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Review: Billy Bat (2008-2016)
Finally finished reading Billy Bat. I read it in spurts, so my memory is a bit hazy. Overall, it was alright. I was craving some thriller manga and I decided to finally get around to reading the rest of Urasawa Naoki's manga. I wouldn't say that the concept of Billy Bat made 100% sense, but it was still a story that had a lot of discussion material. Spoilers ahead. Also, as is the norm here, it's just going to be a no-edit word vomit ahead.
P.S. If anybody has any recommendations for thriller manga, let me know! The reason why I picked up Billy Bat was because Urasawa Naoki is the only thriller manga artist I know lol.
Story
I would say that Billy Bat had two main arcs.
The first arc focused on Kevin Yamagata, and Billy Bat's ability to dictate truth and reality. The second arc focused on Kevin Goodman. The second arc contained themes of prophecy like in the first arc, but it was more of a political story, about how Billy Bat would take over the world.
If I were to break down the arcs further, I'd do as follows:
1) Kevin Yamagata's trip to Japan Arc
2) Lee Harvey Oswald Arc
3) Moon landing Arc
4) Ascension of Kevin Goodman Arc
5) Ascension of Timmy Sanada Arc
I went on some forums and saw that there were many people who didn't like the ending because it was too rushed and because it left a lot of loose ends. I think this was because whatever Billy Bat was, was never actually explained. We don't exactly know what Billy Bat is. A spirit? A disease? There are a lot of interpretations of it, but considering the buildup in the first arc, it probably felt unsatisfying to see Billy Bat end on such a vague note.
The end of Billy Bat reminded me of 20th Century Boys, when society descended into a dystopia.
The contents of the story were more controversial than I'd expected, but I think it flew under the radar because this manga was mainly written for a Japanese audience. Billy Bat showed Lee Harvey Oswald to be a person who was framed for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. If 9-11 was portrayed in this light, however, I think that Billy Bat would probably be too controversial to publish in the USA.
Writing
As usual, the writing was pretty tense, and there were moments when I couldn't stop reading.
There is a meta aspect to Billy Bat, as Billy Bat itself is a comic within the Billy Bat that we are reading. It wasn't supposed to be any more meta than that though.
I liked that there weren't too many new characters introduced. The same characters are brought back in different roles, but not in a way that feels forced. I really felt like I could trust characters like Smith and Devivie despite them being against our main characters in earlier arcs.
Art
I do like Urasawa Naoki's art style. It's consistent (unlike shonen manga where characters' looks change completely from beginning to end). In addition, the characters looked a little more realistic than what we'd see in manga aimed towards younger audiences. Character features weren't exaggerated, and some of the characters based on real people actually looked a bit like them.
Characters
Kevin Yamagata
Kevin Yamagata was gone for most of the second half of the story, but I kept waiting for him to make a grand appearance. This is probably a result of Urasawa having us bond a lot with Yamagata, and not enough with Kevin Goodman.
Kevin Yamagata was the first artist to commercialized Billy Bat. He got subconsciously got the idea for Billy Bat after being stationed in Japan. He later went back to Japan to get permission from Zofu to draw Billy Bat officially.
Kevin Yamagata was a pretty cool guy. He was technically just an everyman, but there were times when he was also trying to be brave. This was especially in the case when he was trying to rewrite history but going against what Billy was telling him to draw.
After encounters with the Chuck Culkin Enterprise, Kevin Yamagata had to go into hiding, but he continued to draw Billy Bat. Initially, I think him drawing Billy Bat was a way to fight for freedom of expression.
Later on, Kevin Yamagata saw Billy Bat for real. When we saw Kevin Goodman meet Billy Bat, he told him just to draw. I'm going to assume the Bat told Kevin Yamagata the same thing. Based on the ending, I'm going to lean towards a freedom of expression message again. At that point, Timmy was destroying all of the other Billy Bats, so Kevin Yamagata was standing up to that.
I'll talk more about the Bat below, but I think that the Bat told Kevin to keep drawing because he didn't actually want humanking to die off.
I actually mistook old Kevin Yamagata for Zofu because they had the same mop of white hair lol. Anyway, in his old age, Kevin had his hands cut off for drawing Billy Bat, but he continued drawing with his mouth, with Yamashita-kun helping him out. He basically ended up in the same situation as Zofu, always on the run, but never stopping his art. In his old age he published more Fuji Pontaro, which was pretty popular.
Sorry this is kind of all over the place. I liked Kevin Yamagata as a character very much. He was a normal guy, but tried to be brave in his own way. Over time, he accumulated a lot of sagely wisdom, and never stopped drawing for himself, and for the people who loved his comics.
Kevin Goodman
Kevin Goodman was Kevin Yamagata's successor. They'd met when Kevin Yamagata saved Kevin Goodman from being hurt at the JFK assassination, and later encouraged Kevin Goodman to continue drawing.
Kevin Goodman struggled with being called the prophet after his comics became true. Unlike Kevin Yamagata, Kevin Goodman lived in a different media setting, so the popularity of his comics far surpassed those of Kevin Yamagata's, due to television, Billyland, etc.
I think Kevin just wanted to live a chill life, drawing what he wanted, and being nice to other people. He didn't care about world domination but allying with Chuck Culkin Enterprises was the only way to bring his art to other people. Plus, the real Chuck Culkin was there to support him when he got stuck, whether emotionally, or when it came to drawing.
When Chuck Culkin Enterprises was growing out of control in its world domination, Kevin Goodman made the pilgrimage to meet the real Bat. As mentioned above, the Bat just told him to keep drawing, and that's what Kevin did. Like Kevin Yamagata, I think Kevin Goodman also did it as a form of defiance against Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
He eventually married his university girlfriend, Monica, and they moved to a town in the middle of nowhere, but Kevin Goodman continued drawing even though it made no money.
When an old and ill Timmy visited Kevin, Kevin asked Timmy to draw Billy. Timmy did so and left, and then got really angry. I think Timmy was just kind of angry that he couldn't have a monopoly on entertainment, that Kevin Goodman's Billy Bat was still so good after all these years.
