20th CENTURY BOYS (Japan, 2008)
Directed by: Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Starring: Toshiaki Karasawa, Arata, Etsushi Toyokawa, Takako Tokiwa

20th CENTURY BOYS 2 (Japan, 2009)
Directed by: Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Starring: Toshiaki Karasawa, Arata, Etsushi Toyokawa, Takako Tokiwa

On the landscape of Japanese pop culture, 20th Century Boys looms like a national monument. The 22 volume manga serial by Naoki Urasawa ran from 1999 to 2005 and won multiple awards, and its author, Urasawa, has been praised by everyone including Pultizer-Prize-winning writer Junot Diaz who called him a “national treasure.” This trilogy of movies based on the manga are the most expensive movies ever made in Japan and with a cast of 300 they’re massive undertakings. Part One premiered at the Louvre. Part Two premiered at the Osaka World Expo site with its iconic Tower of the Sun (which features prominently in the film) and Part Three will take a bow later this summer. But for now, Parts One and Two offer up more pop madness, rage, hope and glory than the average mind can handle. Imagine Stephen King’s It with giant robots instead of killer clowns and you’ve got an idea of what 20TH CENTURY BOYS is all about.

1969. Middle school student Kenji ties up the manager of the school radio station, dedicated to broadcasting 101 Strings 24 hours a day, and drops the needle on T. Rex’s “20th Century Boy.” “I thought the world would change,” he says. “I believed rock would change it. But nothing changed. Nothing changed.” And on that melancholy note we drop in on Kenji and his friends as they hide from the local bullies in a secret clubhouse and write their sci-fi inspired “Book of Prophecies.” In it, they imagine the world in the year 2000, under assault by killer viruses and giant robots and they imagine themselves the heroes who save it from total destruction.

Cut to 2000 and their childhood dreams are all forgotten. Kenji and his friends have grown up to be salarymen and wage slaves, and even Kenji, who wanted to be a rock star, is just the manager of a convenience store. But when one of his buddies kills himself, he and his old pals find themselves drawn together because their “Book of Prophecies” seems to be coming true. Not only that, but one of their number, a creepy little brat they always hated, seems to have become a masked cult leader, Friend, who’s pulling all the strings from the shadows. Now, against all odds, it’s up to Kenji and his broken down buddies to actually do what they dreamed about doing as kids: they need to save the world. Which is hard to do when you’ve got kids and a mortgage and a beer belly. 

Powered by the speed of its breakneck narrative, the 20TH CENTURY BOYS movies are pure pop glory, all about the disillusionment of growing up, the disappointments of middle age and the heroism of childhood. Most importantly, they show us what real bravery is. Because no matter how dark it gets, no matter what life deals you, a real hero never gives up. Even when he’s forty.