Thoughts on 20th Century Boys volumes 1-22 + 21st Century Boys manga
Woohoo! All done! After a week of late-nights because of its relentless cliffhangers I have finished Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys manga! Hoping to watch movie one this weekend and catch movie two in theaters this week.
Summary: A tale of latent homosexuality & obsession friendship, rivalry, and really GAY fascism ( Read more... )
Kanna very nearly ventures into Mary Sue territory a few times but I like her well enough to give her a pass on it. I wish we got into Kiriko's head a little more, she was quite underdeveloped for someone who played such a significant role. Was the relationship between her and Kanna's father ever romantic? Or was it only ever manipulation and 'business' for him?
Kanna and Nina are similar characters to me in that I love them the way Koizumi and Lotte love them (like a dorky fangirl, basically), and as a result I too give them a pass on how perfect they are. Plus there's a gentleness and humanity to Urasawa's perfect characters, and the way they act as foils for the world around them, that makes me love them so much more than your typical randomly magical, strong, lovable heroine. She acts as a conduit between the other characters, too, and her purpose to me just seems less to be held up as an example of perfect supergirlhood but to bring the rest of the cast together and move the plot forward, so I don't mind her perfect supergirlness myself. THIS IS ALL MY WAY OF AGREEING WITH YOU, basically, and I agree so much on the rest too. I often forget Kiriko was ever named in the plot, she got so little characterization, and that makes me sad when Urasawa IS such a master of characterization overall - I'm sure if he tried with her, she could have been a brilliantly interesting character with an amazing backstory, but he didn't, really much at all.
I also share every one of your ships! And found this series remarkably shippable overall - such gay tense relationships between so many of the men and men and women and women characters! It was really very delightful.
My friend wrote some Kenji/Otcho fic that she post here, and for her birthday last year I started some unfinished Kenji/Otcho of my own, here. I never finished itbecause it got jossed by the end of 21st Century Boys, and I also just wasn't that proud of this (it's actually the first fic I ever posted!), but I've yet to find ANY other fic for this pairing so I thought I'd link these to you.
I'm still wishing there were Fukubei fic out there somewhere. He's a really really really FUN character, in my opinion, above all else. His neurotic and manipulative relationships with the people around him - Kenji, Manjoume, Sadakiyo - are really quite delicious intriguing to me.
You get all fired up about hating Friend and his coterie in the beginning, but by the end I really felt sorry for many of them. Fukubei, Sadakiyo, Katsumata, Manjoume, Kiriko, and even Takasugi were all victims in a way. Victims of their own desire to be liked, to be important to the world/to someone, even when they did terrible things the root cause was that same desire for love and respect. I admit to tearing up at Sadakiyo's and Katsumata's death scenes.
Yes yes yes to all of this. Sadakiyo in particular was one of my favorite characters. Poor guy, I'll miss him.
Kenji's return was so delightfully satisfying to me, I pardoned it for being BLITHELY RIDICULOUS and soap operaish in more ways than one (amnesia, saving the world through rock and roll, not returning till the moment when he was most needed, oh boy) because it was such an exciting reveal and I was so happy for him, that, comical as it is in a way, he really got to use his music for something so productive. (Speaking of which, have you seen these? Videos of Urasawa singing Kenji's song, one that came with the manga and one of him rockin' out in public. He is too good to be true.)
FINALLY, IN GENERAL I'm just cracking up at how gay you found the series overall, because it SO IS.
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Contrast this to men, who are more often portrayed as evil amoral from childhood onwards (Johan and Fukubei come to mind) compared to their female counterparts. So it's a bit easier to give the girls a pass because it's quite entrenched in literary tradition.
Kiriko was more a plot device than a character, IMHO. We never get into her head in any significant way and it's sad because Urasawa could have made her much more compelling.
I also share every one of your ships! And found this series remarkably shippable overall
Yay for fandom twinness!
There are a lot of series where I darn well know that my fangirlism is more responsible for the ships than the source material, this ain't one of them. Despite not having romance of any kind in the central theme of the story, it was exceedingly ship-tastic. And gay. Really gay.
And yay fic links! I like 'em! I am intrigued by your premise of Kenji getting amnesia again and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. It seems like there is very very little fic for this fandom, even less than Monster. Hmmmn, guess I should contribute even if it is just drabbles of gayness or post-series semi-fluff (or Fukubei's puberty years because that would be so much headcase bad lulz and masturbation to images of Kenji and dominating Manjoume in his free time). In short, ENCOURAGE ME! I write better with pressure prompts.
I think Fukubei can be hard to understand, like Johan, he's crazy but I think it's daunting for a writer to get their craziness right. On the other hand, with both of them you can more or less fudge it by utilizing their canon homoerotic obsession with the protagonist and general amorality.
Sadakiyo in particular was one of my favorite characters. Poor guy, I'll miss him.
He just wanted friends and alien friends! At least Kenji was kind to him! Although his bevy of masked children was a little creepy and seemed like a cloning experiment gone awry I was awfully suspicious since the Friend Party did mention cloning research as part of their budget. What will they do without the King of Masks? Other than take off their masks?
Kenji's return was so ridiculous, but I loved it and was so happy he came back ("Justice never dies!"). I hope he teams up with Otcho to fight crime/rock 'n' roll/raise war orphans post-series. You now since it's left kind of vague and all...
Yukiji can join them if she feels like it because she is awesome.
Urasawa singing Kenji's song is too amazing! The first thing I thought when we 'hear' his song in the manga was, "I want to hear it!"
Hahahaha, there is no imaginary GAY in 20CB only the real deal! I actually do like how emotional and tense the relationships are in the story. I've read romance-centic manga (both het and slash) that were far more shallow. I've also read yaoi manga that was less gay than this. Oh, Urasawa why are your protagonists the focus of so many same-sex crushes and desire? LOL
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