this is a work worth analysing. It was almost certainly a response to the '95 Shinrikyo attacks, due to its major themes being free thought and cultism. I don't claim to know any of the personal motivations of the authors, and little exist for Urasawa, but I think that this was a work he felt compelled to write. And there is that fundamental flaw, when I see an artist work and improve not what they are best at, but attempt to appeal to traditionalist senses of what an intellectual work must be.

There are many authors who set out to entirely raise the bar for fiction. Few even reach that preexisting bar. Urusawa is at his best not trying to artificially make his story "moral" or "deep". Twentieth Century Boys is at its best where it starts- atmospheric and tense. It's a pity that its all downhill from there.

Art: 6/10 Practical, if unexceptionall. It is clean and defined, with sharper angles lending it a certain menacing quality. There isn't much to say here.

Character: 7/10 Assuredly the one strong point was how relatable many of the characters feel. There is a certain humanity to each of them in all their portrayals, that show multiple facets. There are occasions where I find the development was forced, or perhaps irrational, but ultimately I found myself recollecting at the very least the protagonists.

Story: I found this the hardest point to rate, as I mentioned in my review. It varies so wildly in quality that I ultimately give it a 5. The first arc is easily a 9/10. The second a 6/10. The third a 2/10.

Overall: Twentieth Century Boys earns itself a deserved 6/10. I love parts of this manga, parts I absolutely adore. But then then I am again reminded of the whole laser pistol debacle, and I want to drown myself in misery. Give the first arc a chance. Don't bother with the second and third halves, you'll end up disappointed.

This is a typical Urasawa manga, meaning it starts off great, introduces engaging characters and weaves an intriguing mystery with great care and skill. And then, when it comes time for him to end it and resolve the various plot threads and mysteries... he doesn't.

Instead of a satisfying ending you are treated to multiple masturbatory volumes of the author self-insert becoming a wandering musician while the entire plot up to that point just collapses in on itself with the carefully characterized cast members suddenly acting out of character, chapters ending in increasingly nonsensical cliffhangers that never get resolved satisfactorily and shifting focus to the ... boring messianic musician subplot as Urasawa desperately tries to drag this shit on for as long as he can before his audience loses interest.

Objectively there is a lot to like about this manga. The art is great and most of it is a real page-turner. I will however never read it again: it's not clear whether Urasawa ever had a satisfying ending planned or whether he was just making it up as he went along but in any case what a waste of potential.