Overall, I actually liked Kevin Goodman's character, but I do think he was a little bit overshadowed by Kevin Yamagata because we never actually got an end to Kevin Yamagata's story before he went into hiding, so we were always waiting for Kevin Yamagata to jump back out at the last minute. Technically that did happen, but I think it distracted me a little from fully appreciating Kevin Goodman's struggles.
Billy Bat
According to the last few chapters, the Bat split into three beings. The white bat, the black bat, and the bat on the moon. I think the white and black bats are supposed to represented good and evil, and the bat on the moon is supposed to represent time. This is just a guess, by the way.
I think that these three bats together guided humans through history. I think the black bat was focused on a little more, because he kept persuading people to do destructive things. However, I think that the white bat came into the picture a little more towards the end, when trying to get Kevin Yamagata, Kevin Goodman, Jacky Momochi, and Yamashita-kun to stand up to Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
The bat on the moon apparently had the power to grant anybody a wish. Kurusu went to the moon to see this bat and wanted to change his past. We did see an altered version of the past, but I don't think the past was changed. The bat on the moon had said that if he'd granted Kurusu's wish, the earth would cease to exist because humans had already used all of their allotted timelines.
I think the bat was not explicitly explained because of time/page constraints, but I think it's almost better that it wasn't explained. Otherwise, it probably would've sounded pretty corny lol.
It's interesting how the bat became almost like a horror movie villain at times, because his presence was so scary to people who feared or didn't understand him. I admit that I got pretty freaked out at times in the manga.
I think the concept of the Bat was interesting, and not something that I'd really seen in any other media. We know some things about the bat, but are otherwise missing some crucial bits of information about the very essence of what the Bat is. The fact that this manga managed to write a coherent story while maintaining this mystery to the end is interesting.
Jacky Momochi
She was a regular woman who could see the Bat and got caught up in this business with the manga artists.
I liked that she was totally normal, even more normal than Kevin Yamagata, because she didn't have the power to change history or prophecize as Kevin Yamagata did. She could only communicate with the Bat.
Jacky was the kind of person who didn't want any trouble. She just wanted to live her life without distractions but the Bat kept pushing her to do things. I think Jacky was scared because she didn't know what the Bat could do, and that was why she did what she did.
In the end, she came to be an ally of Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman, and helped them in their fight against Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
Agent Smith
Agent Smith first came into the story when investigating strange happenings in Japan. He later turned out to be an ally of Kevin Yamagata's, and helped him out when they were trying to track down Lee Harvey Oswald.
Later on, he was sent to protect Kevin Goodman. He taught him a few tricks of his trade, such as learning to detect danger and such.
Unfortunately, Agent Smith didn't get to see Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman one last time, but he helped out Kevin Goodman by leaving him clues in the country home in Basque.
Kurusu Kiyoshi
Kurusu was a villain for much of the story. We didn't really know what his motivations were for tracking down the scroll until much later on. We learned that he wanted to change the past for very personal reasons.
He had a bad childhood, and he wanted to change that. Apparently after his father died, he found his mother sleeping with the enemy, and later with the help of the Bat, he watched his town collapse due to an earthquake while he watched on top of a hill. Kurusu saw this as a way of avenging his father.
I think Kurusu wanted to change his childhood so that his father didn't die. His father had talked about going to the moon with Kurusu, so it was also kind of a personal goal of Kurusu's to go to the moon to make his father proud.
On the moon, Kurusu talked with the Bat but the Bat told him he couldn't change the past anymore because the earth would cease to exist. At this point, Kurusu was pretty ill, and I'm pretty sure he died on the moon.
Finney
I used to get Finney and Smith mixed up with each other because they were both after Kevin Yamagata. It turns out Finney was the bad one though, who was working for Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
Timmy Sanada
Timmy was such a good villain for the short time that he was.
When Kevin Goodman first met Timmy, we were supposed to think that they'd develop a good relationship. Kevin Yamagata was kind and encouraging to Kevin Goodman, and Kevin Goodman was the same to Timmy, except it turns out Timmy was not cut from the same cloth.
Timmy was an illegitimate child of Chuck Culkin and craved his father's love. At first, he pleased his father by drawing Billy Bat in the way that the real Chuck Culkin had drawn it. That is to say that he was drawing the fake Billy Bat, and it should've been a clue that he couldn't actually hear or see the Bat. It's uncertain how he knew that the Twin Towers to fall were in New York, but I'm willing to bet it was just a guess.
As he grew older, he became more and more involved in the business side of Chuck Culkin Enterprises. In the future timelines, it showed that people actually didn't like the new Billy Bat comics, and Chuck Culkin Enterprises was only delving in other business ventures because their soft power wasn't working anymore. Chuck Culkin Enterprises was involved in mining, oil, and water. As we know, water is essential for life, and owning water sources basically gave them control over people.
I don't remember if we ever saw the conversation, but we can assume that the fake Chuck Culkin asked Timmy to bring Billy Bat to the people of the world. The Fuhrer had told a similar message to the fake Chuck Culkin, but the circumstances then were different from the circumstances now. Back then, Billy Bat was just a cartoon, whereas in the current day, it was a megacorporation. So I think in a way, there was some miscommunication. While the fake Chuck Culkin wanted to bring Billy Bat to the world for the fuhrer, it was also a condition of his release. It wasn't something he wanted to do of his own volition. However, Timmy craved his father's love and bringing Chuck Culkin Enterprises to new heights was an active way for Timmy to show his love.
In the end, we were supposed to see that Timmy lost sight of what Billy Bat was supposed to be. Billy Bat was supposed to be entertainment. When Chuck Culkin Enterprises was at its most powerful, Timmy couldn't even draw a circle anymore. However, at the end of the manga, we saw that the ability to draw never left Timmy. But by seeing Kevin Goodman continuing to draw for the sake of drawing and entertainment, he realized that he'd used his drawing skills for something other than its original use, which was entertainment.
