20th Century Boys 5
September 23, 2009
Naoki Urasawa – Viz – 2009 – 22 volumes
HOLY CRAP, WHAT?!
That’s about all I can say about this volume. It was excellent. Everything about it was completely unexpected. I can’t say too much about it without giving everything away, however. This volume just needs to be read to be believed. You will not regret it.
Urasawa avoids the problem of dragging a month out to fill 20 volumes by just getting the thing over with. I couldn’t believe it. I was not expecting the event in volume 5.
Moreover, the scene was spectacular. The way it started, the way the action panned around to all the different scenes, the different reactions, the final stand. It was beautiful, and I’ve never seen a sequence quite like it.
On the other hand, it cuts off and we still know absolutely nothing. My mind boggled when that awesome action scene suddenly just stopped in its tracks. It’s amazing it didn’t get whiplash.
Basically, we still know nothing. Well, I take that back. Now we know less than nothing, because in addition to all the unanswered questions from the previous volumes, now everything we know was taken away and we are following a different set of characters.
20th Century Boys, I could sit and watch you read the newspaper for 200 pages and I would still love you. Everything that’s happened so far has been nothing less than perfect and baffling in an addictive way, and this volume only cemented my admiration. I’m ready for the long haul, and as per usual, I have absolutely no idea where the story is going from here.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
September 23, 2009 at 10:18 am
I figured out what was going down (in the movie) as soon as Kenji made his speech, so it did not catch me off-guard, though it still made the impact. It might have surprised me more in the manga. However, we’ve established before that I generally anticipate this type of thing more than you.
Urasawa couldn’t drag this out longer because there is a lot more than has to happen. You may look forward to quite a bit of awesome.
September 23, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Officially can’t get my hands on this book fast enough! Infectious enthusiasm for a series I already have much faith in ^^
September 25, 2009 at 12:05 am
Lissa: This volume was pretty great. I liked 20th Century Boys an awful lot before, but I don’t know, this volume just had the right combination of awesome and unexpected that made me a fan for life.
Sara K.: Yeah, I’m still pretty bad at picking up on those things, I really should have seen it coming after he gave that speech… but I was at least expecting to see him fight after all that buildup. It was pretty funny when not even that happened. How is the transition handled in the movie? I was not expecting a cast and timeline shift like that, and given the amount of story that has yet to be told, how much time was Kenji’s story given? Or do they use a different narrative technique, like telling Kenji’s story in pieces while the rest is going on? That seems to be how his childhood flashbacks were handled in the manga. One flashback that’s been building up for all four volumes involved a pair of twins, and their story finally got wrapped up (or, at least, I think it did) in this volume.
September 25, 2009 at 11:06 am
The first scene in the movie is from Volume 6, and there are Volume 6 scenes throughout the movie. So even before we know who Kenji is, we know that events are heading in a certain direction. I thought the flash-forward scenes were awesome.
The movie also transitioned by virtue of being over. The next story arc begins with the second movie.
“… how much time was Kenji’s story given?”
Giving a coherent answer would be spoiling, so I’ll give you a cryptic answer instead : Gu ta la la, soo da la la.
September 27, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Yeah, I thought the breaks between the movies might serve as the best transitions, but now it makes me think things are going to get even stranger later on. I know the plot breaks again to start “21st Century Boys” in the last couple volumes, but now I have to wonder if things start over one more time.
And I’m sure I’ll thank you later for the cryptic answer. I’ll keep it in mind as I’m reading.
September 27, 2009 at 11:41 pm
It’s going to be a while before you see ‘gu ta la la’. I think it’s only in the last movie. Maybe the second movie too, but definitely not until near the end of the second movie.
Darn it, I just got an insight. Two characters got *********ed at almost same time, and I didn’t realize it until now.
Things do indeed get stranger. There is one more time shift, but the cast stays mostly the same. I don’t know where the transition to 21st Century Boys take place, or if it even takes place since the movie is supposed to have a different ending, but if it does, I would guess that it takes place during that crazy stunt in the middle of the third movie which I guarantee did not happen in the manga at all.
September 30, 2009 at 3:09 am
The movies keep sounding better and better. I’m still kind of hoping that the plot stabilizes and starts moving forward in such a way that I won’t be completely surprised by every little thing and will have at least some insight into what will happen next. If that ever happens, I’ll probably watch the movies immediately, but I don’t think things will straighten themselves out anytime soon. And I kind of like the craziness. And the fact that, apparently, things get much stranger, because I literally cannot imagine how that could happen, but I know it will.
September 30, 2009 at 10:09 am
By the third movie, there is some predictability because by then some themes have developed. There were a couple plot reiterations which I found annoying, but there were also plot reiterations which I found surprising.
