20th Century Boys, Volume 7: The Truth

20th Century Boys [20世紀少年] #7

by Naoki Urasawa

Out in the middle of Tokyo Bay, a man called Shogun is trying to break out of Umihotaru Prison, a maximum-security island fortress, so he can save the world. Accompanied by a frightened young manga artist, these two men are prepared to risk everything as their daring escape plan grows deadlier by the minute. However, the prison authorities will do whatever it takes to return Shogun and his reluctant companion to custody.

Shogun's ultimate goal: Tokyo, where a girl he calls the "final hope" lives, but a murder in Kabuki-cho has triggered a chain reaction of terror. Can Shogun reveal the truth about the false peace created by the Friends? And what are the facts behind the disaster that took place in the final moments of the 20th century?!

Genres: Manga, Comics, Seinen, Mystery, Science Fiction, Fiction, Graphic Novels

216 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2001

About the author

Urasawa Naoki (浦沢直樹) is a Japanese mangaka. He is perhaps best known for Monster (which drew praise from Junot Díaz, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner) and 20th Century Boys.

Urasawa's work often concentrates on intricate plotting, interweaving narratives, a deep focus on character development and psychological complexity. Urasawa has won the Shogakukan Manga Award, the Japan Media Arts Festival excellence award, the Kodansha Manga Award and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. In 2008 Urasawa accepted a guest teaching post at Nagoya Zokei University.

Series list (not including short stories collections):
- Pineapple ARMY (パイナップルARMY) 1985-1988, written by Kazuya Kudo;
- YAWARA! 1986-1993;
- Master Keaton (MASTERキートン) 1988-1994, written by Hokusei Katsushika;
- Happy! 1993-1999
- MONSTER 1994-2001
- 20th Century Boys (20世紀少年) 1999-2006
- 21st Century Boys (21世紀少年) 2007
- PLUTO 2003-2009, based on Tezuka Osamu's Tetsuwan Atom
- BILLY BAT 2008-2016
- Master Keaton Remaster (MASTERキートン Reマスター) 2012-2014
- Mujirushi (夢印-MUJIRUSHI-) 2017-2018, collaboration with Musée du Louvre
- Asadora! (連続漫画小説 あさドラ!) 2018-ongoing

Reviews

[Tawfek · Rating 5 out of 5]

i didn't really plan on finishing the rest of this in one sitting, but once they said let me tell you exactly what happened that night i was hooked line and sinker!
God as usual is a fascinating character he is my favorite so far, and its really pumping me up for another manga that i think one of its protagonists is an old man as well, you don't get that role by just being any old man, and God is really special in every way.
Shogun escaped his prison with the mangaka, but it seems like the mangaka will not be part of the action, and its a good change of pace really, since u don't want to be predictable, and transform every normal human being into a person who will go through a tremendous transformation, and save the world you know?
I stopped at one time when they mentioned the 20th century boys song i went to search for it, but i totally forgot to go through with my search because i found something more amazing, the actual real life kenji song by Bob Lennon, and then i found a version where naoki urasawa sang it, which was even better, because it was closer to how the real kenji would have done it, i was really thrilled and geeking ou,t hearing that song on facebook in front of all my friends, who none of them have read 20th century boys, or even knows who naoki urasawa is, but it didn't stop me! 😁
There is probably much more i could say about this volume but i ll keep it short, I am just happy that I am back to reading and finishing books again finally...

[Anthony Chavez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liking where this story is going. I can possibly see this series surpassing Monster in greatness.

We finally get more answers to the Bloody New Year's Ever; however, the story isn't completely told as to what happened. This volume ended on a cliffhanger on that story line, but it was great to see the original gang more then the previous volume. The time jumps in storytelling are seamless and never confusing, Urasawa seems to have mastered the craft.

I wanna know what happened to the robot! To volume 8, HURRY!

[RG · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just gets better and better but theres so many chapters/volumes to read!!

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

20th Century Boys is a extremely well done series so far. Even at it's worst it's still good. At it's best? Amazing. A lot of people compare this series to IT and it contains a lot of storytelling elements of that but with it's own characters and twist.

