Moving to the next big part of the story takes a little time, perfectly written and executed time, but time nonetheless.

Creative Staff
Story: Naoki Urasawa
Art: Naoki Urasawa
Translation/Adaptation: Akemi Wegmüller

What They Say
It is the third year of the Friendship Era. Darkness covers the earth, and the world is under the control of evil. The Friend has become President of the World, and he reigns from within the enclosed walls of Tokyo City. Most people believe in the Friend, but hidden below the surface is a small ray of hope. Someone known as the Ice Queen is calling for the people to rise up, and she has deemed August 20 the day to take up arms… But can anyone really stop this nightmare?

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After throwing us head first in the 3rd Year of the Friend Era, we got a very good glimpse at to just how dystopian the world had become. We began our journey by meeting up with Otcho and following through his travels after he meets a young girl and boy and hears a secret transmission from the mysterious Ice Queen. While volume 16 was an overall good volume I was slightly disappointed with how the big questions and reveal from volume 15 were ignored. How the new storyline didn’t really have a proper lead in like the second arc did and how the book didn’t really accomplish anything (aside from simple being a good book with an excellently executed story).

Volume 17 continues where 16 left off, but meanders as the book progresses. The main story told in this volume involves completing Otcho’s quest to meet the Kabuki-cho priest and the Ice Queen. With Kami-sama leading the way, the group discovers that the pathway underground to get to Shinjuku is impassable for Otcho (he is a full grown man unlike Kami-sama, a little on the short side, and the children). So Otcho decides to have the kids go on ahead and contact the priest. On their way they come across an old subway line and train. In the train they meet a wounded man who claims to be a member of the Genji Faction. Their meeting is cut short by the arrival of the Global Defense force and the man instructs the kids to meet with the Ice Queen and tell her that the Aug. 20th attack has been compromised by spies and will fail. After seeing the man murdered in cold blood by the GDF, the girl, Sanae, orders her brother to continue to Shinjuku while she finds the Ice Queen.

Their journeys to their respective destinations are gracefully abbreviated and written with a certain flare that doesn’t make the reader feel left out. This is one of the aspects of Urasawa’s writing that I have constantly loved and admired; he knows when and how to tell a story regardless of it length (long or short). The boy, Katsuo, finds the priest and brings him to the bowling alley where Otcho and Kami-sama are waiting. This ends the progressive story for Otcho in this volume as they are seen leaving with the priest to an undisclosed location. A horrible plot thread cliffhanger, yes, but that is what continues to draw readers back. We are never too frustrated and always left wanting, besides…that is not even halfway through the book!

Switching back to Sanae, she locates the Ice Queen’s hideout and low and behold the Ice Queen is Kanna, just as we suspected. Kanna is presented as a totally different person however and the way she exhibits herself is a basic and fundamental growth in character that doesn’t especially require an explained history. Kanna is much more world-weary here, she seems beaten to the ground by everything she has faced but still maintains hope, she is still fighting for justice. Even when informed of treachery, she very calmly confronts the suspected spy, blows his cover, and then lets him leave without any punishment or revenge. This is not the hot-headed girl from the previous arc and shows just how important she feels compassion is in this new world.

The rest of the book is where it starts to meander. There are basically two stories told in the remainder of the volume: a flashback to some of Otcho’s experiences ‘outside the wall’, and a very pleasant reunion with Officer Chono. These chapters seem to serve dual purposes, both of which stagnant the plot but also open up the world to the readers. In Otcho’s flashbacks, we are shown the goodness of humanity in times of despair and simultaneously the wretchedness of peoples’ hearts. We get to see how severely the world as a whole has been affected by the virus and the Friend’s regime; what happens to good people in face of the end and how we can move past this despair. The storylines in Otcho’s flashbacks don’t exactly end on any sort of promising note but we learn what Otcho’s spiritual Master taught him decades before (before the beginning of 20th Century Boys): There is no way to overcome despair, you just start walking. I think that this advice works not just in the context of the characters and story but is also a little bit of personal philosophizing on part of Urasawa. It’s a good lesson and one that I feel can do us good as well as something that leads to the character development in the story.

The other storyline, which closes out the volume, reunites the readers with Officer Chono. I always felt as if Chono was underused in the previous arc, he seems to be the type of character that is not just supporting but can figure into the grand scheme of things and really shape the story. When we see him, he is working as a watchtower guard at the border of the Northern Checkpoint. The purpose of his post is to watch out for alien invaders. Don’t worry, Chono is just as perplexed by this notion as we, the readers, are. We simply follow him through two chapters of what his life has become. He works for a cruel boss that terrorizes the local people for the ‘sake of the Friend’ and just wants to still be the good guy. These chapters also inter-cut some scenes with Koizumi. The pages with her are simply a good excuse for us to know that she’s still alive, she still matters to the story, and to let us know that Maruo and Haru Namio are also still alive.

This is what I meant when I said the book starts to meander. Urasawa takes a break from the ongoing narrative to get us caught up with the gang, as it will. We are shown characters that shouldn’t be forgotten, we are shown developments (although very briefly and mostly implied) from the last three years that all seem to be setting the stage for something. The volume ends with basically the exact same cliffhanger that ended volume 15, a cliffhanger that NEEDS to be followed through on. It is so much of a tease, something that could make or break this narrative that we cannot simply be left in the dark too long. With everything that happens in this volume to catch us up with a larger portion of the cast, it seems that the time is near for the setting stage to play out.

In Summary
This volume is essentially a throw away book. Nothing really happens outside of the developments with Kanna, that for the first time ever in this series I felt floating in the Ether. Nothing propelling the story forward, no super crazy cliffhangers and what-ifs to fuel my brain and make me hunger for the next volume, and nothing substantial to praise the heavens with. This book is fluff. Extremely well written fluff that re-introduces us to more major players in the story and builds upon the new world we were thrust into, but fluff nonetheless. The detailing of the stories are perfect, it’s played out for maximum impact, in hindsight I don’t feel or think that it could’ve been shorter for the sake of plot progression; it is as intended and flawless in those regards. However, in the realm of relativity, this transitional volume that builds up to something huge and what we have been waiting for…is a low point in this fantastic series of extreme highs.

Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A

Readers Rating: (3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

Age Rating: 17
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: October 11th, 2011
MSRP: $12.99