I thought that Timmy was a very interesting villain because of how he contrasted to Kevin Goodman, his mentor and predecessor.
Chuck Culkin
The real Chuck Culkin was Kevin Yamagata's assistant back when Kevin was still drawing Billy Bat, before he'd gone to Japan to seek out Zofu.
He wasn't able to draw the real Billy Bat, but his heart was always in the right place. Kevin Yamagata had asked him to continue drawing Billy Bat while he went to Japan to gain permission. While he was gone, Chuck Culkin got in touch with the fake Chuck Culkin, and their business relationship spiralled out of control.
Chuck Culkin had probably thought that partnering up with the fake Chuck Culkin was the only way to keep producing comics. He wasn't a particularly business savvy guy, and there was no way he'd know that the fake Chuck Culkin would turn Billy Bat into what it became.
Soon after Chuck Culkin Enterprise's success, I think that the real Chuck Culkin already started feeling guilty. Kevin Yamagata had gone to Japan to gain permission to draw Billy Bat, and here Chuck was, stealing Billy Bat from Kevin Yamagata.
In his remorse, Chuck became a mentor and protector to Kevin Yamagata's disciple(s). But his loyalty all lay with Kevin Yamagata. He stayed alive to apologize to Kevin, but I don't think Kevin ever hated him, and was happy to see that he'd taken care of Kevin Goodman.
Overall, good guy who fell on some hard luck.
Fake Chuck Culkin
The fake Chuck Culkin (FCC) was another character that remained shrouded in mystery. All we know of him was that he was Jewish, and a condition of being released by the Fuhrer was that he had to bring the Bat to the world.
I don't think FCC knew or cared about what the Bat was. After he was released, he was probably looking for a job anyway, so spreading the Bat was probably just a job to him. And after Chuck Culkin Enterprises became big, FCC just continued riding that train. He didn't need to draw, but he still had to participate in board meetings, go on TV, etc.
Despite FCC's hard origin story and sound business intellect, by no means was he a great guy. He was a philanderer for sure. I'm pretty sure he never cared about anyone. He never really cared for Audrey. It's just that they were kind of stuck together. As for Timmy, I'm pretty sure FCC was just using him to regain control of Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
In a future timeline, we saw that Audrey had trouble finding out more about her father, so perhaps this was information that was never meant to be revealed (or the writers just ran out of time...).
While I was interested in the mystery of FCC, I kind of wish we had more to go on than just that he was a Jewish prisoner personally commanded by the Fuhrer to bring the Bat to the world.
Shizuka
Shizuka was a sex worker that Kevin Yamagata had met on his trip to Japan when he was looking for Zofu.
Shizuka ended up being killed by Kurusu. She had read Kevin's manga so she could tell him with her dying breath that Kurusu was the karate-chop man from his manga.
Shizuka didn't have a big role in the manga, but she was just a very nice woman and she deserved better :(
Zofu Karama
Zofu was Kevin Yamagata's predecessor. He was living a pretty isolated life, but he continued to draw comics. At the time that Kevin sought him out, Zofu seemed to already be on the radar of the evil men, whether it was people from Chuck Culkin Enterprises, or those who were looking for the scroll.
Zofu was a pretty cool guy. He'd gotten the hang of evading the authorities in his old age, and was pretty savvy with getting Yamashita-kun to help him and to help Kevin Yamagata as well.
Cool dude.
Tony and Diane Goodman
The parents of Kevin Goodman. Tony was a white man, the heir to the Golden Cola company, and Diane was a black woman, who was a worker at one of their facilities.
They fell in love, but the Goodman family opposed their marriage at the actual wedding. Diane ran away, and was driven by Randy Momochi. Later on, Randy happened to pick up Tony, and they went after Diane. In the end, they got back together :3
I thought the side story about Tony and Diane in a town of white supremacists was very interesting. I don't know if the average Japanese person is knowledgeable about racism in the USA, but it was definitely a pretty heavy topic that we don't see discussed in manga often.
Tony and Diane took a backseat after Kevin grew up into a young man, but Tony and Diane never stopped being supportive parents. In particular, Diane always reminded Kevin of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "I have a dream." It reminded him to stand up for what was right, and not what was easy.
Randy Momochi
He was Jacky's father, and the taxi driver who drove Diane and Tony on their wedding night. He also had the ability to speak to the Bat, in th form of the Billy Bat charm he had hanging on his rear-view mirror.
He went with Jacky to Japan, where they were eventually chased by Devivie.
Kanbei
He was a ninja who was supposed to bring the scroll to Momochi Sandayu, but after his tribulations, he decided to bury it instead. If I remember correctly, in the process of protecting the scroll, he killed all of his childhood friends, which of course was a traumatic experience.
Henry Charlies Devivie
Devivie first came into the story when he was buying up land to build Billylands. He was also responsible for exterminating "fake" Billy Bats. He actually wanted to find the scroll, though, which is how he ended up in the same little town as Kevin Yamagata, Jacky and Randy Momochi, Zofu, and Yamashita-kun.
The original plan was for Zofu to send a message to Shishou in the past, who would kill Devivie's parents so that Devivie wouldn't have been born. I thought this use of time travel was SUPER cool and I was kept on edge during those past scenes with Shishou. However, that didn't happen. What happened instead was that Shishou died, but not without revealing to Henry's mother that her husband was a serial killer, and that her son would be a monster. Before he died, Shishou drew a comic where Henry's mother told him that she didn't want her son to be an evil man. In the present, Kevin Yamagata drew a similar comic about a woman telling her son to be a good boy.
I don't know whether Shishou drawing the comics in the past truly changed Devivie of the present day. Actually, Devivie didn't really think much of Kevin Yamagata's comic in the present day.
I don't remember exactly how Devivie had a change of heart. I vaguely recall him falling off a cliff, but that's all I remember OTL In any case, I didn't find myself questioning him at all when he sided with the Kevins.