This volume actually contains a lot. We get to see the future world a little more, an escape, and the state they're in. More so we get a lot of background here of the bloody new years night. We lose a major character and we begin to piece together what happens to make the future events all kinds of fucked up.

Good: The cast of characters keeps growing and you feel for characters you had no attachment to before. I also felt sad about the future state of one character. The future is still entertaining too and the parallel feel of past, present, future is all well told and done.

Bad: The manga artist seems a bit of a "audience" member but not all that compelling. He is easily weakest part at the moment.

Overall this is a great volume that gets the plot moving. The death of a character, the future outlook, everything is building up. A very very solid 4 out of 5.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, prison breaks and school reports. I can see how much the two have in common, and I'm immensely relieved that we can get a little history.

But oh my god, what has god been up to in space? This manga still manages to fascinate and have me sit on the edge of my seat.

[Aminah Hussain · Rating 5 out of 5]

holy peak
wdym it was not sadakiyo???!! who the hell was that then? does that mean fukubei died for nothing…
for yukijis sake they better not die

[Derek Royal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another outstanding installment! For some reason, there felt like a few lag points in the previous couple of volumes. (Although compelling collections in their own ways.) But this one took off, rocket-like, in ways similar to some of the earliest ones. I was also very excited to find more backstory, or narrative fill-in, included in this volume.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

It's difficult to imagine this sort of a cheery suspicious cult to take over everything so thoroughly and almost no one see anything weird about it. Everyone's crazy.

[Rahul · Rating 5 out of 5]

We look back to Bloody Dec 31 as Otcho and God narrates them.

[Javi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Después de dejarlo tanto tiempo en el aire por fin Urasawa empieza a contar la historia de la Nochevieja Sangrienta. Que suspense y qué ganas de saber la historia completa. Este tomo ha sido devorado, como el resto y me temo que esta serie se desinfle cuando no queden más páginas que leer y realmente me dé cuenta de que no se ha aportado nada.

[Christina Pilkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Yes! I'm back on track with really enjoying this series! The action was great, and I flew through reading it. The new characters, the answers we get about what happened on Bloody New Year's Eve, and the new storyline introduced, all has me extremely excited for the direction of the series!

[Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fukubee!!!!!! :(

[Kesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Urasawa is a great story builder and the way he structures this story gets me. We dived back into the last day of the 20th Century. More questions arise

[ti☆ra · Rating 5 out of 5]

the bloody new year’s eve flashback slash reveal is going so smoothly with newly characters that perhaps is some truth-revealer key point.

[Jon Ureña · Rating 5 out of 5]

A commentary on the first seven volumes.

This manga is exceptional. It mixes different timelines and characters, and yet it is tightly plotted and everything feels necessary. As it often happens with the best stories, the big event that the plot was supposed to be about, and that the reader could reasonably expect to happen near the climax, actually happens rather early on, and the plot follows the consequences of their actions some fourteen years later.

Kenji, the protagonist who as a child came up with the apocalyptic situations that someone, maybe another childhood pal of theirs, is enacting, has become the most dangerous terrorist in Japan, thanks to the influence of the Friendship party led by the mysterious bad guy, who has spread his tentacles into the government and the security forces. As Kenji wrote when he was a kid, the bad guys would attempt to destroy the world in the 31st of December, and the protagonist and his childhood friends, a very sympathetic group of underdogs, fight against impossible odds to stop a 50 meters tall robot that is spraying an Ebola-like virus that can drain people's blood in less than a minute, all the while major cities around the world are suffering other attacks.

Very interestingly, when our group was attempting to stop the robot, the narrative cuts to fourteen years later. Some characters we knew as kids are now grown. A few of Kenji's group remain alive. We aren't told what happened to the protagonist, yet we know that the bad guys won; the Friendship party now rules Japan. Their history books teach that Kenji's terrorist group were responsible for the attacks that killed thousands, and those who threaten that narrative are thrown in prison. Japan has become a battleground for gangs from China, Thailand and some other countries. The plot mostly follows Kenji's niece Kanna, now a seventeen year old high school dropout, and the man nicknamed Shogun, whose actual name is a spoiler for a brilliant reveal early on; they are attempting to fight back and finish the job they failed a decade and a half before.

