20th Century Boys - Chapter 3

The last chapter of the 20th Century Boystrilogy has come out on 8/29.  Based on the comic series by Naoki Urasawa (also known for other works such as Yawara!, Monsterand PLUTO), this was one of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer in Japan with heavy advertising.  It was publicly announced that the film version of the 20th Century Boys has its own ending, meaning the identity of "Friend" (or Tomodachi), the masked cult leader who is supposedly one of the childhood friends of the main character Kenji, is different in the film.  If you were in Japan this summer, you would have seen "Friend" saying "So-dayo, Boku-ga Tomodachi-dayo" (That's right, I am Tomodachi) in the trailer aired countless times on TV as well as in the theaters.  The trailer has left a lot of people curious about who this "Friend" was and generated a even greater hype over the last chapter of the trilogy than the previous ones did.  When the film finally came out at the end of August, it went straight to the number one on the Japanese box office chart.

I personally have fallen for this clever tactic myself and started to wonder who this "Friend" was before I even watched the chapters 1&2.  After catching the chapters 1&2 on TV that were aired not too long before the chapter 3 came out, I just had to watch this film to find out who "Friend" was.

I am not going to disclose who "Friend" was here but I must say it was a bit of dissapointment..  it was almost impossible to guess who "Friend" was with the info provided in the movie because this character hardly gets mentioned throughout the series.  I personally felt a bit cheated by this.

Other than that, however, the film in itself was entertaining and did a pretty decent job re-creating the world of Naoki Urasawa, which many said to be impossible to make into a non-anime film because of its unique and out of worldly storyline that spans close to 50 years.  The scene of the music festival where Kenji performs was quite impressive.  If you are planning on watching this film, my advise would be to not get too caught up on trying and guess who "Friend" is because chances are, you won't get it right.