In the second arc, he was charged with protecting Kevin Goodman. He also had a gift for recognizing real ("fake") Billy Bats, and it was probably supposed to be a clue when he didn't have a reaction to Timmy's Billy Bat.
Devivie was shot by people from Chuck Culkin Enterprises, but he survived long enough to tell Kevin Goodman that 9-11 was happening in Chicago and not New York City. Now, that was a lie, but apparently Devivie did so to protect Kevin Goodman, as that was his job.
I don't remember what happened to Devivie in the end, but I still thought he was interesting as a villain who convincingly became an ally.
Gary and Cissy Devivie
I thought this side story was sooo interesting. Gary was a police detective investigating some serial murders, and Cissy was his wife. It's highly suggested that Shishou was the perpetrator, but the truth was that Gary was the serial killer himself. His father had left his family for a Japanese-American woman and so he grew to hate people of Asian descent.
In the normal timeline, I think Cissy probably had no idea her husband was such a terrible man, but in this timeline where she got to know Shishou, it's interesting that she tried to do what she could to change the future. She realized that Shishou had some weird power, and whether or not her son would grow to become the monster that Shishou described, she'd just pose the question of whether they could change the future.
I think whether Gary, Cissy, and Shishou could change their deaths was out of the question, because as we found out later, humans were out of alternate timelines. Instead, the only thing that could change was their knowledge. So Shishou revealed to Cissy information about her husband and her son, and that maybe had an effect on Henry of the present day, but I can't be sure X'D
Shishou
Shishou was a scary man at first, but ended up being a cool guy. He had planned on waiting for Zofu's signal and then killing Cissy and Gary so that Henry never would've been born.
He'd come to be acquainted with Cissy and so it was definitely hard for him to kill her. That being said, he did what he could, drawing comics for her in which she directly spoke to her unborn son and tried to convince him not to do the evil that he'd done.
Shishou died in his struggle with Gary.
Audrey Culkin
Audrey worked for Chuck Culkin Enterprises. She was the one who recruited Kevin Goodman. After Kevin Goodman gained success, we thought that maybe Audrey was one of the good ones.
Audrey wanted Timmy to ghostwrite for Kevin Goodman at first, seeing as it was a successful model for her own father growing the business. However, Kevin Goodman pushed hard for Timmy to be recognized.
Things really took a turn when Kevin Goodman tried to do a PSA telling people to stay away from the Twin Towers on 9-11. Instead, Audrey replaced the segment. She later told Kevin Goodman that she used to hate her father, but only in his death did she understand his greatness. That part was pretty freaky, because we saw a ginormous portrait of her father right behind her desk.
Over time, Timmy pushed Audrey out of the business. That probably wasn't as big of a deal for Audrey though because she could see that Timmy's comics weren't selling. All she was left with were the rights to print the paper copies of Billy Bat. However, in the timeline of Billy Bat, the comic that we the audience are reading, printed comics have become much less popular compared to reading electronic comics.
She went into art dealing for a while but it wasn't working out so well. Her artists kept falling through, and she had to resort to dating guys and running off to get her meals paid. Instead, she started to reprint paper copies of Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman's comics. She also later started to print Kevin Yamagata's Fuji Pontaro comics.
Audrey also got Chuck Culkin in touch with Kevin Yamagata, which brought a tear to her eye. Audrey tried to convince Monica that she was an unfeeling businesswoman though.
Audrey had her ups and downs, which made her feel like a real character, and I appreciated that.
Akechi Kotarou
He was the director who filmed the moon landing. I thought this art was SUPER conspiratorial because as we know, some people nowadays do think that the moon landing was faked.
In Billy Bat, the moon landing was only filmed because the authorities didn't want people to see that there was a bat on the moon.
Later on, Akechi Kotarou and Maggie Momochi went to Tibet where they were to film a documentary on the Bat.
Maggie Momochi
She was Jacky's daughter. Her relationship with Jacky was like Jacky's relationship with Randy. Maggie thought her mom was a bit loony because she was talking to a bat in her head. Maggie just wanted to go about her own life, but she fell into all of this Bat business and later got invested to the point that she called her mom to call Kevin Goodman over to Tibet.
Yamashita-kun
He was a fan of Zofu's work and was called on by him to aid Kevin Yamagata when he was in Japan. While maybe not the most savvy, Yamashita-kun was very enthusiastic and sincere, and did what he could to help both Zofu and Kevin Yamagata.
As an adult, Yamashita-kun worked part-time at Billyland in Japan and worked his way up to becoming President, where he did wonders for Billyland's popularity. I don't think that Yamashita-kun was particularly loyal to Chuck Culkin Enterprises, but working with Billy Bat made him feel close to Zofu and Kevin Yamagata.
He eventually started seeing the Bat, and it led him to Jacky in the USA. In the end, Yamashita-kun was helping out Kevin Yamagata, seeing as how he had no arms.
Another good dude, this Yamashita fellow.
Monica Maura
She was a lawyer who was leading a case against Chuck Culkin Enterprises for its unethical practices which led to dangerous water sources around the world. She eventually won. At this time, Chuck Culkin Enterprises was already losing its grip on the world.
Monica was also a classmate of Kevin Goodman's in university. She worked at a cafe that Kevin frequented, and that's how the got to talking. In the end, they married, which was nice and cute :3
Historical figures
The biggest historical figure who actually got a big role was Lee Harvey Oswald. LHO was portrayed as a guy who wanted to be a patriot, and the Bat was manipulating his motivations to lead him to be framed for the JFK assassination. Of course, this is very conspiratorial. While I appreciate what the writers were trying to do, I think maybe it would've been easier to enjoy if they'd created a crime based on the JFK assassination rather than the actual event itself.
The other historical figure I want to discuss is the Fuhrer. Apparently he'd asked the fake Chuck Culkin to spread the Bat all over the world. We're never told much about his motivations for doing so. My guess would be that he wanted world domination, and that is probably why the fake Chuck Culkin developed his business the way that he did.
