20th Century Boys and understanding Fukubei
TW: spoilers of 20th century boys.
Btw, my native language is not English so beware any mistakes :)
I like Naoki Urasawa's work. A lot. And I like noticing parallels. A lot too. So it's interesting to see how many of the ideas he used in 20th Century Boys pop up in Monster. The most important one probably being the identity problems his antagonists face.
You see, Johan and Fukubei share more than style. They are both men that barely understand themselves. Johan is a monster with no name and Fukubei is a man with no face. Their poor identity stems from the context they come from: one faced the aftermath of war and was the result of scientific experimentation, the other one lived through an era of hype for future progress that could never live up to its expectations. Now, in this... meta? Rambling? I'm not gonna do a deep dive on Johan cause there are far better essays analyzing him. I'm just pointing one of the many similarities between 20th Century Boys and Monster cause it's fun and I need an introduction before I dwell unto my subject: Fukubei.
On one of the first times he's introduced, he's showing his back to us while answering a question from his follower. Right there, he says he's Collins. We'll see this point being repeated over and over with him finally discussing it in far more detail the night he's killed in the science room. He's Collins because he was so close to the moon but never got the change to walk on its surface. He was overlooked and forgotten. No one ever paid attention to him.
It's clear what Fukubei wants: attention and recognition. The first person who notices him and spreads his story about the expo is Kenji and without him knowing, he gives Fukubei the thrill he was looking for: the feeling of being alive.
That's how Kenji became an important part of Fukubei's journey. He wants to be like Kenji and he wants his attention. I won't go into detail about their relationship cause I want to dedicate it its own post, but this is enough info for now.
To be honest I’m a bit inclined to believe Fukubei wanted friendship, but instead absorbed others. This all thanks to his poor grasp on his identity: he doesn't know where he ends and others start.
Also, let's note that Fukubei doesn't identify with either his name or Hattori. When he meets Sadakiyo, who is confused what to call him, Fukubei replies he should only call him friend.
And in that point the term "Friend" encapsulates Fukubei's emptiness. His lack of connection to his identity that it would only get worse as time went on.
This manga is full of motifs. One of the most important being the teru-teru bozu which captures the complex relationship between Fukubei's sense of self and his lies. The teru-teru bozu is introduced as a symbol of deception and tricks. Later we see many panels of Fukubei identifying with it.
Also -and this is me using the opportunity to share all of the screenshots I took of this manga- let's see when the narrative parallels him to the teru-teru bozu.
Just like Fukubei says when Sadakiyo asks why not draw a face on the teru-teru bozu: it's scarier without one.
There's a pretty big emphasis on how lies impact Fukubei's identity. They are there to compensate for his lack of identity. He believes his own lies and he later identifies with them so much being called a liar offends him. Again, let's see his reaction when Donkey calls on his bluff, and when he says to Manjome what he wants.
And...
Now, Fukubei refuses to acknowledge that the world is out of his control. Let's look at his death scene. How surprised he is of his own mortality. Another example is in chapter 172, one from his pov when he says "My dream is not a dream. It is not a dream, because it really will happen.” Look at the refusal to face the world.
Before I deep dive into a question I have about Fukubei, I would like to talk about the meaning of lighting a candle in the science room just to pay attention to Urasawa's amazing use of symbols. When Donkey steps into the classroom, he reveals Fukubei's miracle to be a trick. When Yamane waits for Fukubei in the classroom to kill him, he reveals him as a liar. Both Yamane and Donkey are men of science, lightning a candle in the middle of the darkness to dissipate the illusions and bring back reality.
Also, they both killed Fukubei in a way. Donkey by ruining Fukubei's miracle and Yamane straight up killing him.
In the science room Fukubei "died" and Friend was born. Friend is this persona, this literal mask people with shaky identities use to hide behind it. After Donkey ruined Fukubei's act in front of his group, Fukubei takes refugee in Friend. Friend is on top of the chain. He is the leader of the cult, the world president, the one who foresees the future. And by merging with him, Fukubei validates his own existence through the validation of his tricks as this persona.
And this mergence was doomed to happen. To hammer the importance of lies for Fukubei's identity before becoming Friend, let's see this panel of Yamane in the science room.
I know many people are intrigued about Fukubei's Friend, but I like Fukubei's backstory more. Especially when we start talking about The Hanging Hill, and a question that pops up while reading that part. Why can't Fukubei see the real ghost?
There are many ways to interpret the scene. The most logical being that maybe this part is there to remind us of Fukubei's inability to see the truth. But was this inability predetermined? Did he develop it? Does this mean that because he can't see the truth, his path was doomed to only see lies? How much agency would he wield in that case? From this reading, some readers might infer that Fukubei is probably mentally unwell. Personally, I'm not a fan of diagnosing characters with something. Maybe because if the story doesn't explicitly say what the character has (in that case, I can judge or seek others to judge how accurate the representation is), the writers code their characters with an agglomeration of characteristics from different mental disorders. Honestly, I won't dip my toes in these waters. Just a thought that occured while reading.
By the way, what Kenji, Occho and Sadakiyo saw in that room was a noppera-bo: a faceless ghost.
In case I forget this in my next essay about Katsumata, it's interesting how just like him, Fukubei had to die before Friend was born. Kinda highlights the unspoken importance of personas in this manga and its influence on the world.
Finally, this leads me to the heart of this post and the next ones: 20th century boys take refugee in Friend. Behind his mask, these men hide their fickle identities and their disillusionment of the future by trying to turn it into what they desire it to be. One of the most important themes in the manga are the acceptance of reality and the process from childhood to adulthood. Will you hide from reality and force the world to bend to your desires? Or will you accept the world as it is and take responsibility for your actions?
One last thing: I love how Urasawa tears down the image of Friend and shows how pathetic and sad the lives of those men behind the mask were. And all of this without justifying their actions. Urasawa doesn't let Friend's lies captivate the reader. He shows the ugly truth behind it. Many times in media, we mistify evil. Maybe because it is in its very nature to be mistified or maybe its in ours to mistify it. Either way, we understand what caused the birth of this persona and maybe for all us, 21st century people, this is the best advice we can receive from someone from the past century.
