20th Century Boys Chapter 249 Discussion

What a shitty ending. Most of the plot went nowhere, the series itself took a turn from conspiracy to surreal and the whole of humanity was really stupid. The replacement of Friend being in a sequel doesn´t make it any better, and neither Kenji or Fukubei were interesting in the end. The first 50 chapters were the best, but after the first timeskip it became "Plot convenience: the manga". The Friend era just didn´t make any kind of sense.



For being "The Magnum Opus" of Urasawa, this was really, heavily flawed. Also, Friend going from a mysterious politician to an obsessed child filled with jealosy was terrible. Even worse when they switched the dude for a nihilistic idiot.

Captivating like almost no other story and a great read overall,but it could've been even better if it weren't for the pacing issues and anticlimatic final.



Despite these flaws I can't see myself giving this anything less than an 8/10.

it was good, i liked it.

wait whaaaat,,, that was the ending???? i dont even know what to say. i have so many conflicting feelings rn. i loved the beginning and middle of this series, but idk i stopped enjoying this series as much as i used to and then around vol 20 i really truly stopped vibing w this series. it just wasn't feeling as good as it was near the beginning. the ending made me sad (though im happy that kenji and kanna + everyone else reunited) - for such a long series i was expecting a more satisfying ending.



this was a strong 10/10 for me for a while but the last few volumes were overall disappointing and honestly boring to read. i liked seeing all the flashbacks/scenes of them as kids and i loved kenji's group of friends, but this cast of characters started getting way too big at some point. so many things were dragged out , and i get the strange feeling that i'm forgetting some important plot lines,,, i am reading the character wikis online currently and i feel rlly dumb for forgetting so much stuff but at the same time like how am i supposed to remember when there's 50 million things happening in between of me questioning a scene and me receiving an answer to that scene.



aaa, kinda depressing that my frustrations are overshadowing what i loved about this manga. i'm estimating that this manga started falling off for me around when the friendship era began? i think? pretty much everything before that was so fun to read. i loved seeing the boys as kids and i loved when scenes were shown from different POVs (like hanging hill from kenji's POV and then fukube's POV later on, which answered my question as to who was standing behind the teru teru bozu). when they were first introducing the characters post-timeskip i was so hyped -- like the plot of otcho at the prison,, i really enjoyed reading that. i like koizumi's character as well. i'm forgetting a lot about sadakiyo because it's been a while since i read the story of him post timeskip (and pre timeskip too honestly) but he is probably one of the boys who's really up there for me,, i liked him a lot -- tho the disrespect @ me forgetting so much about his character :-( aaaa reminiscing about this stuff is making me want to go back and read the first 15 or so volumes,, this is still definitely one of my favourite manga no matter how boring i found the last part,, i can't trash this manga for a frustrating ending because so much of it was so fun to read



all in all i'm gonna miss reading this series but i'm happy to move on to something else. man it's been like 3 years for me , the series has been out for ages , i just took way to long to read this LMFAO



uhhh but i seen there's a 21st century boys which i honestly had not planned on reading but now i feel like i neeeed to. maybe we'll get the satisfying ending we deserve????

I thought the only reason I read this is some random dude on YT mentioning how he found it in the bargain bin section for like... 50 cents a piece-?

If that was the actual ending it would have been incredibly weak especially after all that build up, almost all of the characters and plot threads either went nowhere or were given very unsatisfying conclusions. 21st Century Boys had better make up for that.



Other than that I've really enjoyed the series overall, even if it went on for too long. I liked the characters all the way through, but things in the main plot started to get repetitive.



I think what I love about Urasawa is his way of juggling the interlocking narratives of a huge cast of characters while the overarching plot progresses very subtly throughout, and of course his great art and designs.

The ending happened so quickly?! But still a solid story honestly soo good.

Alright finally completed it,  actually thought that this one will take me a month but surprisingly it took me only a week for its rollercoaster pace.



20th CB started off excitingly, a gripping pace with titbits from past to keep the readers engaged.  Imo,  the concept though may sound silly(it's childish anyway)  was brilliantly executed so that the readers are constantly drawn in to search for the answers and clues.  This continued till the death of the first "Friend" and the manga's quality was 9/9.5 until therethere,  but Urasawa drove himself to a corner by the introduction of a second "Friend" and never quite  brought the same quality back again.  The only thing that kept on ticking is the mystery of the second "Friend" whom many people believed to be Fukubei and some questions unanswered, but the problem is that the readers are blueballed ultimately. And yes I know very well 21st CB explains that,  but there are clearly not enough foreshadowings in the main series  and one of the hints just feel shoehorned for the sake of it.



Another problem with the last half is that Kenji got bailed out quite hilariously by the power of his musical charisma(he would have been dead 3-4 times tbh),  characters quite magically popping up out of grave which was quite expected(poor Mon chan tho), and introduction of new characters which clearly no one had interest in, like that of DJ. Also yeah, flying saucers and what not lol.



Now talking about the characters, perhaps I actually found them the strongest point of the series,  with the exception of Kenji's character in the last half as I said.  No doubt it matches his aspirations as a youth but was too convenient. I really liked Kanna's character,  perhaps my favorite of the series along with Otcho,  and most of the main cast was pretty great too.



I liked how the ending played out with Kanna even though it was underwhelming. Also Idk if it was only me,  but some of the plotlines were quite predictable to Monster and Pluto,  but more importantly, I called the identity of the First friend a long ago in the "Fukubei" chapter.  I mean come on,  that cheesy overdramatic confrontation,  the golden rule of "not dead if body is not checked" and a number of clues gave it away for me.



I am sure Urasawa himself knows he could have done the ending better,  maybe that's why he made a new ending a few months ago with its new release(still waiting for anyone to translate it).



Overall I am conflicted between 8/9, I will give it a 8 now since I gave 9 to Monster which is overall a more polished work imo,  and maybe change it to 9 afterwards if I feel like it.