Other historical figures included Judas Iscariot, Francis Xavier, Albert Einstein, and a number of other Japanese historical figures.
Themes
Time travel by rewriting the past
I thought the idea of using comics to change the past was very cool. As mentioned above, I really enjoyed the arc where Zofu had to send a message to Shishou in the past.
In this universe, it seems that humans had a certain number of timelines, and they'd used them all up, so the bat on the moon was no longer able to let humans change history again. That was probably why the bat had to step in in the last arc and get the humans back on track, because otherwise their world would cease to exist.
Truth is written by the victors
This idiom was demonstrated literally because apparently whoever controlled Billy Bat drawings would control history. Many of the villains in the first arc wanted to gain control of the Bat for this reason.
The idea of using the Bat to change the past was not discussed in the second arc. It was kind of a weird turn. We did eventually learn that humans had no more timelines, but that wasn't really something that was made clear until later.
Maybe it was when Kurusu went to the moon and had his talk with the bat, that we were supposed to understand that changing history was no longer an option.
Capitalism and monopolies
This was a big theme near the end, when Timmy became the head of Chuck Culkin Enterprises. While the fake Chuck Culkin was already monetizing Billy Bat, he was doing so in a way that still technically delivered its purpose, which was to spread joy around the world.
But Timmy seemed to grow Chuck Culkin Enterprises into a huge business, something that was almost overbearing. He had a very aggressive approach to all fake Billy Bats, and anyone who was a threat to Chuck Culkin Enterprises in general (seeing as how he'd sent someone to kill Monica after their talk).
Not only that, Timmy started to grow Chuck Culkin Enterprises so that it encompassed fields that weren't even related to Billy Bat. How are oil and gas related to Billy Bat? They aren't, but it was a way to grow Chuck Culkin Enterprises for $$$.
Conspiracies
I admit I'm not the biggest fan of conspiracy theories. However, in Billy Bat, the conspiracy theory involves a literal supernatural being made up by a writer, so I think it probably won't sway people into thinking wild thoughts.
I know the moon landing being faked is a big conspiracy theory that a surprisingly high number of people believe in. I don't know of any conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination though.
In any case, I thought it was curious that the authors had chosen American events for these conspiracy theories. I wonder if it was purely because Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman were American, or whether it was because they wanted to write about those events specifically.
Propaganda
Timmy's Billy Bat initially had a lot of war stories. Chuck and Kevin Goodman didn't really like them.
But the fact that they were war stories reminded me of those commercials for the armed forces. We have some here in Canada, but apparently the propaganda for the miliary in the US is much stronger.
Soft power
The fake Chuck Culkin used Billy Bat to take over the world. It reminded me of some things I'd read about Kpop, and how South Korea was using "soft power" as a way to gain influence in the world.
This was probably how the Fuhrer had imagined the Bat taking over the world, and I think the fake Chuck Culkin had intended this too.
Manipulating necessity
Timmy tried to gain control of water sources in order to control the people of the world. Chuck Culkin Enterprises wasn't doing a good job of keeping water safe, but it still technically did the job.
When Timmy was talking to Monica, it felt an awful like he was trying to have the entire world addicted to his products. In light of climate change issues, Chuck Culkin Enterprises would swoop in with their magical drinking water and save everyone.
At that point, Timmy was slightly off his rocker. He was already the super violent president of Chuck Culkin Enterprises and it was actually a little creepy to see him explaining his thought process to Monica with such enthusiasm.
It felt like Timmy had imagined this epic story of how Chuck Culkin Enterprises would be the hero that the people needed, except that Chuck Culkin Enterprises might also have been the villains that they were fighting.
Fans vs. supporters
When Timmy was speaking to Monica, the scanlation I read indicated that he'd be there to save "the fans of Billy Bat."
I'd just read a /r/Hobbydrama post about how the CCP tried to release idols to promote its image among younger people. The post is here for those interested. The way that Timmy was speaking, it felt like Billy Bat in his eyes was a symbol for the greatness of Chuck Culkin Enterprises. Billy Bat was becoming almost a political symbol, maybe someone like Waldo from that episode of Black Mirror where a cartoon became an actual political figure.
Entertainment
At the end, the symbolism was told in a way that was more obvious. Two soldiers were fighting against each other but they weren't really clear on why. However, Billy Bat united them. They were both wearing Billy Bat shirts, and that was enough to remind them both that they were just humans. They bonded over reading Billy Bat, as well as saving the kid who also like reading Billy Bat.
So the takeaway from the manga was probably that entertainment is meant to unite us in joy (like how the Kevins brought joy to their readers, and how the soldiers bonded over Billy Bat), and entertainment should not be monetized to the point of dystopia (all of Chuck Culkin Enterprises).
Overall
Overall, this was an alright manga.
The good included:
- Consistent and more realistic drawing
- Tense moments and page-turning thrillers
- Great characterizations
The not-so-good included:
- Some things left unexplained even after the end
- Conspiracy theories that might not be for everyone
P.S. If anybody has any recommendations for thriller manga, let me know! The reason why I picked up Billy Bat was because Urasawa Naoki is the only thriller manga artist I know lol.
Story
I would say that Billy Bat had two main arcs.
The first arc focused on Kevin Yamagata, and Billy Bat's ability to dictate truth and reality. The second arc focused on Kevin Goodman. The second arc contained themes of prophecy like in the first arc, but it was more of a political story, about how Billy Bat would take over the world.
If I were to break down the arcs further, I'd do as follows:
1) Kevin Yamagata's trip to Japan Arc
2) Lee Harvey Oswald Arc
3) Moon landing Arc
4) Ascension of Kevin Goodman Arc
5) Ascension of Timmy Sanada Arc
I went on some forums and saw that there were many people who didn't like the ending because it was too rushed and because it left a lot of loose ends. I think this was because whatever Billy Bat was, was never actually explained. We don't exactly know what Billy Bat is. A spirit? A disease? There are a lot of interpretations of it, but considering the buildup in the first arc, it probably felt unsatisfying to see Billy Bat end on such a vague note.
