20th Century Boys 14

Naoki Urasawa – Viz – 2011 – 24 volumes

Okay. I love this series to pieces. But I realized something this volume. Something I should’ve realized a long time ago. The foreshadowing? It’s getting absolutely ridiculous. No major event passes in this series without several characters seeing/remembering it, then talking about it very seriously for at least several chapters before it is revealed to the reader. That was fine when it was the identity of the Friend, or other people, but it happens with two separate events in this volume. I’m not even sure that they’re major plot points. All I know is that the characters are scared. Of something. Something that might be bad.

Actually, one of the events was more… bizarre than it was bad. I don’t even know if what we saw actually happened (because the ending was, in theory, impossible). But I don’t… I don’t know what it proves, other than the Friend is batty and eccentric. And we already knew that. The other thing is the identity of someone. And we don’t know who that someone is yet. But apparently several of the characters do.

Having said that, this series is pure, undiluted awesome. Most of this volume is a flashback to 1971, with Kyoko and Yoshitsune using the Friend Land program to enter a flashback of “what really happened in 1971.” These flashbacks are always an awful lot of fun, because even if the actions only have an abstract bearing on what happens in the present storyline (one that the reader isn’t privy to most of the time), I adore watching younger versions of all the characters as kids. Urasawa pegs everything about these flashbacks perfectly. They are simply kids being kids, with kid-like worries, fears, and dreams. All they wanna do is sneak back into the school and turn the fish pump back on, because they forgot. Telling ghost stories along the way is just par for the course.

We learn a little bit more about Manjome, the second-in-command of the Friend Party. We even get to see a past version of him. I’m not quite sure what his role is from here on out, but watching this poor shell of a man deal with grief and leadership is very interesting, even if we don’t know much at all about him. I’m looking forward to what he does.

Speaking of future roles in the story, I have absolutely no idea where the story is going from here, especially after the events of last volume. That was pretty much all I was expecting. There’s still the Friend Party, of course, and the characters still need to deal with the grip it has on the world, not to mention that silly virus, but the main threat seems to have been neutralized. Maybe. I’m looking forward to just what the plot is going to do with all these bizarre and fantastic story threads it’s been accumulating.

One more minor nitpick. So, Yoshitsune visits a bowling alley in 1971. In it, kids are playing pinball in a few panels. Now, I am what you might call a Pinball Wizard. A pinball otaku, if you will. Those pinball machines the kids are playing? Those are Williams SS machines, Pin-Bot and Comet, and they came out in ’85-’86. There is a third, but I don’t recognize the backglass. Shame on me. But judging by the score counters (they appear to be digital rather than reels), it’s also a solid state machine, which puts it post-’77.

Any sort of pinball in a manga is awesome, though, let alone seeing it in a manga as great as 20th Century Boys. This volume isn’t quite as action-packed, and I think serves more as exposition towards the next major storyline. Luckily I have one more volume here, so I intend to find out where this next little bit of story is going. I am currently very puzzled, but intrigued.