The evil cult in this manga reminds me of the delusions that Satou from Welcome to the NHK suffered about that Japanese broadcasting company: that they were enacting a worldwide conspiracy to turn people's minds into mush in order to control them. It also has that Fight Club vibe from the second half of the movie: essentially powerless outcasts fighting against impossible odds to prevent a society-ending plot.

So much has happened by volume seven (it feels as if the final climax is approaching) that I have no clue what they have come up with to fill the remaining fifteen.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

February 11, 2018: A daring escape from prison! That part was really cool. Urusawa is at the top of his game when it comes to exciting action. Eventually we are told what happened on the Bloody New Year's Eve. Fukubei's confrontation with a masked man reminds me of some spoilers down the road. Do I remember this correctly?

[Iman Danial Hakim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manga marathon.

[yel ᰔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 of 5 stars

[Valentina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Urasawa tiene el poder único de trasmitir en unas pocas viñetas la melancolia de un personaje tan magnífico como lo es Monkey, del que solo se saben unas cuantas cosas y su participación es casi nula, pero el sentimiento de tristeza y de vacio que siento cada vez que cuentan algo de su vida pasada, cuando eran solo unos niños, me deja muda. El poder de escritura de Urasawa, que cada vez que cuanta una cosa tan banal de los momentos de niñez de los protagonistas (como cuando Kenji le gana a Otcho a aguntar la respiración) me da un soplo al corazón con tanta ternura e inocencia. Un tomo de lo mas emocional, escrito de una manera hermosa.

[Estibaliz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume was the bomb! Not only we start with a thrilling prison escape, but we get to finish with the biggest cliffhanger of all times (well, one of many), while we finally are informed of what happened on the infamous Bloody New Year's Eve... and that in the most exciting way possible.

This series is still one of the best manga stories out there, no doubt. Looking forward to the next one, and that's a total understatement.

[Nehemiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah, this shit peak

[riley ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally getting back to what actually happened on Bloody Dec 31!!!

[Graham Butler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story spun its wheels a bit. Needless delay and then a cliffhanger ending.

[Shenniferr · Rating 5 out of 5]

19 mayo

[Rachelle :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m just happy yukiji is back

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

La historia es buena, hay muchas preguntas y pocas respuestas. Se nota que dará giros inesperados🫠. El asunto es que todo, a mi sentir, va muy despacio y eso hace que vaya perdiendo el interés y lea de forma fugaz cuando de repente le doy tiempo.
¿Quiero saber quién es Amigo?, por su puesto; ¿quiero saber qué pasó con Kenji?, claro ni más faltaba. Aun así, terminar esta historia me va a tomar más tiempo del esperado.

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally getting closer to figuring out what happened on that storied New Year’s Eve.

[Ludwig Aczel · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

7.5/10
With Kanna nowhere to be found in this volume, old man Shogun and Kenji go back to alternate as protagonists. At this point I was expecting Urasawa to drag the reveal of the Bloody New Year events till the end of the series, but it seems like we are having it now.
This was a very solid sequence of chapters. The new schoolgirl and the mangaka in the role of 'inquiring sidekicks' allow the author to return to the 31/12/99 flashback quite organically. If it were not for the few unexplained supernatural phenomena (blending silverware, levitating bastards), you could say that Urasawa is even trying to impose a certain realism to the crazy conspirational development of the plot.
Usual cinematic, heavily instant-to-instant staging of action and dialogues. Usual Otomo-esque treatment of open backgrounds.

[Francisco Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

El capítulo de la Expo del 70' es enternecedor y terriblemente triste. Tal vez de lo mejor de Urasawa , a su vez que se empieza a dilucidar ,sin rodeos, que sucedió la noche del año 2000. El flashback está bien ocupado y el manejo de la tensión está equilibrado con las emociones que generan los personajes de la obra.

Difícil encontrar una caracterización más común y corriente que la de Kenji, quien también es sin duda, un protagonista terriblemente inspirador.

[Vold Kira · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡¡Finalmente más historia de la Sangrienta víspera de año nuevo!! <3