terrible... so disappointed.

Better Late Then Never

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Apparently, millions of Japanese are willing to worship a man in a mask who only talks about his childhood... and apparently, the hero of his childhood is Kenji, so one would imagine that all these idiots would leave Mr. Friend behind and go and worship Kenji instead. Right?Nope. Instead, this cult's followers burn each other alive, blow up airports and have developed a lethal virus that completely drains the human body of all blood. Hey, I'm not opposed to daft plots when they're amusing, but 20th Century Boys pretty much lacks humour, as "mysterious" people point Kenji - the film's protagonist - in the right direction so that he can play a game in which he may or may not get to save the world.Yeah, it's that dumb. And upon figuring out that all these terrorist attacks taking place are being scheduled by the events of a comic Kenji drew as a kid, instead of taking the said comic to the authorities on finally finding where he left it some 25-30 years ago, Kenji instead runs over to a friend's house, digs out his old guitar and jams out in the morning's early hours!But that's perfectly logical, since Kenji once aspired to be a glam-rock star.With a running time of well over 2 hours, I can't recall the last film I watched during which I spent almost as much time looking at the clock. Unfortunately, the sheer humdrum and stupidity of the film all got too much to bear and I eventually turned it off. I now waste even more time over this crap-fest by advising other IMDb users of its sheer awfulness.Avoid.

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.

This show is about a group of young boys and a girl who while playing together, created their own sci-fi fantasy cartoon about the world in the future being destroyed slowly beginning with an unknown virus that destroys major cities and ending with giant robots and laser beams that would kill millions.Many many years later, 1 of the group decides to act out the child play fantasy and make it become reality. The story takes the viewpoint of Kenji and shows how he reunites with his childhood friends to discover who is the one behind the cult whose leader is known as friend.Overall i found the show to be completely ridiculous, full of plot holes and a comedy of errors. It is very obvious that the director or the script writer must have lacked a whole lot of common sense to have created a film like this.What made it worst was that the movie was 3 hour long. Above the 2 1/2hour mark you'd feel so infuriated at yourself for wasting money and time on such a crab lousy show.My word of advise... avoid at all costs! It'd be more entertaining watching my toe dance than to watch this show. Least watching my toe dance doesn't make me feel stupid!I rated this show 2/10, 1 for the chick in the movie so that the show wouldn't become a sausage feast and another for the creativity behind the really cool name they called their cartoon - The book of prophecies.