The first thing that should be made clear when discussing this manga, is to clarify the narrative sequence, that is being used. We are talking about a work that occurs , from the beginnings of humankind existence(or at least of us as a self conscious entity), going as far as reimagining of mankind dystopic future and extinction (sort of), which follows dozens of different characters in several historical periods, being complicate to even properly point who is our main character supposed to be. Sure, I could be lazy and structure the story about a certain concept, as it could be argued, this is Billy Bat’s narrative, everything can be traced to this concept in a way, his identity and nature sometimes taking central focus as an ongoing mystery. In order to counter this conceit, I will go about this in a roundabout way, but I hope to have explained why this is not the case by the end.
Perhaps the aspect that impress me the most In Billy Bat, is that no matter the time being presented, the Jesus Crist era, the warring states in the 19th century in Japan, the 60’s and 80’s in the United States. All of them have in common, something, a great focus on symbols, universal ideals, that move and motivate most of the characters being presented. Be it the search for God, in the ancient Israel, wishes of conquering the world and fighting with honor in the 19th century Japan, the conflicts between capitalism and communism and the search for truth in the post world war 2 Japan. The extreme variety of cultural encompassing movements take central stage inside characters struggles, showing how they motivate and control individuals. How said ideals evolve and change with time is also really important here, sometimes this is shown more directly when we see the same characters or older generations of the same family, how they change in completely different time periods, Kevin Goodman's experience with racism is completely unlike that of his parents, or how the Momochi clan, worries and attitude changes completely in a different time and culture. And sometimes more indirectly by simply contrasting several periods being presented, the two wars of the manga that will be talked about in depth below, being great examples. This is the single biggest purpose of the style of narrative being played here, with gigantic stretches of time portrayed and timeskips, that allows for the manga to have a great variety of historical periods being presented, all of them being the backbone, of its thematic exploration.
(Fiction Judas was not so great thought)
While also being a brilliant premise for tapping into one of Urasawa greatest strengths as a writer, his ability at making period pieces, using moments in history as not only as a backdrop for his histories , but integrating the biggest anxiety, conflicts and problems of the period, and blending those perfectly onto the history and characters he writes. Said strong aspect takes a bigger purpose here, where their own inclusion adds layers to the overall theme, of exploring the evolution of ideas in mankind’s history, the show is using. Managing to show those grandiose metanaratives, these lofty ideals that try to explain the society in simple terms and dichotomies, and showcase them in intimate personal emotionally charged ways, through poignantly character action. No matter how heady with its themes his works may get, he never forgets to have a human emotional core underneath the whole thing, blending effortlessly the emotional catharsis and intellectual exercises aspects, in his body of work. Nothing says this better than Kurusu arc, his ultimate conclusion of denying nihilism and destructive tendencies in his last moments.
(This manga take on Johan)
So, where is the title character Billy Bat in all of what I just said? Well if you compile of the greater ideals at play in the manga, 3 are pretty much ever recurring aspects in most stories and time periods being told, the conflict between truth and lies, a struggle for authenticity, to discover the real and the fake, usually portrayed through the struggles of the Billy Bat cartoonists, most notably the Chuck Culkin, Kevin Yamanga duo, whose arcs revolve mostly around that. And of course the dream of the travel to the moon, humanity's impossible goal, a distant vision and crazy dream throughout the ages, everyone during the 40s, 60s did not stop thinking about it, even its aftermath has great affect during the 80s. And of course Billy bat itself, the great number of symbols it takes throughout the ages, how it manifests shaping man in the most important decisions of humankind history. How it appears in different forms, mediums and cultures, sometimes incarnating even diametrically different concepts. Those can be seen in most main characters motivations, and usually are somewhat intertwined, finding out the truth usually takes form of wanting to understand Billy, even the journey to the moon takes form of finding his true origin, and identity.
