20th Century Boys

Kenji Endo runs a convenience store in 1997 and feels stuck. Then a series of strange events pulls him back to 1969, when he and his friends created a secret symbol and a comic about a villain called Friend who would destroy the world. Now a real cult led by someone named Friend is using that same symbol, and people are vanishing.

The story jumps between three timelines: 1969, the late 1990s, and a post-apocalyptic 2015. Kenji and his childhood friends, along with their children, unravel a conspiracy involving a masked leader, a deadly virus, and a giant robot that looks like a toy. Urasawa keeps the tension high across 22 volumes, weaving in references to tokusatsu shows, 1970s rock music, and the manga he grew up with.

The title comes from the T. Rex song 20th Century Boy, and the series is drenched in nostalgia for the creator's own youth. But it's also a sharp thriller about how childhood games can turn into real nightmares, and how memory can be both a weapon and a trap.[edit]