Sleep Is For the Weak

I don’t really have to review Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys. There’s just no need. It’s been universally praised by just about every critic out there, in both this universe and others. If you’re not reading it – even if you don’t normally like seinen titles or suspense fiction – you’re a fool. Yes, I just insulted half my readers and I stand by that insult. Volume 4, which I just finished like 30 seconds before I started this review, is like a poem: there’s not a single word or pen-stroke that’s out of place or superfluous. So, this isn’t a review. If you want the plot, look it up on wikipedia (but watch out for the spoilers). Look, it’s good. Just read it.

Instead I’m going to take a crack at trying to explain why 20th Century Boys, and pretty much everything else Urasawa does, is so damn good. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no Scott McCloud nor am I a literary critic versed in the minutia of graphic novel theory. But I do have thick, black-rimmed glasses, so I should be able to seem as hip and intelligent as any comparative-lit grad student.

I think trying to tell a story in the suspense genre is one of the toughest things to do. Good suspense fiction relies on the author keeping tight control over the information the reader has. The author needs to keep important information, like the name of the murderer, the location of the antidote, and which wire, when cut, will defuse the bomb underneath the bus carrying the nuns, orphans, and puppies to the now-revealed location of the antidote. Obviously, the author can’t give too much of that away. Wait, maybe I’ve said too much.

But at the same time, the author can’t appear to be holding back information. This is the absolute hardest point. Readers aren’t dumb (well, usually; some of the comments on this site suggest otherwise). They can tell when the author is holding back some critical clue, or when they’re purposefully setting up a “surprise” twist. When the reader sees this, all the suspense ends. Sure, you might read on to find out who murdered the pope – and why that was only to distract the police from the true crime – but now the fantasy is ruined. The author has shown that s/he’s just trying to unfairly trick the reader, not tell an interesting story. (Ed note: This is why NotHayama and I stopped watching LOST at the end of the first season.)

So the key to suspense is to hold back critical information while still giving enough away to keep the story moving forward and keep the reader engaged – but not to hold back too much or too obviously and thus lose the reader’s trust. And fiction is all based on trust; the reader is in a world completely controlled by the author, so s/he has to trust that the author is actually producing something worthwhile and logically consistent.

Trying to do this in comic form is the hardest of all. In a suspense movie, the director controls everything: every word, every image, every sound. Most importantly, the director controls the pacing. Details can be flashed on a screen for an instant, impossible to pick up the first time but which are rewarding when you watch through again. In prose, the author has less control – after all, the author just describes things for the reader to imagine. The reader can also backtrack and look for clues, but this is harder because every page is just words; there’s nothing visceral to grab on to or to stare at and try to figure out.

But in comics, every panel is scrutinized. In a book, you can get away without describing what the villain looks like. The absence of something is really hard to detect. But if that same villain is drawn in shadows for an entire run of a manga, the reader will get annoyed. It’s obvious that the author is trying to hide something. You’re tipped off and when it turns out that the villain was actually the protagonist’s long-long triplet, it’s not very surprising.

Urasawa’s gift is his ability to effortlessly control the amount of information the reader receives so that it falls in that “perfect” zone. He’s able to do this in such a way that you don’t know he’s doing it. I mean, of course you know he’s holding things back – it’s a 22-volume suspense series, after all. But you don’t know what he’s holding back, how, and most importantly, why. He does have some characters hidden in the requisite shadows, but he gives you enough information about them that this isn’t a turn-off. It doesn’t seem like he’s hiding them from us (he is), maybe it’s just that they like standing in the shade on a warm day.

For example, check out this page from early in Volume 4. I’m going to highlight a few panels that I think show my point. Don’t worry, no spoilers are revealed.

Okay, I guess this needs a little context: it’s the year 2000, the guy who’s talking is the boss of a fixer (someone who rescues tourists who get themselves into trouble and don’t want to involve the police) in Bangkok. Right now, the plot is dealing with a mysterious organization that is consolidating its power. In this first panel, Urasawa effortlessly starts you thinking about this mysterious organization that now joined the ruling party in Japan. After all, there’s been a two-year time jump since the end of volume 3. But, maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s talking about some obscure, wonkish fact about Japanese politics. The question is answered in a few pages, but right now Urasawa is throwing us off-guard, and we’re questioning our memory of the last volume. He’s given us information, but we’re not sure how to take it. Suddenly, the reader’s in suspense over the name of a political party. Pretty amazing, no?

Now, here are the next few panels (read right-to-left, obviously):

We know very little about the long-haired character he’s talking to. He’s obviously a main character, since he’s in the character guide in the front and everything. In the previous chapter, he helped save a prostitute from a murderous pimp, so while we know he has a heart of gold, we don’t know who he is or where he came from. Urasawa has revealed some interesting info without drawing attention to it. The man’s wife called. So he’s married, and yet he’s in Bangkok, a city not known for its faithful husbands. He’s avoiding the call. All very interesting. Is it important? We don’t know yet. We’ll have to read on.

Do you see how he’s done this? Another author with less skill would just have the character himself tell his backstory. It’s easiest that way – everything comes out in one burst, and the character can reveal that he has a tantalizing secret that he can’t tell anyone. There, instant suspense. (In full disclosure, later on in the volume the character does explain his backstory through flashbacks, but they’re spread out and timed with other action so that it actually is suspenseful). But instead Urasawa lets the side characters tell the majority of the backstory. It seems more realistic that way – how often does someone in real life go off on a 20-minute monologue about how they’ve spent the last five years of their life? And most importantly, it makes it believable when critical information is left out, since the people telling the story simply didn’t know it. And that’s all in just a few panels on one page!

Another thing to look out for is Urasawa’s amazing awareness of how his audience reads a page. Most manga-kas are limited to having a cliff-hanger at the bottom of a left page leading into a two-page spread. There’s nothing wrong with this, per se; it’s done to amazing effect in Dragon Head and pretty much every first kiss in a shoujo romance. But Urasawa seems to know where the readers’ eyes are at all times and uses this to his utmost advantage. You know he’s doing a good job when I’m trying to turn the pages faster because I can’t wait to find out what happens from one page to the next.

Educated impression: Okay. I guess this turned into a review, so I should give it stars. 5 stars. This gets 5 stars. Or 7. Are we allowed to give things 7 stars?

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