(My favorite portrayal of Hitler in fiction)
When we reach the 21st century, the layout of main threads I explained above starts to get really messy. The turn of century is, even though nothing happened in it, the biggest turning point in history. Let's set thiswith an easy example, on how the search for truth is treated differently in two periods. The society of America during the 80s had as its most defining aspect a proliferation of paranoia and conspiracy theories, people were terrified the government and the media were lying to them and actually demanded to know the truth, regarding facts like Kennedy assassination, or the landing on the moon(not coincidentally exactly the facts that were portrayed during the 60s in the manga). The most meaningful event that shows the change, is having the recording which proved, that the landing on the moon showed to the world by the USA was fake, one of its biggest secrets is now out there on the streets, and appears in a cinematography lesson in the 00s. And guess what happens? No one gives a fuck. The recording that could prove the biggest journey for mankind was "false" is there and nobody gives a shit, not even to compare it to the official footage and find about the fake landing. We find both of the most important threads in the story completely undermined, losing any value in a matter of a few pages in this century. There are dozens of example of this happening, "fake" versions of the Billy Bat comic are a widespread thing now, people were getting murdered by the hundreds by doing that through the 60s and 80s, now no one cares about the authenticity of what they are reading. Getting to the moon is considered a waste of money that ruined the soviets.
This change is not limited to those, all other kind of ideals lose their meaning here. And it reflects the changes in power dynamics in this period. Take nationalism, the idea of the nation state as this enormous entity that served and enacted the interests of society. The nations were the grand center of power in the 60s, being the president of the USA( Kennedy) was the big position that could change history. Most other conflicts are instrumentalized by nations (capitalism x communism) the actions of the larger companies like Golden Cola and Billy Bat were usually tied to national interests, they served as propaganda and means to spread the national ideals of America. This submission being pretty much spelled out, by the way man of the Chuck Culkin enterprise, explicitely say to not defy government orders or requests. A good line in the 80s foreshadows the transition about to happen, the soviet union was handling to private sources the creation of equipment for their space exploration project. At the 21st century we really see the difference though, a new organization form rises, the multinational company. The Chuck Culkin enterprises arise from their humble beginning as an entertainment industry, to a gigantic company, which has control of several strategic sectors all throughout the world. Water, oil energy, theme parks, comics, just name the object, these guys have a big share in that market. This under precedent level of power makes them able to command the government of China to a massacre, no reasons asked.
The birth of this new structure is not so much a complete change in the world of Billy Bat by itself, this manga has dealt with bigger changes with the way societies are run through the story, but a very specific difference of the new structure in place, is. There is a dialogue that showcases perfectly that change, when Timmy Sanada owner and biggest investor on Chuck Culkin enterprises is asked, what does his company stands for, what are the moral values it represents, to which he stands silent. The new symbol of power is empty, there is no greater system of beliefs it represents, nor does it presents any clear vision or future for society. Its lack of vision or morals is ultimately why it never works as the previous metanarratives as a binding force for society. It never manages to get people to internalize its value systems, make them belief this structure stands for freedom, or justice, something that would make them follow it, to motivate them, to give it something to fight for, even against their own self interest. It holds power over people only by offering cheap escapism to them(the theme parks being the personification of that), and providing means for their consumerist behavior.
Where I am going with this should be clear by now. This manga is at its final stages telling a pretty strong argument about post modernism, the school of thinking that abdicates the end of the grandiose metanarratives in modern times. Those bigger conflicts and ideals that would explain all of society in simple terms are no more, reality is just too complex and multifaceted to allow for that, there are just hundreds and hundreds of movements, ideals and clashes between gropes, all struggling for a hegemony. It comes to a point were the individual itself does not fit any metanaratives, he individually has to create the meaning and purpose, that will dictate his actions. This marks a change on Billy Bat himself, it is why he becomes unable of talking to people and influencing history(which not coincidentally coincides with the changes in century), there simply is no space for one man that can alter everything, no single event that can be avoided saving mankind The conflicts being faced now, environmental issues, social inequalities, lots of small racial and religious problems, lack of resources, there is nothing that can be done about those, just by appearing for a few people as Billy Bat always did. The manga have always had a focus on showing the historical development of societies, especially during the 20th century, but there is a different history at play here. One not written by a handful of people, whose names go to history book, but one having billions of people, all easily forgotten, but whose actions will decide the future. Billy Bat even this concept, the biggest story in the existence of mankind, which inspired, motivated and led to humanity’s current development stage is now irrelevant. It is now completely incapable of influencing events, both to doom mankind, or to ensure its survival.
