I have been reading a lot more manga than I ever have before recently and I was looking for recommendations on various websites which almost all told me to check out 20th century boys by Naoki Urasawa. The story itself is a bit about the coming of age of a group of boys and their runnings into a cult called The Friend. It follows main character Kenji as he slowly learns more about the cult through people ending up dead and disappearances in his town. Hes trying to live his life running his own business and taking care of his sisters daughter, but something is happening.
The 20th century is ending and as they move forward to the year 2000 Kenji also looks back on his life at the mistakes and choices he made along the way. The book often flashes back and shows the characters at various stages in their life. It is only after one in the friend group commits suicide after leaving a suspicious note, that Kenji brings the gang back together to try and sold the mystery.
The story is a mystery as well as a bit of a coming of age story. While reading I cant help but feel vibes similar to IT from Stephen King (the original movies). Everyone of his friends are doing something with their life, but they know they are somehow connected to this cult and cant figure out why. Volume one ends with them basically deciding to check out this group in more depth and check out what the rest of the friend group is doing.
The art is great and the story pacing is done in a way where you want to just keep reading and finding out more. This is broken up a bit by flashbacks into the past which reveal how characters ended up where they are and how they got there. Many of them had dreams but you see those slowly fall apart in time as life happens. Each character ends up being fleshed out nicely and ultimately makes you feel connected to them.
I expect big things from this manga going forward and recommend anyone who is into manga and a cult/mystery drama to check it out. I have already binged the second half of volume 2 which I will review probably next week, but you can find the volumes on amazon or a few manga reading sites if you want to read them now. The volumes themselves arent too expensive for what you get but there are a lot of them. Definitely give this manga a look. You can check out more in depth detail at myanimelist, here.
https://myanimelist.net/manga/3/20th_Century_Boys?q=20th
-Calaber24p
