20th Century Boys 12
Posted: January 15, 2011 Filed under: 20th Century Boys Leave a comment »Naoki Urasawa – Viz – 2010 – 22 volumes
I’ve been away a while. It’s nice to get back to this series, though. I know I sound like a broken record, since I have a lot of favorites, but this is one of them. It’s just gripping stuff, and with all the craziness it’s been building up since the first volume, now that we’re starting to get explanations for some of it, I can’t read the volumes fast enough.
What kind of explanations? How about the friend. Oh yes, no fake-outs this time. At least, I think so. We find out who the friend is at the end of the volume. And it made me want to read back through all the old ones. That’s all I’ll say on the subject.
What else happens? It hasn’t stopped dipping into the past, and I love that, even still, memories of Kenji inform absolutely everything that’s going on, both on the Friend side and the anti-Friend side. Connections to Kenji’s sister and the scientists that worked with her keep popping up, and Otcho investigates a lead at his old school based on a secret message system he remembered one of his more sinister classmates telling him about back in grade school. Apparently, because of this, Donkey saw something he shouldn’t have, though Otcho declined to tangle with them back in school. Nowadays, though? It’s on.
Hilariously, in the same school, the same room, and with the same book, copyright 1968, that has stayed in the library for 45 or so years.
What else? We also catch up with Maruo. His role in the story is an interesting one, and gives us yet another angle. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I liked him a lot in this volume, and am looking forward to where his story takes us.
And that’s it for this time around. Looking forward to the next one, which I’ll probably read this weekend.
