Feb 09, 2010 by Michael Lum

Friend? What Friend?

Genre: Action/Mystery
Director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Cast: Toshiaki Karasawa, Etsushi Toyokawa, Takako Tokiwa, Ari Taira, Fujiki Naohito... (and many others)
Release date: Jan 28, 2010

For some reason, the final episode of the 20th Century Boys trilogy is remarkably similar to Star Wars in the sense that one does not have to catch all 3 episodes in order to get a rough understanding of how the movie would play out.

The movie starts off with an ominous tone: a virus outbreak has resulted in the whole of Tokyo being walled up and isolated from the outside world, while the all-powerful-guy-with-the-ugly-mask (aka Friend) makes a disturbing prophecy that humankind will perish on 20 August 2017, and only those who truly believe in him will find salvation (yeah, right. I'm sure.)

Of course, the heroes are not buying any of Friend's big talk: Otcho (Etsushi Toyokawa) leads a search to seek out all his childhood friends in an attempt to stop and unmask Friend in his tracks, while a peculiar character named Joe Yabuki (Toshiaki Karasawa) suddenly appears from nowhere, carrying Kenji's signature guitar and requesting entry into the heavily guarded city of Tokyo, and the plot thickens from there.

Oh, and somewhere along the way, an epic battle of machines vs humans break out, and you can be very sure that our heroes will definitely have something to do with it.

In other words, just watch it. You won't be disappointed.