Yes, I tend to choose manga titles that are, in some way, already proven — their ratings usually hover on the higher end. I’ve been burned twice so far, though not here. Here, my friends, we have one of those cases where I wanted to write about the title while reading it. You know what I mean? I’m reading, and my fingers are already searching for the keyboard, my brain is forming sentences, pulling memories from storage — both the literal ones from childhood (since the manga deals with that, among other things) and those tied to several titles that are significant to me, works I’d like to place on a similar orbit.
So after the first volume, 20th Century Boys is ultimately hard for me to classify, although Stephen King’s prose kept lingering in the back of my mind — his knack for circling around adults who must confront the demons of their past. I won’t stray far: I’ll reach for one of the classics, my beloved It and the Losers’ Club formed by the kids from Derry. Later, as readers, we learned about that whole past, that childhood, when these now‑adult people — with adult problems and traumas — had to summon real demons from their memories, face them, piece together some kind of picture from the fragments, and ultimately defeat the monster.
Here, the device is similar, but since the story spans many volumes, I suspect the scale will be at least epic. Nothing will ever surpass It for me — it’s a literary masterpiece — but the first volume of 20th Century Boys delivers a comparable sensation.
So: coming of age, childhood sins and worries, a club of friends, a mysterious symbol invented in their youth, and now — in adulthood — the death of one of them. How? It seems impossible that this man, so cheerful and settled, would take his own life.
Kenji can’t let it go. He runs a general store, raises his sister’s child, life keeps blowing against him, and now this — the death of an old friend. One could walk past it, shrug it off. But the friend left a letter, asking about the symbol (that sign) they supposedly drew in childhood. What is it? What does it mean? Where did this letter and this question come from?
And so the real story begins — like assembling memories from blurred images. Since there are many characters, we get glimpses into their childhoods: better, worse, difficult, easy — always portrayed with a great deal of empathy. The narration is jagged, jumping across different years; at first I found it hard to read, but thanks to the fluid panel editing and the absorbing plot, I devoured it in a single breath. Mysteries are uncovered, but soon another corridor appears, with more doors. The friends investigate — now adults — the police investigate too, more clues drop, and you can feel the weight will be too much for Kenji to carry alone.
I sense that this manga grows out of an obsession with memory. It’s a comic that doesn’t just tell a story — it examines the way childhood narratives return as structures of adult fear. Urasawa builds a more expansive form (more so than in Monster, another title bearing his name). Here he blends thriller, nostalgia, and social commentary. This form ultimately channels itself into a tale about a group of boys who unknowingly design their own future, and later must confront its distorted version.
I also knew what kind of artwork to expect from the author. The panels fall into a rhythm that constantly shifts tempo: speeding up in danger sequences, slowing down on a character’s face to let the emotion resonate.
The visual narration itself works like a memory mechanism. Flashbacks aren’t an add‑on but a parallel layer that enters into dialogue with the present. Yet these memories aren’t sentimental nostalgia. They’re nostalgia as a destructive force, capable of taking control of reality.
For now, 20th Century Boys is, to me, a story about responsibility for one’s own fantasies — about the fact that imagination is not innocent. Urasawa shows how people can become trapped in a narrative that began as a childhood game. Excellent.
