20th Century Boys is a series that's had some phoenomenal success in Japan, and a strong following online before it was licensed by Viz. And now that the title has been put on store shelves, I went right on out and picked it up, because I was deathly curious as to what all the hype was about.
Hell, I was only a few steps away from ordering it on Amazon.jp.
The title doesn't just hold fan hype or mass-market appeal like Bleach or Gintama. This title won the Kodansha Manga Award in 2001, the Excellence prize at the 2002 Japan Arts Festival, and won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 2003. Those are some serious chops to back it up. Let's get into the title.
20th Century Boys
Naoki Urasawa
Published by Viz Media
Originally released in February 2009 ($12.99)
We all do silly stuff when we were kids. But that's what made those times so magical: forming your own secret clubs with your closest buddies, and having all sorts of adventures. It certainly makes me nostalgic for those times, and extremely grateful that I'm still together with my group of friends.
But as you grow up, it's really hard to always keep that group together. What if, something drew you all back together? Like a mysterious symbol from those carefree summer days, cropping up innocuously at first, only to be linked to several "deaths" and a cult? Well, it seems like it's time to reassemble the gang and figure out just what the hell is going on.
Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys is a tale that hooks you early on and doesn't let go. Jumping back and forth between the past and the present, Urasawa's tale slowly unfolds, revealing bits and pieces of information all centering around one question: who is this "friend" who is behind all this?
It's a fantastic mix of not only the plot itself, but who these characters are and why they're friends. There's rarely a page when I wasn't absolutely fascinated with what was going on with each character. It helps that the art is incredibly smart, well-done, and with a great attention to detail.
If you can't tell already, I'm saying that you need to pick up 20th Century Boys. The story stretches 22 volumes, and will surely twist and turn in a way that's truly remarkable. Len has been raving about it for a while, so I'm not too worried about dropping the $300 or so that this series will ultimately cost.
The only thing that I wish Viz would do is replicate the color pages that seem to be in the volume. I mean, with a price that's $3 more than a typical volume should get at least that -- this isn't BL, after all.
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