20th Century Boys Chapter 249 Discussion

I don't know where else to say this. But fucking finally!!!! They changed the entry volume cover from vol 5 to the original vol 1. God bless 🙏🙏🙏

Fucking fantastic! The amount of effort & thought Urasawa put into this is praiseworthy. Unfortunately, there are some unanswered questions for me which prevent me from giving it a perfect score and calling it Urasawa's masterpiece.



Otcho was my fave, and the close runner-up being Kanna.



9/10

Great manga but sadly i can't give it more than 7/10. Just because of the amount of unanswered question it left. And the characters that were left behing (mainly chouno). All i can hope is for the sequel to give me clear answer ES.

VitaX said:
After finishing this manga, the ending wasn't quite what I had pictured. Though it was satisfying to some degree. I'll post my thoughts below:



My thoughts on 20th Century Boys:



- The introduction of Friend (1997) and how he relates to Kenji in the beginning was amazing and thrilling. One of the best introductions of a manga if not the best out there.



- Events up to "Bloody New Years Eve" (1997-2000) was done brilliantly. The 3 year time skip that showed how much the world had evolved and what happened to Kenji in that time period was awesome. And then going to face off against the robot on New Year's Eve was epic as well. I was a bit surprised this was done roughly 200 chapters before the end of the manga though because I had thought this was going to be the climax of the story.



- The time skip (2000-2014) at first had me concerned with where the story was going. But when Friend was revealed to have won the bout with Kenji and his scheme made him the savior of the world things were bound to get interesting. 1997-2000 was the getting ready to fight arc if I have to give an explanation of it. The time skip was more psychological as it dealt with "Friends" past and what happened exactly in the past. Skeptical for a while until Otcho and Yoshitune turned up badass as ever. I liked how both character's evolved into something much greater. I wasn't sure how I was going to adjust to 50 year olds saving the world now but it was more epic then the previous arc "Bloody New Years Eve". The introductions of Sadakiyo and Yamane were done brilliantly. I wasn't sure about this virtual world of 1970 at first but it turned out to be very interesting. The hanging hill and science room bits were explained in greater detail later on which was great. A thing that annoyed me for a while though as it was never truly explained was what exactly happened on "Bloody New Years Eve". Yeah we got to hear some vague stories from Yoshitune, Maruo, Kenji, and Otcho but it wasn't enough to satisfy me. I'm most curious about the face-off between Fukubei and Kenji on the robots. The most we ever got to see of that was Kenji saying "You...but you're dead." I was hoping we'd get more details on that part later on but I guess not. The death of Fukubei was surprising to say the least. But when he appeared again and saved the Pope's life I had thought it was just another one of tricks but...



- The next time skip (2015-2018 or Friend Year 1 - Friend Year 3) wasn't to me liking. Not quite sure why I didn't like it as much as the previous arc but to me it just wasn't as good. The whole "alien invasion" bit started to get annoying after a while. Not to mention Kenji was still nowhere to be found (I knew he'd pop up sooner or later but after going 140 chapters or so without him was starting to effect the story for me). I didn't like how they introduced a new character, the DJ, and that he was an old friend of Kenji. In my mind, I don't believe at this point of the story a new character needed to be added in. To me it felt there was too many characters to look after at this point and that it would start effecting the story. For me it did. I also thought it was unrealistic for Yanbo and Mabo to come back into the story and have designed the flying saucers for "Friend". Seemed ridiculous to me. It was a bit of a shock that the "Friend" now was not Fukubei, wasn't sure if I liked that or not. But it made for an even more interesting story now. When Kenji and "Friend" finally faced off, I wasn't too sure as to how it would play out. It wasn't exactly how I had imagined it would take place. Can't say for sure if I liked it or not.



-Final scene being the reunion of Kanna and Kenji wasn't a bad place to end. I was somewhat disappointed that the final scene wasn't with Kiriko as well. Overall I give it about a 9.6/10. One of the best manga's I've read. Would give a perfect 10 but I just didn't like how the story kept getting more and more jam packed with characters and having their character's being built upon and not having a real conclusion for them.



Exactly the same opinion herz

I didn't know where else to ask this so I'll post it here. Is fukube's lack of a face in chapters 173,174 just a way to foreshadow katsumata or is there another meaning behind it I missed? Also what was it that otcho and kenji saw that scared them in chapter 175? Was it just their reflection?  Thanks in advance

a beautiful manga though the ending was a lil nuanced to say the very least but damn. wow

It was amazing, but it went downhill after the original Friend died. Up to that point, the timeline flowed well and I kept track of all the characters but afterwards when "Yabuki Joe" showed up, everything was everywhere and I got lost in the storytelling. Anyway, it was a great series and I'm gonna finish it by reading the sequel!



Also, I still think Monster was better



8/10 as well.



skyzblue said:
Well, its been a great ride. And I agree with some of the users, the manga went a bit wayward in the last few volumes. The annoying recurrence of everyone miraculously coming back from death didn't get to my liking. Also the alien invasion thing was pretty dumb.

A magnificent first 120+ chapters, then at around vol 14 the level of the manga slightly dipped. Still one of the best storytellings I've experienced for some time.

I'm going to give this one a 8/10 for now. Depending upon how 21st CB wraps up the details, the score for this could rise to 9.

Exactly my thoughts.

VitaX said:
- The next time skip (2015-2018 or Friend Year 1 - Friend Year 3) wasn't to me liking. Not quite sure why I didn't like it as much as the previous arc but to me it just wasn't as good. The whole "alien invasion" bit started to get annoying after a while. Not to mention Kenji was still nowhere to be found (I knew he'd pop up sooner or later but after going 140 chapters or so without him was starting to effect the story for me). I didn't like how they introduced a new character, the DJ, and that he was an old friend of Kenji. In my mind, I don't believe at this point of the story a new character needed to be added in. To me it felt there was too many characters to look after at this point and that it would start effecting the story. For me it did. I also thought it was unrealistic for Yanbo and Mabo to come back into the story and have designed the flying saucers for "Friend". Seemed ridiculous to me. It was a bit of a shock that the "Friend" now was not Fukubei, wasn't sure if I liked that or not. But it made for an even more interesting story now. When Kenji and "Friend" finally faced off, I wasn't too sure as to how it would play out. It wasn't exactly how I had imagined it would take place. Can't say for sure if I liked it or not. I agree with most of your post except for this part.  Im pretty sure Konchi was already mentioned, or at the very least if not directly mentioned he was present, in past flashbacks so it wasnt like he suddenly popped out of thin air. It also gave a nice connection between himself and Kana. And Urasawa couldnt have ended the manga without having yanbo and mabo reappear. Sure I'll agree that having those two design the saucers was ridiculous, theyre business men not engineers, but it was good to know what happened to them. Also maybe it was obvious that Kenji was still alive, but I honestly thought Kenji was dead. I didnt think he was coming back, so when I saw him I had this "wtf?" face.