The end of Billy Bat reminded me of 20th Century Boys, when society descended into a dystopia.
The contents of the story were more controversial than I'd expected, but I think it flew under the radar because this manga was mainly written for a Japanese audience. Billy Bat showed Lee Harvey Oswald to be a person who was framed for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. If 9-11 was portrayed in this light, however, I think that Billy Bat would probably be too controversial to publish in the USA.
Writing
As usual, the writing was pretty tense, and there were moments when I couldn't stop reading.
There is a meta aspect to Billy Bat, as Billy Bat itself is a comic within the Billy Bat that we are reading. It wasn't supposed to be any more meta than that though.
I liked that there weren't too many new characters introduced. The same characters are brought back in different roles, but not in a way that feels forced. I really felt like I could trust characters like Smith and Devivie despite them being against our main characters in earlier arcs.
Art
I do like Urasawa Naoki's art style. It's consistent (unlike shonen manga where characters' looks change completely from beginning to end). In addition, the characters looked a little more realistic than what we'd see in manga aimed towards younger audiences. Character features weren't exaggerated, and some of the characters based on real people actually looked a bit like them.
Characters
Kevin Yamagata
Kevin Yamagata was gone for most of the second half of the story, but I kept waiting for him to make a grand appearance. This is probably a result of Urasawa having us bond a lot with Yamagata, and not enough with Kevin Goodman.
Kevin Yamagata was the first artist to commercialized Billy Bat. He got subconsciously got the idea for Billy Bat after being stationed in Japan. He later went back to Japan to get permission from Zofu to draw Billy Bat officially.
Kevin Yamagata was a pretty cool guy. He was technically just an everyman, but there were times when he was also trying to be brave. This was especially in the case when he was trying to rewrite history but going against what Billy was telling him to draw.
After encounters with the Chuck Culkin Enterprise, Kevin Yamagata had to go into hiding, but he continued to draw Billy Bat. Initially, I think him drawing Billy Bat was a way to fight for freedom of expression.
Later on, Kevin Yamagata saw Billy Bat for real. When we saw Kevin Goodman meet Billy Bat, he told him just to draw. I'm going to assume the Bat told Kevin Yamagata the same thing. Based on the ending, I'm going to lean towards a freedom of expression message again. At that point, Timmy was destroying all of the other Billy Bats, so Kevin Yamagata was standing up to that.
I'll talk more about the Bat below, but I think that the Bat told Kevin to keep drawing because he didn't actually want humanking to die off.
I actually mistook old Kevin Yamagata for Zofu because they had the same mop of white hair lol. Anyway, in his old age, Kevin had his hands cut off for drawing Billy Bat, but he continued drawing with his mouth, with Yamashita-kun helping him out. He basically ended up in the same situation as Zofu, always on the run, but never stopping his art. In his old age he published more Fuji Pontaro, which was pretty popular.
Sorry this is kind of all over the place. I liked Kevin Yamagata as a character very much. He was a normal guy, but tried to be brave in his own way. Over time, he accumulated a lot of sagely wisdom, and never stopped drawing for himself, and for the people who loved his comics.
Kevin Goodman
Kevin Goodman was Kevin Yamagata's successor. They'd met when Kevin Yamagata saved Kevin Goodman from being hurt at the JFK assassination, and later encouraged Kevin Goodman to continue drawing.
Kevin Goodman struggled with being called the prophet after his comics became true. Unlike Kevin Yamagata, Kevin Goodman lived in a different media setting, so the popularity of his comics far surpassed those of Kevin Yamagata's, due to television, Billyland, etc.
I think Kevin just wanted to live a chill life, drawing what he wanted, and being nice to other people. He didn't care about world domination but allying with Chuck Culkin Enterprises was the only way to bring his art to other people. Plus, the real Chuck Culkin was there to support him when he got stuck, whether emotionally, or when it came to drawing.
When Chuck Culkin Enterprises was growing out of control in its world domination, Kevin Goodman made the pilgrimage to meet the real Bat. As mentioned above, the Bat just told him to keep drawing, and that's what Kevin did. Like Kevin Yamagata, I think Kevin Goodman also did it as a form of defiance against Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
He eventually married his university girlfriend, Monica, and they moved to a town in the middle of nowhere, but Kevin Goodman continued drawing even though it made no money.
When an old and ill Timmy visited Kevin, Kevin asked Timmy to draw Billy. Timmy did so and left, and then got really angry. I think Timmy was just kind of angry that he couldn't have a monopoly on entertainment, that Kevin Goodman's Billy Bat was still so good after all these years.
Overall, I actually liked Kevin Goodman's character, but I do think he was a little bit overshadowed by Kevin Yamagata because we never actually got an end to Kevin Yamagata's story before he went into hiding, so we were always waiting for Kevin Yamagata to jump back out at the last minute. Technically that did happen, but I think it distracted me a little from fully appreciating Kevin Goodman's struggles.
Billy Bat
According to the last few chapters, the Bat split into three beings. The white bat, the black bat, and the bat on the moon. I think the white and black bats are supposed to represented good and evil, and the bat on the moon is supposed to represent time. This is just a guess, by the way.
I think that these three bats together guided humans through history. I think the black bat was focused on a little more, because he kept persuading people to do destructive things. However, I think that the white bat came into the picture a little more towards the end, when trying to get Kevin Yamagata, Kevin Goodman, Jacky Momochi, and Yamashita-kun to stand up to Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
The bat on the moon apparently had the power to grant anybody a wish. Kurusu went to the moon to see this bat and wanted to change his past. We did see an altered version of the past, but I don't think the past was changed. The bat on the moon had said that if he'd granted Kurusu's wish, the earth would cease to exist because humans had already used all of their allotted timelines.
I think the bat was not explicitly explained because of time/page constraints, but I think it's almost better that it wasn't explained. Otherwise, it probably would've sounded pretty corny lol.
