Me declaro fanática de la manera en la que avanza la trama de esta historia.

The Friend is dead (or is he?), but his co-conspirators are not ready to give up their dream of world domination. Can Kanna and the remainder of Kenji's buddies save the world a second time?

This series has always been a stupendous, intricately woven tale, but ever more relevant alongside our modern pandemic with virus transmission and the masses rebelling against vaccines. Always worth a re-read especially now.

There was a point in [a:Bill Willingham|12444|Bill Willingham|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1347423972p2/12444.jpg]'s [b:Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile|21326|Fables, Vol. 1 Legends in Exile (Fables, #1)|Bill Willingham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375392441l/21326._SY75_.jpg|1138855] where he reached the intended/imagined climax for the original story, and it took him many issues to find his groove, which resulted in a lot of people bailing on the series because it seemed directionless.

I feared that was happening in this volume, as the core mystery had been solved and resolved in the twelfth volume, and, sure, there was another apocalypse on the horizon, but wouldn't it just be basically retreading volumes 6-12?

Well, it was for a couple of chapters but then Urasawa reached back and reminded you that he'd pushed several storylines to the side ages ago, and decided that now was the time to pick them back up and return them to the complicated fold of the overarching story.

It worked for me. I am once again intrigued to see where the story is going, and I'm glad that the Who Is The Friend storyline is over, because it was never going to be satisfying (it wasn't) or actually important to the story, even though it was The Primary Storyline for twelve volumes. I'm excited about the various people trying to fill the vacuum of power left behind by The Friend, and reintroducing even more characters from the 1960s/70s storyline into the 2015 storyline.

I don't know if it will work, and I'm not sure how I'd be satisfied by the story going forward, but I'm going to be optimistic as I dive into volume 14.

The carnage has begun!!

The story takes a drastic turn, but still doesn't help resolve a series that is dragged down by melodrama and lugging far too many characters.

4.25
this is so much fun.

Friend is dead may he burn in hell, or burn in general it doesn't matter!
As of this moment, i have no doubt that fukubei AKA hattori was friend.
But the organization didn't go down with him, even with the assassinations they are still working strong, he had already set the cornerstones of his plan to destroy the whole world.
Weird thing is why? You could argue that initially he wanted to be world president, over the 60 million left after the virus takes over the earth.
But now after he is dead, why did he leave behind a memo to continue his work?
Reason 1 : he is nuts and we know he is nuts, to try to do any of this in the first place!
reason 2 : and its a wild guess, since i saw future volumes covers where there is a new friend on them, maybe just maybe this is not even friend? Kenji and company know him as friend, as well as the friendship party know him as friend, but maybe someone else was pulling the strings of fukubei himself?!
Or will it be that just someone else will take the mantle of friend?
Seeing how weak Manjoume and the rest of the friendship party is, i have no idea who it could be
sadly, i am back to my slacking and not reading much and i really stretched this volume more than i should have...
Kakuta the mangaka is back with his friends.
Kenji's terrorists did not stop fighting.
The virus is taking over the world, and i have to say that these 100 pages were the fastest pace in all of 20th century boys, and i love fast pace but sadly it can't go on for long, since this is more of a drama/mystery manga really!
The frog guy is back i swear i can't remember his name, but now after thinking about it you could tell you know? all the characters were unique and strong, so why wouldn't he come back in spectacular fashion!
Kana and the gang plan to go back into the virtual reality to dig the mind of friend for information, but will they find anything ? isn't it supposed to be based on his mind as a child not his mind as an adult?
I love the little touching scenes of how all the people around the world are dealing with the virus are dealing with it.
And now that i am thinking about it, i actually planned to read 20th century boys last year before the covid virus epidemic, and now the manga is turning out to be all about the deadly virus outbreaks really its n insane coincidence...
But now that i think about it more even in 2019, i read two more manga's that were revolving around viruses (deadman wonderland- i am a hero) WTH?
Is it me or the Japanese Mangakas are only writing about virus outbreaks! lol