20th Century Boys 2

Naoki Urasawa – Viz – 2009 – 22 volumes

Man, I don’t know how this series can keep getting awesome like this for 20 more volumes.  The pace is pretty fast now, and so much has been added in just these first two volumes that it’s almost impossible for me to guess how much else will be added to the mix.  It’s also rather impossible to tell at this point where the story is going at all, which is great in this case since it means all bets are off.

I was rather surprised that information about “friend” was revealed in this volume.  It was made pretty clear that he was one of Kenji’s friends, but I thought that there would be a lot more reminiscing and details added before the story got into what happened to the friend between being a kid and being the leader of some hardcore cult.  It’s also interesting because the name and identity of the “friend” mean literally nothing at this point past the fact that he grew up with Kenji and is now the leader of a cult.  It doesn’t really matter who he is or what else he’s done.  But having the information available at this stage is interesting, and I know it will be useful later.

The most touching thing in this volume was the parts in the middle and towards the end of Kenji’s sister.  Kenji was spoiled by her growing up, ridiculously so, and seeing his devotion to her daughter Kanna, when it would be easier to do something else with her, is really sweet.  It also looks like Kenji’s sister is (surprise, surprise) somehow involved with the cult, and it will be interesting to see how deeply she is involved.

The machinations of the cult are, as revealed in the first volume, entirely based on Kenji’s childhood fantasies.  I like that he’s being called a “prophet” for saying things any normal kid would say.  That the possible end-of-the-world nature of the series is literally based entirely in childhood fantasy is a level of awesome I diddn’t think it was possible to convey.

But yes.  At this point, two volumes in, this story has a lot more polish and depth than Pluto.  I like Pluto a little more still, but it’s hard to say that it is superior in any way to this one.  At least while both are two volumes in, anyway.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.