It's interesting how the bat became almost like a horror movie villain at times, because his presence was so scary to people who feared or didn't understand him. I admit that I got pretty freaked out at times in the manga.
I think the concept of the Bat was interesting, and not something that I'd really seen in any other media. We know some things about the bat, but are otherwise missing some crucial bits of information about the very essence of what the Bat is. The fact that this manga managed to write a coherent story while maintaining this mystery to the end is interesting.
Jacky Momochi
She was a regular woman who could see the Bat and got caught up in this business with the manga artists.
I liked that she was totally normal, even more normal than Kevin Yamagata, because she didn't have the power to change history or prophecize as Kevin Yamagata did. She could only communicate with the Bat.
Jacky was the kind of person who didn't want any trouble. She just wanted to live her life without distractions but the Bat kept pushing her to do things. I think Jacky was scared because she didn't know what the Bat could do, and that was why she did what she did.
In the end, she came to be an ally of Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman, and helped them in their fight against Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
Agent Smith
Agent Smith first came into the story when investigating strange happenings in Japan. He later turned out to be an ally of Kevin Yamagata's, and helped him out when they were trying to track down Lee Harvey Oswald.
Later on, he was sent to protect Kevin Goodman. He taught him a few tricks of his trade, such as learning to detect danger and such.
Unfortunately, Agent Smith didn't get to see Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman one last time, but he helped out Kevin Goodman by leaving him clues in the country home in Basque.
Kurusu Kiyoshi
Kurusu was a villain for much of the story. We didn't really know what his motivations were for tracking down the scroll until much later on. We learned that he wanted to change the past for very personal reasons.
He had a bad childhood, and he wanted to change that. Apparently after his father died, he found his mother sleeping with the enemy, and later with the help of the Bat, he watched his town collapse due to an earthquake while he watched on top of a hill. Kurusu saw this as a way of avenging his father.
I think Kurusu wanted to change his childhood so that his father didn't die. His father had talked about going to the moon with Kurusu, so it was also kind of a personal goal of Kurusu's to go to the moon to make his father proud.
On the moon, Kurusu talked with the Bat but the Bat told him he couldn't change the past anymore because the earth would cease to exist. At this point, Kurusu was pretty ill, and I'm pretty sure he died on the moon.
Finney
I used to get Finney and Smith mixed up with each other because they were both after Kevin Yamagata. It turns out Finney was the bad one though, who was working for Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
Timmy Sanada
Timmy was such a good villain for the short time that he was.
When Kevin Goodman first met Timmy, we were supposed to think that they'd develop a good relationship. Kevin Yamagata was kind and encouraging to Kevin Goodman, and Kevin Goodman was the same to Timmy, except it turns out Timmy was not cut from the same cloth.
Timmy was an illegitimate child of Chuck Culkin and craved his father's love. At first, he pleased his father by drawing Billy Bat in the way that the real Chuck Culkin had drawn it. That is to say that he was drawing the fake Billy Bat, and it should've been a clue that he couldn't actually hear or see the Bat. It's uncertain how he knew that the Twin Towers to fall were in New York, but I'm willing to bet it was just a guess.
As he grew older, he became more and more involved in the business side of Chuck Culkin Enterprises. In the future timelines, it showed that people actually didn't like the new Billy Bat comics, and Chuck Culkin Enterprises was only delving in other business ventures because their soft power wasn't working anymore. Chuck Culkin Enterprises was involved in mining, oil, and water. As we know, water is essential for life, and owning water sources basically gave them control over people.
I don't remember if we ever saw the conversation, but we can assume that the fake Chuck Culkin asked Timmy to bring Billy Bat to the people of the world. The Fuhrer had told a similar message to the fake Chuck Culkin, but the circumstances then were different from the circumstances now. Back then, Billy Bat was just a cartoon, whereas in the current day, it was a megacorporation. So I think in a way, there was some miscommunication. While the fake Chuck Culkin wanted to bring Billy Bat to the world for the fuhrer, it was also a condition of his release. It wasn't something he wanted to do of his own volition. However, Timmy craved his father's love and bringing Chuck Culkin Enterprises to new heights was an active way for Timmy to show his love.
In the end, we were supposed to see that Timmy lost sight of what Billy Bat was supposed to be. Billy Bat was supposed to be entertainment. When Chuck Culkin Enterprises was at its most powerful, Timmy couldn't even draw a circle anymore. However, at the end of the manga, we saw that the ability to draw never left Timmy. But by seeing Kevin Goodman continuing to draw for the sake of drawing and entertainment, he realized that he'd used his drawing skills for something other than its original use, which was entertainment.
I thought that Timmy was a very interesting villain because of how he contrasted to Kevin Goodman, his mentor and predecessor.
Chuck Culkin
The real Chuck Culkin was Kevin Yamagata's assistant back when Kevin was still drawing Billy Bat, before he'd gone to Japan to seek out Zofu.
He wasn't able to draw the real Billy Bat, but his heart was always in the right place. Kevin Yamagata had asked him to continue drawing Billy Bat while he went to Japan to gain permission. While he was gone, Chuck Culkin got in touch with the fake Chuck Culkin, and their business relationship spiralled out of control.
Chuck Culkin had probably thought that partnering up with the fake Chuck Culkin was the only way to keep producing comics. He wasn't a particularly business savvy guy, and there was no way he'd know that the fake Chuck Culkin would turn Billy Bat into what it became.
Soon after Chuck Culkin Enterprise's success, I think that the real Chuck Culkin already started feeling guilty. Kevin Yamagata had gone to Japan to gain permission to draw Billy Bat, and here Chuck was, stealing Billy Bat from Kevin Yamagata.
In his remorse, Chuck became a mentor and protector to Kevin Yamagata's disciple(s). But his loyalty all lay with Kevin Yamagata. He stayed alive to apologize to Kevin, but I don't think Kevin ever hated him, and was happy to see that he'd taken care of Kevin Goodman.
Overall, good guy who fell on some hard luck.