Where I am going with this should be clear by now. This manga is at its final stages telling a pretty strong argument about post modernism, the school of thinking that abdicates the end of the grandiose metanarratives in modern times. Those bigger conflicts and ideals that would explain all of society in simple terms are no more, reality is just too complex and multifaceted to allow for that, there are just hundreds and hundreds of movements, ideals and clashes between gropes, all struggling for a hegemony. It comes to a point were the individual itself does not fit any metanaratives, he individually has to create the meaning and purpose, that will dictate his actions. This marks a change on Billy Bat himself, it is why he becomes unable of talking to people and influencing history(which not coincidentally coincides with the changes in century), there simply is no space for one man that can alter everything, no single event that can be avoided saving mankind The conflicts being faced now, environmental issues, social inequalities, lots of small racial and religious problems, lack of resources, there is nothing that can be done about those, just by appearing for a few people as Billy Bat always did. The manga have always had a focus on showing the historical development of societies, especially during the 20th century, but there is a different history at play here. One not written by a handful of people, whose names go to history book, but one having billions of people, all easily forgotten, but whose actions will decide the future. Billy Bat even this concept, the biggest story in the existence of mankind, which inspired, motivated and led to humanity’s current development stage is now irrelevant. It is now completely incapable of influencing events, both to doom mankind, or to ensure its survival.
Overall I got to say, this is a pretty grim scenario for humanity's future. It ends the search for purpose, truth and answers of your characters exactly with the non-existence of such. But the way said scenario is being portrayed makes all the difference here, even though individual attempts at saving the world, correcting the issues of humanity are deemed as impossible, the work is in no way encouraging people to simply give up, much to the contrary. In this point, I will have to focus on the individual, how the closest we have to a main character, Kevin Goodman is affected by reality. Kevin from birth was marked as a cartoonist, and had the biggest desire to write Billy Bat comics. It was what he kept practicing endlessly in his youth, but there was a problem, he kept getting rejected because of that, heard everybody calling his work a fake, a copy of the real deal, published by Chuck Culkin enterprises. This left a huge mark on him, even though Kevin assumes as said company main author, he still refuses to consider himself the real deal, and still turns to Kevin Yamagata as the true author of Billy Bat. Steeping ahead a few years and we have a different issue plaguing Kevin. Of him just being incapable of writing anymore, the glimpses of the future Billy Bat constantly brought to him are gone, no longer are there those visions that helped him lay out stories. Now he can only bring himself to write normal comics, those cannot give him insight into the future, or help him stop catastrophes, the whole thing just takes airs of pointlessness, Kevin sees no reason to keep doing and just starts looking for a cartoonist, that can still talk to Billy to understand what is going on. Ending put in the same helpless state as everybody else, unable to enact what he thinks would make a real difference, the situation of every individual in the end of the series. This situation of relative powerless far from maddening allows him to understand something, the value of everything else.
When finding Billy Bat, Kevin is able to finally see the purpose in every little action, his own life as culmination of hundreds of little events, pointless to overall history, but that mean everything to him. It is the small meaning of every little action we take, that he finds out, and is in those that is where he find his motivation to keep writing. His continued life is paradoxically the result of two man who only took action because of how inspired they were by seeing stories. His father managed to stand up to an entire city of racists in the south of the USA, because of the act of reading the Billy Bat comics and Finny saved his life, also because of how much he loved that same comic. He sees in those events the inspiring potential of small intimate stories, the fact of people reading a story, finding it to be geared exactly for them, to portray their hopes, feelings and situation better than themselves could describe them. How potent and life changing those can be as an experience. It is this change from the all encompassing narratives, to trying to create meaning and change, with smaller, deeply personal narratives, the purpose of the storyteller. Far from despair, the situation of the individual in this point in history brings relief to the character. Kevin finally comes to terms with his place in the world, and is finally able to enact on his older almost subconscious desire, of simply telling the stories he always wanted, without getting bogged down with needless worries about the universe. In one that I can only describe as one of the most cathartic character moments in fiction.
