20th Century Boys

First of all-I have not read the manga but I have heard the title before. I will base my review with nothing to do with my knowledge of the manga. Making live-action movies based on manga and comics seems to be a trend in japan. Blockbuster live-action movies like Death Note are good. So hopefully, there will be more good adaptation of manga. I say that 20th Century Boys shall be one of the good adaptation and Japanese movie. This live-action movie broke death note box office in japan. That made me more interested of how this movie will fare. I must say it is worth the hype. It is pretty intense and epic to my sayings.

The story: It revolves around Kenji and his pals. They built a hideout and shared stories and stuffs. They made a story. When they grow up, the story they made up becomes true. A mysterious cult-leader called friend enters the world and wants to destroy the world. Kenji and his pal save the world. Not so easy. From there, dark secrets are spilled and they search their brains of what had happened when they were kids-their childhood. The plot is quite intense. I do not know whether it is a good apdataion but as a view of a Japanese movie, it is good.

Overall: As the plot is interesting and intense, it makes me want to read the manga which I will sooner. If it interest you, do go and watch it. Stay for the cast and credit to finish and there will be the preview of the second part. I will wait for the second part with anticipation.

20th Century Boys has more twists and turns than you can count and it pulls no punches when it comes to waving "Bye-bye-bye" to main characters. Unfortunately, in my opinion, that was one of this film's drawbacks, the characters. There was at least a dozen characters to keep track of and it becomes a bit daunting figuring out which friend is which and who is who. It wasn't physics or anything but careful attention to the film will be required.

Outside of that, 20th Century Boys was thrilling and the production design fantastic, my 11-year-old loved it and I was thoroughly entertained. Decent dialog? Check. Meaningful character arcs? Check. Heartwarming moments? Check.

After having the privilege of watching the first and second films in this series, I'd say I'm a fan of the 20th Century Boys series and I'm undoubtedly looking forward to the third installment slated for fall. This first installment can indeed be a slippery beast if you don't pay attention but if attention span isn't a problem for you and a bevy of "Who the hell was that again?" characters don't bother you, you're in for some major entertainment! I honestly couldn't find anything that I didn't like about this film, really. Sure there were quite a few "childhood flashbacks" but they're necessary so suck it up, plug it in and have a ball! Hopefully when this hits the states it's not trimmed down by an hour for the ADHD crowd.

The sheer scope or this production alone deserves an applause. Having read the 20th and 21st Century Boys first, as said by Etsushi Toyokawa in his interview "I attempted to emulate the expressions in the Manga" (some creative license with the translation). Such attention to detail again deserves yet more respect. These things aside i appreciate this trilogy more as the Japanese Matrix if it didn't become as up-itself.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series and found the conclusion to be pleasantly conclusive, though something of this magnitude is difficult to draw together, but i feel the memory-machine wrap-up was a brilliant way of concluding a magnificent series. The series was done as accurate to the manga, in many cases down to the very character type cast, as i wish Battle Royale was replicated to.

So heavily recommended i am steps away from handing it out on the street as well as bowling ball lessons, please watch.

Could 20th Century Boys be the Japanese Watchmen? Like in the case of Alan Moore's masterpiece, Urasawa's sprawling story covers the cultural myths and obsessions of the past century: from the nuclear catastrophe following the war to the western cultural influences, conformism and totalitarian tendencies, the demilitarized, defenseless Japan, the economic boom of the sixties . Even a touch of mecha and the pervasiveness of media in society.

Judging the movie, however, can be more difficult: its competently shot and acted, but like most transpositions, it makes its manga origin very clear, which can be appalling for the manga-illiterate in the audience, which at the projections I was sighed, left early or giggled in all the wrong places. Sound editing was awful, but it might be a result of the copy I saw.

Where the film could use some help is in the editing. Fans will appreciate the attempt to be faithful to the original source, but movies simply work in a different way: act II is too long, and the final climax and resolution is reduced to a few choppy scenes. It might definitely look better when parts 2 and 3 are released.

Good, strange film this.

it's tongue in cheek, live action straight out of the manga comics. You don't need to have seen any of the Manga series to tell where to origins of this film come from.

the flashbacks are done well, the story is strange but flows nicely, and there is a great soundtrack.

Looking forward to the next two films, as anyone who has seen this will confirm, it would have been a very annoying ending had this not already been planned to be a trilogy.

This film seems to have had a relatively big budget, according to IMDb and wiki, for the type of film it is, which is good to see.