Even though I have some quibbles about the (movie) ending, it really was not something I would have predicted.
Based on your reviews, I think you have a little more insight than you realize, but I won’t point out which remark you made that was particularly clairvoyant.
October 29, 2009 at 9:41 pm
What the hell? They just leave things hanging there in the middle. I was looking forward to getting the drama-candy all over again. Oh well, I suppose not revealing what happens when heroes confront the robot makes things more mysterious.
October 30, 2009 at 2:46 am
I know! I couldn’t figure that out, either. I was pretty upset when that was taken away, after everything that led up to it. Hopefully it’ll be that much better when it’s finally unveiled later.
November 10, 2009 at 3:33 am
Oh man, I just read this and would like to say a massive ditto to your above bafflement. What the hell? And yes, despite this – well, possibly because of this – it’s all amazingly good. Kanna and the manga guys look fascinating, plus Yukiji’s gotten more interesting… And I can’t even begin to think about Kenji.
(and I am now torn, because I do have access to translations of subsequent volumes, and even tho’ I’ll buy the Viz versions anyway I really, really want to know what happens next…)
November 13, 2009 at 2:38 am
Yeah, I have to admit, it’s really, really hard not to look this one up and just read ahead in the story. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tempted, and I would absolutely love to make sense of things. But I’ve held off this long only because each volume is always such a complete surprise as far as the story goes that I can’t bring myself to spoil it before I get it. That’s pretty much the only reason I’m going to hold off on the movies too, because they sound pretty awesome.
I’ll freely admit to reading Pluto all the way through, though. I think I was most of the way through that one before it was licensed, and finished it up right before it started coming out in English. I wish it had been 20th Century Boys instead, so I could just know already.
November 15, 2009 at 1:00 am
I’m holding off so far because I send my copies to a friend who’s also reading them (and has now managed to hook his little sister on the series – I’ve just sent her up the first volume of Banana Fish, as well) and I really enjoy discussing each one with him. I’m not sure he’d read on-line manga, and if I read ahead I then have to remember what’s happened when and so on. Hmm. However, I’m not sure I can keep on being that noble!
My understanding is that the first movie covers the first 5 volumes, so possibly I could watch that now… Or will that just increase the tension? Arggh.
(and I’d forgotten that I had Pluto! Hmm. Less time to wait on that one, but maybe I could use it as a substitute if the cravings for 20th century boys threaten to overwhelm me…)
November 16, 2009 at 1:32 am
I like Pluto, but the more I read of 20th Century Boys, it’s like every new volume is a disappointment simply because it isn’t 20th Century Boys. It’s also series like Pluto that make me hesitate a bit in spoiling myself on 20th Century Boys. I think I read most of Pluto after I read the corresponding story in Astro Boy and just followed it to the end, but the story didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me until I read the Viz version, and Pluto is probably one of the better scanslations I’ve read. I’d hate for all the major things in 20th Century Boys to be spoiled, and then be hazy on the details due to an unclear translation or something.
I’m also waiting for my roommate to start reading 20th Century Boys so I can talk the new volumes over with him (he’s read Banana Fish just behind me, and he’s going through Basara now, which pleases me to no end). He wants to wait until a few more volumes come out so that he can digest a whole lot at once, but I wish he’d start soon since I have a hard time not feeding him details anyway. It’s sort of the same situation too, where he would never read it online, and reading the new volumes along with him should be good fun.
November 22, 2009 at 11:10 pm
The first movie reveals what happens at the robot-showdown, so it would spoil that much, as well as some Volume 6. I can see how, from the perspective of the whole story, holding off that showdown sort of improves the overall storytelling structure, though they pretty much had to show the showdown in the first movie so that the movie would have a climax. I peeked ahead (because I don’t have to worry about spoilers) and it looks like they show what happens to Kenji and the robot in Volume 8.
And hurray for Basara :D
November 23, 2009 at 2:33 am
Great! I may go ahead and watch the first movie after volume 8 comes out. I wonder if the direction of the story will be more clear by then, too.
November 23, 2009 at 11:19 am
The more I come back to 20th Century Boys, the more I see how different the true natures of the events are from their surface appearance. The robot showdown is like that. In the movies it was a bit jarring, but at least by messing with the timeline in the manga the reader is prepared for things being different from how they seem.
The surface story of 20th Century Boys is that it’s a tale of epic heroism. Seeing the deeper story makes things read very differently.
And since you said this yourself -
“I was at least expecting to see him fight after all that buildup. It was pretty funny when not even that happened.”
I first read this remark before I realized that this volume skipped the showdown. While I thought it was an odd way of putting it and an exaggeration, it’s not completely inaccurate.