Running from 2008 to 2016, Billy Bat is the next mystery-thriller from Naoki Urasawa, though this time written in combination with Takashi Nagasaki. People discussing Urasawa usually tend to solely mention Monster, 20cb, and Pluto, giving Billy Bat a pass. Is this due to a lack of quality? Is it simply too new? Let’s Rock.

PLOT: We begin in 1949, comic artist Kevin Yamagata is semi-successful with his comic “Billy Bat” (which the first chapter and a half simply are). However an investigator looking into some soviet spies drops by his office. The investigator comments that he’s seen the Billy Bat character before as a manga in Japan. Yamagata, feeling like he may have unintentionally plagiarized the character. sets off to Japan. However what he finds isn’t simply a manga with a bat, but a multi-thousand year conspiracy about prophecy, power, and the icon of god. I say “begin” because the plot will move a lot in both directions, looking into the past, and progressing into the future. It’s intricate and intriguing, and in my opinion one of Urasawa’s greatest plots. Not only does it span a good amount of time, it heavily involves real world conspiracies. To avoid _too many_ spoilers I’ll only mention the JFK Assassination, Disney’s ghost writer, and Nazi spies. I find that the use of reality adds more weight and impact to everything. No matter what it does, it makes it connected and always comes with an interesting twist, being plenty surprising. The ending will be hit or miss depending on the person. I wouldn’t say it’s the most narratively satisfying but it’s incredibly thematically satisfying. Which party you lean towards will decide how you feel about it. I personally enjoyed it. Back to the main plot however, it’s a lot of different conspiracies over time, all involving the bat. They can feel episodic as it’s heavily arc based, but they all build into the larger narrative. Nothing is unimportant, even what seems irrelevant at first.

9/10, it’s crazy cool and uses real world elements for great effect.

CHARACTERS:With that much plot detail something had to give, and that sadly was characters. Kevin Yamagata just isn’t as interesting as some other Urasawa protagonists. I think the epitome of this problem is when Kevin hooks up with a girl in early volume 2. It’s so focused on tying the plot in that the girl is completely devoid of anything interesting and her exit from the story has little impact. There’s not a lot of flesh given to a lot of characters save for some more character focused arcs. I rarely found myself connecting to anyone (notable exceptions were Kiyoshi Kurusu and Diane Goodman, who to the end of both of their arcs had become exceptional). Though there weren’t really any bad characters. Kevin(s) felt like typical leads, thrust into situations they don’t know and largely defined by their abilities and perception being based around those. They were simple, and effective for the plot, but with Urasawa I’ve come to expect more character writing. Takes on historical figures were interesting to see however. Lee Harvey Oswald was quite interesting in contrast to the usual public image of him. Adolf Hitler was also a surprise. A lot of characters were unique in manga for their natural existence in different time periods and locations, but I don’t think any of the characters will stay with me too long.

7/10, there wouldn’t be any real complaints if it weren’t for Urasawa. There’s nothing to write home about without comparison to external knowledge.

VISUALS:The art in Billy Bat is a unique topic, mostly for its varying styles. In being a manga about manga/comics there are many a times that things are told through the comics themselves, switching into the style of whatever in-series artist drew the comic. This keeps the manga visually interesting, and whenever the series focuses more on fiction it becomes quite intriguing to look at. I can still see in my mind Billy Bat walking on a flat plane consisting of his comics, and that’s a cool image. Urasawa’s ability to represent different art styles is also a nice little touch. The real world art is pretty standard Urasawa fare. Like with Monster I found the art to be largely not surpassing functional. All of the characters were visually different and nothing ever looked bad but there were only maybe 3 moments within the 20 volume manga that I ever found myself wowed at the art. After 20th Century Boys I expected to be wowed once more but I never found myself as impressed. Still not being the greatest is by no means bad, and there were still things I found myself quite impressed with. The depiction of JFK and his Wife just wasn’t that.

8/10, there’s a lot of smart design and varied/unique visuals. Just not a lot of uber-frameable moments.

FINAL SCORE: 8/10

Billy Bat is an interesting manga, a very interesting manga. I can see someone coming off of Monster and being disappointed that it doesn’t have Monster’s level of skilled character writing but it makes up for that in plot. I wouldn’t call myself Billy Bat’s biggest fan but it was an intriguing read that I think I’ll come to find I enjoyed more than I initially thought. For anyone into conspiracy stories and meta-narratives about art I’d definitely recommend Billy Bat. It’s not Urasawa’s best work but I do believe it holds to his standard of quality, and that’s a high standard.