21st Century Boys Chapter 16 Discussion

finally finished this series



I valued 20th and 21st as one series.



Some people doesn't like when the antagonist coming from the dead, but in this one I really really like when Urasawa choose Katsumata as the main culprit.



It adds more value to the manga, the reason why he did such as thing make more reasonable impact than Fukubei motive. The feeling as completely unnoticeable person, as a trash whose his name has ruined since childhood. That was different from Sadakiyo case, at least he has the teacher who he can sent the letter.



I can accept the reason why Kiriko stay away from his daughter going to Africa, she still feeling guilty about bloody new years eve; leaving Kanna since child; and it is her nature, remember when she said she want more become like Yukiji, more womanly.



The only complain maybe when Kanna suddenly use her power more often in the last few chapters than in the entire rest of series. It feels like cheating.



And whose the body they found in Sadakiyo car when it's burned?



This was a good series, but I can't be rushed to finished it because it feels boring/exhausted after too much puzzle streak in 3-4 chapters without a single clue were given.



The ending was good, how is the petty thing can change your life or the others, forever.



Glad I read it.

Kazmi said:
The author never answered who it was that had the girl tied up and played the song from chapter 1 of 20th centuary boys?

Lol it was "answered" since the start, it was Kenji.

The last chapter just wrap that strange start briliantly, that action of Kenji did have impact to the world.



Reivaj120 said:
I have a really serious doubt. I am from Spain, and I read the whole series in an edition published by a publisher called Planeta Comics. This chapter is slightly different from other versions of it I found online. In the version I read after Kenji asked the masked kid if he was Katsumata, he apologisies to him and explained  that he was the kid all people thought had died before a science experiment, and also says that Fukubee was actually the one who died.



Can Simeone please confirm me if this was a revision Urasawa did some time after publishing the manga originally or wtf, cos Fukubbe clearly died after Yamane shot him, so things dont add up.

Hmm.. maybe you misremember the live action? Because the live action changed the plot to be like you described.

So Katsumata was the Friend, I hoped it was someone more important. Still, it was amazing, this was certainly one of the best mangas I've ever read. It will be hard to find something to replace it.

Seeing Kenji and Katsumata sing together was heartwarming. Plus Katsumata finally took off his mask! I'm sure that only happened in the virtual world. In the real world Katsumata never spoke to Kenji after he canceled his suicide attempt. That's why they never became friends in the real world. He's just like Kenji. Both of them regret not being able to say the things they wanted to say.

i expected a marriage between kenji and yukiji, would be a perfect ending. sigh

nice

good

nice nce very nice ceasar chan

THIS IS A MANGA ONLY DISCUSSION POST.

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                        Soooo That’s how it ends… Hm well Its great that everything ended in peace, and I like how every character had a strong story for each..I would recommend this for more patient people that like elongated suspense..I have nothing else I can think about other than how nice this was sometimes so until next time!

Okay, this epilogue definitely didn't need to be its own part, why they didn't just publish these last 16 chapters in the main serialization is beyond me..



Honestly, this was an underwhelming finale to me. The anti-proton bomb twist comes out too late and without enough setup, and it's not elaborated on how it was built and by whom, how exactly it was going to achieve the impossible task of destroying the whole planet when the Friend's engineers couldn't even so much as launch a single rocket to Mars. And this isn't the only loose end that remained untied, so many plot points feel underdeveloped, unrealistic or implausible in a world that tries to be grounded and fairly true to life. Like when the giant robot's engineer couldn't build it accurately to the unrealistic specs from the book of prophecy so he had to resort to smoke and mirror tricks to make it work, but then later he actually does build a fully mechanized working recreation of it like it's some kind of sci-fi setting now. But at least he was shown determined to build it and developing blueprints for over a decade, the UFO saucers and the anti-proton bomb are not explained whatsoever, somehow they just work. And nobody even investigated whether or not the bomb was actually functional and deadly enough to destroy the planet, the entire world just ran with the preposterous assumption that it could but it might as well be a sham, we never do find out anything about it.



There are plenty other similar problems with the plot, like how Kanna's psychic superpowers got simply handwaved with the reveal that they're the result of some secret drug given to her mother during pregnancy which is such a lazy and unrealistic excuse. And then we get setups that end up completely abandoned and forgotten, like Takasu being pregnant with Friend's child didn't lead to anything relevant at all, and the story wastes so much time on mulling over that Mars emigration plan and making a big deal out of it but then it just gets abruptly dropped for other plotlines and when it's brought up again much later they just go "Eh, we couldn't do it. Anyway..!". This writing is just so unfocused, plus it spends way too much time on developing boring characters that don't do anything special. Way to end the manga on giving closure to the bowling gramps and his bowling girl of all people... I'd rather see it end with that trio of mangakas finishing their comic, they weren't even important or anything but it would still make for a better final page than what we got.