Yukihiko Tsutsumi takes "20th Century Boys" full circle with "15 Years After Myself"

by Chris MaGee

Any of you who've seen Yukihiko Tsutsumi's big budget live-action take on Naoki Urasawa's manga "20th Century Boys" will know that a big part of the plot has to do with how the dreams, fears and make believe stories we steep ourselves in as children can come around again in unexpected ways when we're adults. Now Tsutsumi is working on a very neat little project for NHK that brings this concept full circle. "15 Years After Myself" has Tsutsumi filming conversations with students at Tashiro Municipal Elementary School in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture in which they speak about that penultimate question of childhood - Where will I be 15 years from now? What do I think I'll be doing? What do I want to be doing?

Like I said it's a neat concept, although not entirely original. We've already seen British director Michael Apted's monumental "Up Series" of documentaries in which he followed, and continues to follow, 14 boys and girls every seven years since 1964. Still "15 Years After Myself" dovetails quite nicely into Tsutsumi's "20th Century Boys" trilogy, although hopefully none of the kids he interviews will profess a desire to take over the world using deadly viruses and giant robots.

Thanks to NHK and Don Brown at Ryuganji.net for the details on this.