Hige vs. Otaku

Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys (because we apparently have to prefix everything he’s done with his name these days) is a worthy successor to Monster. It takes a huge ensemble cast and weaves them into a web of plot lines that would, reasonably, overwhelm lesser authors yet remains comprehensible and intriguing. Urasawa is Mr Manga Big Balls because of his ability to keep a firm handle of his immense ambition. Even two volumes in it’s obvious that Urasawa is making a point of his talents with 20th Century Boys, pushing them even further by incorporating a variety of timelines to keep us enthralled. It’s a little dizzying at first, but once the initial barrage of Mystery calms you know you’re in safe hands. Urasawa is a tender lover; he only wants to screw our minds in enticing little bits.

These first two volumes, unsurprisingly, are concerned mostly with character introduction. That’s not to say the manga’s secrets and mysteries aren’t given due attention but rather they’re alluded to through learning about a group of young boys in 1969 and their plans to save the world. Shoot forward a few decades and we’re placed in the current main timeline of 1997 and Kenji, seinen protagonist extordinairre, is fending off his disappointed ma (he sold their family liquor business to a franchise) and taking care of his AWOL sister’s baby, Kanna (permanently attached to his back via a papoose).

I’m going to tangent here a moment and exclaim that Kanna is the best character in these two volumes. All she can do is coo expressively, being two-years-old and all, but she steals the show every single time she appears. Oh, and she seems to be gifted. In the clairvoyant/supernatural sense. The smell of foreshadowing is strong with this one, but theorising aside Kanna is just a wee badass. Kenji’s undying dedication to her is perhaps his most endearing trait, too, he being something of a coasting, complacent thirty-something otherwise. In fact, the strongest moment of these two volumes is when we find out why Kenji is so committed to raising Kanna. It turns he and his erstwhile sister into pathos-rich, sympathetic characters — the kind you really need at the centre of narrative shitstorm, I’d say.

But yes, the main plot. It focuses on a shady cult who uses the same symbol devised by Kenji and his friends in ‘69, only rather than being a symbol of boyish fantasy it now represents something much more sinister. Rival cult leaders die mysteriously, the police force is infiltrated and a very creepy looking machine waits in the shadows, standing by for its destructive entrance. Kenji is pulled into the mess with the supposed suicide of an old school friend called Donkey, the snot-ragged super-speedy nerd who saved him from near death as a wean. Donkey’s death just doesn’t make sense and combined with some other strange occurrences, all linked by that ubiquitous childhood symbol, he’s dragged into something big; something apocalyptic.

I’ll admit it took me a while to warm to 20th Century Boys. It’s definitely more amiable than Monster, favouring tit-gags over dry hierarchical politics or rigid senses of duty, but the sweeping, expansive chronology we’re bombarded with felt like it diluted something. The second volume does no end in remedying this, however, and we get more attention paid to grassroots characterisation. Urasawa even fits in a tangential storyline that doesn’t relate to the main cast much at all, but still serves a wider purpose in demonstrating the creeping influence of this mysterious cult and its sinister leader, ‘Friend’. The diversion manages to break your heart in the space of a single chapter and is a genuine shock to the system. Urasawa didn’t pull this kind of narrative flair until much later in Monster and it suggests the bar has been raised with its successor. Either way, after reading just these two volumes the commitment of buying twenty-four of the bastards (including the final two under the title 21th Century Boys) seems much less imposing. My wallet would like to object, but no one cares what that guy says anymore.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under 20th Century Boys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.