(The ending everybody(idiots)kept telling me sucks)
The finale of the series represents a culmination and impressive representation of a lot I said above. Many complained about the last 3 chapters not having the main characters, which was exactly the point, to drive the idea home of the world changing, giving a sense of a narrative, where the actions of everybody not just of the few people we follow, is what really matters. Also it is absurd considering how pretty much every main character has had a complete psychological arc(Duvivier, both Kelvins, Chuck, Timmy), there is no need or point in showing anything else about these guya life's anymore. The war going on the final moments of the manga is an obvious parallel to another big conflict portrayed in the manga, the war for the land of Iga. The difference could not be more striking though, of both events, the war against the Momochi clan was one loaded with ideals, where a man could come to extremes of killing all the closest friends he had in life, and still consider himself justified. What was at stake was so clear in the mind of every warrior, their belief of them actually being justified so strong. In contrast no one has any idea what is going in the war at the end of the manga, every soldier is unsure what they are fighting for, what is this war about and what the heck they are supposed to do. Half the time they cannot even tell apart who are the enemies and allies, what army is each army doing, or what they are supposed to believe. The whole thing is basically a wasteland, which is a obvious reference to the ending of the world scenario(every Urasawa manga needs the end of the world as the stakes), where a kid would stand alone in a land in crumbles. This was the end of history according to Billy. We have two soldiers stepping on landmines that would explode if they moved, and ready to kill each other at any moment and a child in this place. The death of the soldiers would mark the world's end, the kid would end up dying alone in this wasteland just as promised.
But then something extraordinary happens. Both soldiers see they share Billy Bat symbols on their shirts, and a mutual appreciation of Kevin Goodman comics, which in turn makes them able to identify, see eachother as more than enemies, but as fellow human beings. It also connects them to the child, that even on the verge of death is amazed they have an edition of the final comic, he was never able to read. Both even manage to resolve their issues through this, even finding a common goal in risking their lives in order to save the small children. After they succeed and manage to survive the kid finds himself at awe of something. The history he just witnessed is exactly like the last issue of Billy Bat he reads, everything in it seems to have a purpose, everything on that story seems to be made directly to him, this person, in exactely this situation. This finding wonders him, gives him new goals and motivations on life. This is how the last prophecy of Billy is avoided, through these specifics seemingly pointless messages, that found the public it meant the most to. The world is saved, and in the midst of the dread of the reality there is a sense of hope, humanity will find new meanings, to strive towards and persevere, even in the madness of the modern world.
(destroying youself or the world, aren't both the same?)
If you cannot say by now, Billy Bat is one of my favorite manga. This analysis started from a wish to give better understanding to some of its least appreciated aspects. Billy Bat is a really unique series, in a way the most ambitious work of fiction I have ever seen, attempting to explore in depth a topic as complex and vast as the historical evolution(most notably the ideological) of mankind. It might not have the best plotting(like every Urasawa work)and it does not hold a candle to something like Pluto in terms of character writing(it is hard to find things who do really). But what it achieved as a really is the most fascinating though experiment I have ever seen. In the end, perhaps what this manga gives me is a sense of hope and purpose to keep writing and explore more glorious aspects of his works in the future.
(destroying youself or the world, aren't both the same?)
If you cannot say by now, Billy Bat is one of my favorite manga. This analysis started from a wish to give better understanding to some of its least appreciated aspects. Billy Bat is a really unique series, in a way the most ambitious work of fiction I have ever seen, attempting to explore in depth a topic as complex and vast as the historical evolution(most notably the ideological) of mankind. It might not have the best plotting(like every Urasawa work)and it does not hold a candle to something like Pluto in terms of character writing(it is hard to find things who do really). But what it achieved as a really is the most fascinating though experiment I have ever seen. In the end, perhaps what this manga gives me is a sense of hope and purpose to keep writing and explore more glorious aspects of his works in the future.
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