LogFAQs > #898544850

Now, enter 20th Century Boys. If those are my criticisms of Monster I feel like 20th Century Boys is where the author perfected these elements. We're told enough information up front to understand the correct level of 'weirdness' of this world and so it doesn't set our expectations too high. And the level of weirdness that it offers is just different enough from reality to feel fantastical, yet not quite so different that it breaks the feel of semi-realism. A lot of the story is dedicated to explaining elements we thought were impossible, and bringing to light how they were achieved through semi realistic methods.

I also felt like I enjoyed the overall story and its conclusion a bit more. It was more focused. I remember sitting there reading volume after volume for DAYS until I had finally worked my way through the entire story, and I didn't feel like a minute of that time had been wasted.

I'll also add that 20th Century Boys has a diverse cast of almost universally likeable protagonists and this helped with my enjoyment a LOT. Monster has this problem where the story relies on Tenma a bit too much to do everything. Now, in 20th C.B., Kenji is definitely the lead protagonist. But the story doesn't rely on him doing so much by himself and being backed so firmly into a corner. I think Tenma's situation added to the feeling of tension in Monster, but it had the unintended consequence of making the story feel smaller as it revolved solely around Tenma for so much of the time.

In terms of memorability, too, I'll just mention that I remember so much more about the story beats and great moments in 20th Century Boys just by thinking about it. Conversely, for Monster, while I thought the story was great I could barely tell you what any of the great moments were. Considering I read them both around the same time it's pretty obvious which one had a stronger impression on me!

Monster is a story that made me think "wow that was a great moment" while reading parts of it, but I haven't thought about it much since then.

20th Century Boys is a story where, when I'm remembering great moments in manga, specific scenes from this series spring to my mind.

Anyway, all in all, both of these stories are pretty great but I think one of them is more or less just the author's formula perfected while the other serves to highlight some of the things which hold his stories back from being perfect. I'd recommend that anyone should read both of these manga. Once you get started it should be pretty hard to stop! If you're anything like me, though, don't bother with the anime. It's much faster to fly through the story and get the answers you're craving if you can go at your own pace instead of being held by the pace of the director.
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