Mangaka : Naoki Urasawa
I guess there is something wrong with me ... I really don't understand the classics.
Even while reading Akira, said to be a landmark in shounen manga, I was not impressed, it felt like I was reading the screenplay of an OK movie father's than a manga.
Naoki Urasawas masterpiece left me feeling much the same way.
Rather than a regular action manga, this was a psychological thriller with overtones of a whoduinit mystery novel. Natural it was released for a Seinen audience.
Plot -
Endo Kenji is an unambitious and uninteresting young man running a grocery store while taking care of his neice. He was the ringleader of his childhood group of friends but the trials of adulthood have beaten the fight out of him. Meanwhile a mysterious masked man creates a cult centered around himself all the while plotting world domination.
What binds the two of them together is their childhood and the game they played with each other, becoming heroes to save the world. As the man limits his plan into action the world begins to go through crisis exactly as envisioned by their younger selves. It seem that the game is not yet done.
It's not that the manga is without its merits. It's a ridiculously scary idea. Kids have been know to dream up pretty horrific stuff, could you imagine anyone of them come true?
I used to have trouble differentiating premise from plot. most of the mangas that i have reveiwed here are short enough that the premise is pretty much exactly that. But I get it now. As far as premise is concerened this story is great but the plot ended up going on for too damn long
#spoiler alert
So Kenji manages to find his backbone and goes forward with all the intention of stopping the evil that is the friendship party. Just as the kids initialy imagined the friendship party rolls out a massive multipronged strategy become the dictators of the free world. They attack multiple places with a virus (which has a 98% fatality rate) they blew up a few places and finally they launch a massive robot in tokyo on New years day. Kenji in the mean time recruits his childhood friends to fight this threat, gets branded as a terrorist and has a final face off with the enemy boss monster - "friend"
Twist 1 - Friend wins, the massive explosion in tokyo and the virus plague are all blamed on the Kenji faction. Kenji is presumably dead. and we get back to the story after a 10 year time skip. Endo Kanna ( Kenjis neice ) is the new central charecter.
Twist 2 - the man presummed to be friend is not friend but just a body double. the real friend is one of the people who was a part of the Kenji faction. he is also Endo Kannas Father. The plan is to Kill the pope and in the global crissi to take control of the world. Plan fails and Friend is Killed.
Twist 3 - The world is still under "friends" control. that is the next minor mystery, friend died and friend is still alive. Endo Kanna is the new leader of the resistance, a ruthles young woman. friend is about to destroy the whole world, cqause thats just what dictators do when they get the whole fucking world. And Abracadabra, Kenji is alvie and well travelling the land with a guitar playing an anoying as fuck song whose chorus is 'Gulatlada-sulalada'.Ill admit its damn freaky to have a mob of starving and disenfranchised people come towards you singing that.. And finaly the whole damn series ends the right way.
Twist 4 - Kenji is the one who causeds all this by allowing someonelse take the fall for a crime he comitted. That someonelese became friend. (The last friend - Kannas dad friend died in the second major arc)
You see what i mean? i belive that the series should have ended with a foiled assasination attempt of the Pope
Instead they just went on and on adding gamechanging twists along the way. Ill admitit is a uniqu storyline, but there is a world of difference between a good storyline and a unique one.
My recomendation for this manga is a - ditch it. Its not worth the amount of head breaking involved. I would love to hear from anyone who thinks differently ofcourse.
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