Good, strange film this.it's tongue in cheek, live action straight out of the manga comics. You don't need to have seen any of the Manga series to tell where to origins of this film come from.the flashbacks are done well, the story is strange but flows nicely, and there is a great soundtrack.Looking forward to the next two films, as anyone who has seen this will confirm, it would have been a very annoying ending had this not already been planned to be a trilogy.This film seems to have had a relatively big budget, according to IMDb and wiki, for the type of film it is, which is good to see.

I saw this movie last year. I have read comic because I like this comic. Writer is Naoki Urasawa. This writer's other works is very nice, YAWARA,PLUTO, and Monster. '20th century boys' is exists to Chapter3. This movie is Chapter1. I felt that it was very interesting because I saw this movie. Hero is Kenji Endo. Story to which story of imagination spoken with friend when Kenji is child actually occurs.Book of prophecy is very terrible book. This book was written Kenji and friends. Kenji fight to Tomodati with Kenji's friends.Kenji brings up the child of the elder sister of Tomodati and Kenji.Tomodati attacks Kenji aiming at the child.The child's name is a Kannna. Kannna is a girl who has the curious power. Tomodati is very scary existence. The true colors of Tomodati is not turn out, but it is possible to expect it. I will saw next movie. I am looking forward to the next movie.

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.

I had earlier written about comic books being rich material for filmmakers to raid and adopt them into a cinematic version, and with the success of the Death Note franchise, it's more than apparent that such movies will have its built in audience, and in this case, to skyrocket the movie to box office success.Depending on how the story is adapted, some will take liberties to gear the material for non- fans, to introduce it to a new audience. Death Note for instance, does this quite perfectly, drawing those unfamiliar with its mythos, and at the same time entertaining the fanboys. Mushishi on the other hand, assumed that one goes in with a bit of background knowledge, as it doesn't dwell too long, if at all, on the character backstory. 20th Century Boys however managed to take the middle ground, though I felt its presentation was somewhat left wanting.We're introduced to Kenji (Toshiaki Karasawa), a supermarket manager who's about to be thrown into the adventure of his life. In a school reunion, he gets acquainted with his old pals, most of whom he already cannot recognize, before they launch into a discussion of a strange series of happenings which involve the emergence of their secret logo created during their childhood. As they catch up with one another, we also learn that collectively amongst the group, they vaguely recollect their 9 members, and hence sowed some suspicion as to the identity of who the new cult leader is, one who always hide behind a mask and calls himself Kira, oops, wrong movie - "Friend".Throw into the plot yet another device in the form of a book called the Book of Prophecies, which Kenji is chief author, in somewhat of a create your own adventure with his pals, as they dream of the world coming to an end at the turn of the millennium, what with strange plagues, terrorist attacks, and a giant robot taking the place of the stay puff marshmallow man. They realize that world disasters are unfolded as per the sequence in their childhood book, and thus, with their sense of responsibility, work to try and put an end to the madness.For the first half of the movie, the story really plods on, as it took great pains to try and introduce to us the array of characters important to the series, including an infant heralded as the Chosen One. While most of the characters remain rather one-dimensional with nothing much revealed about their background despite the frequent flashbacks (some which do get repetitive), Kenji is the focus of this installment, as we see an emergence of a resistance fighter from within a mild and meek, and often clueless supermarket manager. He doesn't really strike you as charismatic or well skilled to lead a group of do-gooders, but the second half would address all those concerns.In wanting to remain unconventional, the story moves forward and back so frequently, that it'll give you a headache. It seemed to be wanting to shovel down character backgrounds incessantly, as every opportunity found to go into flashback mode, will be utilized, so much so that it becomes mentally tiring after a while to keep track of current time. Time plays an important part in the story as it hinges everything on D-Day of 31 December 2000, where a foretold apocalypse is expected to happen.And here's where it really shines, even when the arrival of D-Day involved plenty of droning pep-talking. Looking at the locations, sets, and big action sequences throughout the film, it's indeed a relatively big budget production with no qualms about throwing money to achieve some form of visual perfection. The finale is nothing short of breathtaking, and with well filled tension, though if you're not expecting this to be the first episode of an franchise, you'll find yourself swearing at its cliffhanger ending. It's not a complete story per se even though it managed to remain self-contained, as it retains just about as much mystery as it did from the onset, with nothing much revealed or addressed.For those looking into something more, I thought it had drawn some interesting parallels about the dangers of cults, and how enticing the promises made by preacher could be, with the followers blinding adhering to every word like it's the gospel. There are enough false prophets in the world, but those who can command a huge following, could grow and if their aspirations do find their way to the political arena, then just as how a manga-turned-movie would have its ready audience, then these political parties would already come with their congregation as ready supporters and voters.For the eager beavers, it's not until January that you can watch the next part, so do remember to stay until right after the end credits roll for the trailer to Part 2.