Otaku Champloo

Tag: 20th Century Boys

  • Spotlight: Naoki Urasawa

    Spotlight: Naoki Urasawa

    Having consumed manga for years, I’ve grown to like some authors a little more than the others. When this happens I go into a mad frenzy, reading as much as I could about the author and try to see  if he has grown as an author, if he has stagnated, or if my relationship with him as a fan would be tumultuous – loving, hating, agonizing, enjoying every single work he has released.

    I thought I’d give myself a monthly special to put this habit of mine into good use, besides; it will at least give me the discipline of having to write something special every month. This will also allow me to do something I had wanted to do but never had the chance to – write about remarkable manga artists and writers. Perhaps this will encourage readers to explore more of that author’s work.

    For my first spotlight, there’s no other author that comes to mind but the Tezuka of today: Naoki Urasawa.

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  • Cast for 20th Century Boys out!!

    Oh god! Yuecchi! Arigatou for the tip! XD

    Some really really cool updates about 20th Century Boys has been released. It will star Takako Tokiwa as Yukiji and Etsushi Toyokawa as Kenji! They totally have the look and I know Toyokawa -san will carry that Kenji charisma. He’s cool that way.

    They seem to be spending as big as 60 Oku En, which is probably billions in yen. Sorry, I’m not good in math. ^^;; They’ll be filming in Japan, Thailand, US, China, and England. I can only imagine Otcho’s scenes in Thailand. *insertfangirlsqueehere* The movie’s out on August 30, sometime this year. So summer will definitely be interesting. Yay! Casting looks really good so I’m quite hopeful. :3

    Edit: GOD! Well, I got some parts wrong. ^^;; Tehe. It turns out that Etsushi Tokoyawa will be Otcho (MUCH COOLER!! He’s total man and zen altogether!) Toshiaki Karasawa will play Kenji. Coolness all the way. This is probably the most highly anticipated movie for me. More than for Death Note! XD Now whatever happened to that Monster movie adaptation? :3 Hmmm?  Lookie at the poster too! THAT IS SOOO COOL!

  • Another visit, another fangirling

    One of my Christmas wishes this season was reading time in one of my favorite places, Manga Kissa 10. A good friend of mine decided to grant this wish and decided to make Khursten faint again over manga! True enough, just like every time, I’m turn into a happy kid reading through all the stuff inside the Kissa 10.

    First, UPDATES! They finally have English-translated manga! Yay! SO PEOPLE! YOU SHOULD GO! There’s now Bleach, Naruto, Fruits Basket, HanaKimi, Midori Days (my recommendation!), Basara (or was that Blame!? ><;; Ah mou~忘れちゃった！) and a lot of others whose names just escape me. The titles are still few compared to their exponentially rising Japanese manga line, but for those who are interested to read some of their favorite mangas in English just request in the small survey sheets found in every table. Again, just like before, you request, and they buy! :3 I’ve had my legion of visit and requests. I usually go there and request a title and true enough, on my next visit, the manga I’m waiting it’s there.

    During my last visit, I requested for 20th Century Boys (after noticing that they didn’t have it in their Urasawa Altar!) and, my dang true enough… IT WAS THERE! :3 More than that… IT HAD 21st Century Boys! I swear, I love this store! They even updated their Nodame and they now have Nodame 19! There’s more shoujo manga now too, but they’re the borderline shoujo mangas, the ones wherein guys can still look cool even if they read that shoujo manga (lol, the idea of knowing mangas like this exist is just hilarious for me). Other than Nodame Cantabile and a couple of Moyoco Anno ones, there’s really little josei titles going around. Someday. :3

    The great part about the store is that it’s brimming with life. The last time I went, there were rarely any people who went in and out of the cafe. My friend and I were usually the only ones who were there for three hours. Now, most of the chairs are packed (although 90% are still Japanese) and even the shelves are starting to look really shelved. With so much mangas out there, I wonder how the owners would juggle their mangas around.

    For example, they added Yuukan Club and Tokimeki Tonight (luffles!) to their line, which are old manga. They also added Liar Game, which is one of the newer titles. Sure, Manga Kissa 10 would love to cater to their frequent readers but time will come when their library would need some major reshuffling or a massive shelving system would be implemented just to cater to these new mangas. So far, the place is still at its comfortable pace and has grown quite well over the past year. I just hope they maintain their readership because the last thing I’d want is to lose perhaps the only place I could physically grab a manga off a shelf.

    On a side note, they’ve added a promo point card system (See my オタ魂 burning!!). As you spend more time in Kissa 10, you get some bonus free hours. So, for 10 hours you’ve spent in Kissa 10, you get 1 hour free. For 20 hours, you can get around 3 hours more free. I think this would be easy. Spending for Kissa 10 is always no issue for me. The bigger issue is if I have time for it. -_-;; My December weekends are packed and I wish I had more time to play. -_-;; Or read for that matter. やっぱあたし時間がねぇーHoliday stresses are definitely coming in.

  • ARMAGEDDON AND UTOPIA IN NAOKI URASAWA’S 20TH CENTURY BOYS

    This was a paper I submitted for my Japanese Literature class. I thought of sharing to people what I have learned about 20th Century boys using the fantastic theory in Japanese Literature.

    It was at the summer of 1969 that Kenji, Yoshitsune, Maruo, Otcho, Keroyon, and Donkey made a pact of true friendship. In an open grassy field, the boys built their secret base. They tied leaves together and set traps along the way. In it, they shared mangas, music, jokes, and dreams. In crumpled papers, they drew fantasies of saving the world from a giant robot as well as saving the world from a deadly virus. They were nothing but children’s dreams, foolish childish dreams. In that base, they explored a world outside their limited reality. They had their own world inside that fortress. Anything of their world remained in that fortress and that very base protected the boy’s dreams of the future. At their hideout, they held a sign which became a symbol of their true friendship. Anyone who knew that sign was a true friend. Little do the boys know that 30 years after, the sign would haunt them again. A ‘true friend’ appears and asks the boys to play a little game — a game that would bring their dreams into reality.

    In his 10th work, Naoki Urasawa explores the relationship of 7 boys and how their dreams and their realities all intertwine to create a new world, to the benefit of one, and to the horror of the six. 20th Century Boys (二十世紀少年, Nijuu Seiki Shounen) is a brilliant tale of how our actions in the past can completely change the future. Change is even an understatement. Change in 20th Century Boys brought about a complex revelation of how a forgotten face makes himself present by creating into reality the utopia that a band of boys created. It is this alienation and utopia that we will explore in this paper. Through the eyes of 20th Century Boys, we hope to see how modern writers today envision their utopian future. Could there be really a utopia? Or is one’s utopia another’s nightmare?

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