Fake Chuck Culkin
The fake Chuck Culkin (FCC) was another character that remained shrouded in mystery. All we know of him was that he was Jewish, and a condition of being released by the Fuhrer was that he had to bring the Bat to the world.
I don't think FCC knew or cared about what the Bat was. After he was released, he was probably looking for a job anyway, so spreading the Bat was probably just a job to him. And after Chuck Culkin Enterprises became big, FCC just continued riding that train. He didn't need to draw, but he still had to participate in board meetings, go on TV, etc.
Despite FCC's hard origin story and sound business intellect, by no means was he a great guy. He was a philanderer for sure. I'm pretty sure he never cared about anyone. He never really cared for Audrey. It's just that they were kind of stuck together. As for Timmy, I'm pretty sure FCC was just using him to regain control of Chuck Culkin Enterprises.
In a future timeline, we saw that Audrey had trouble finding out more about her father, so perhaps this was information that was never meant to be revealed (or the writers just ran out of time...).
While I was interested in the mystery of FCC, I kind of wish we had more to go on than just that he was a Jewish prisoner personally commanded by the Fuhrer to bring the Bat to the world.
Shizuka
Shizuka was a sex worker that Kevin Yamagata had met on his trip to Japan when he was looking for Zofu.
Shizuka ended up being killed by Kurusu. She had read Kevin's manga so she could tell him with her dying breath that Kurusu was the karate-chop man from his manga.
Shizuka didn't have a big role in the manga, but she was just a very nice woman and she deserved better :(
Zofu Karama
Zofu was Kevin Yamagata's predecessor. He was living a pretty isolated life, but he continued to draw comics. At the time that Kevin sought him out, Zofu seemed to already be on the radar of the evil men, whether it was people from Chuck Culkin Enterprises, or those who were looking for the scroll.
Zofu was a pretty cool guy. He'd gotten the hang of evading the authorities in his old age, and was pretty savvy with getting Yamashita-kun to help him and to help Kevin Yamagata as well.
Cool dude.
Tony and Diane Goodman
The parents of Kevin Goodman. Tony was a white man, the heir to the Golden Cola company, and Diane was a black woman, who was a worker at one of their facilities.
They fell in love, but the Goodman family opposed their marriage at the actual wedding. Diane ran away, and was driven by Randy Momochi. Later on, Randy happened to pick up Tony, and they went after Diane. In the end, they got back together :3
I thought the side story about Tony and Diane in a town of white supremacists was very interesting. I don't know if the average Japanese person is knowledgeable about racism in the USA, but it was definitely a pretty heavy topic that we don't see discussed in manga often.
Tony and Diane took a backseat after Kevin grew up into a young man, but Tony and Diane never stopped being supportive parents. In particular, Diane always reminded Kevin of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "I have a dream." It reminded him to stand up for what was right, and not what was easy.
Randy Momochi
He was Jacky's father, and the taxi driver who drove Diane and Tony on their wedding night. He also had the ability to speak to the Bat, in th form of the Billy Bat charm he had hanging on his rear-view mirror.
He went with Jacky to Japan, where they were eventually chased by Devivie.
Kanbei
He was a ninja who was supposed to bring the scroll to Momochi Sandayu, but after his tribulations, he decided to bury it instead. If I remember correctly, in the process of protecting the scroll, he killed all of his childhood friends, which of course was a traumatic experience.
Henry Charlies Devivie
Devivie first came into the story when he was buying up land to build Billylands. He was also responsible for exterminating "fake" Billy Bats. He actually wanted to find the scroll, though, which is how he ended up in the same little town as Kevin Yamagata, Jacky and Randy Momochi, Zofu, and Yamashita-kun.
The original plan was for Zofu to send a message to Shishou in the past, who would kill Devivie's parents so that Devivie wouldn't have been born. I thought this use of time travel was SUPER cool and I was kept on edge during those past scenes with Shishou. However, that didn't happen. What happened instead was that Shishou died, but not without revealing to Henry's mother that her husband was a serial killer, and that her son would be a monster. Before he died, Shishou drew a comic where Henry's mother told him that she didn't want her son to be an evil man. In the present, Kevin Yamagata drew a similar comic about a woman telling her son to be a good boy.
I don't know whether Shishou drawing the comics in the past truly changed Devivie of the present day. Actually, Devivie didn't really think much of Kevin Yamagata's comic in the present day.
I don't remember exactly how Devivie had a change of heart. I vaguely recall him falling off a cliff, but that's all I remember OTL In any case, I didn't find myself questioning him at all when he sided with the Kevins.
In the second arc, he was charged with protecting Kevin Goodman. He also had a gift for recognizing real ("fake") Billy Bats, and it was probably supposed to be a clue when he didn't have a reaction to Timmy's Billy Bat.
Devivie was shot by people from Chuck Culkin Enterprises, but he survived long enough to tell Kevin Goodman that 9-11 was happening in Chicago and not New York City. Now, that was a lie, but apparently Devivie did so to protect Kevin Goodman, as that was his job.
I don't remember what happened to Devivie in the end, but I still thought he was interesting as a villain who convincingly became an ally.
Gary and Cissy Devivie
I thought this side story was sooo interesting. Gary was a police detective investigating some serial murders, and Cissy was his wife. It's highly suggested that Shishou was the perpetrator, but the truth was that Gary was the serial killer himself. His father had left his family for a Japanese-American woman and so he grew to hate people of Asian descent.
In the normal timeline, I think Cissy probably had no idea her husband was such a terrible man, but in this timeline where she got to know Shishou, it's interesting that she tried to do what she could to change the future. She realized that Shishou had some weird power, and whether or not her son would grow to become the monster that Shishou described, she'd just pose the question of whether they could change the future.
I think whether Gary, Cissy, and Shishou could change their deaths was out of the question, because as we found out later, humans were out of alternate timelines. Instead, the only thing that could change was their knowledge. So Shishou revealed to Cissy information about her husband and her son, and that maybe had an effect on Henry of the present day, but I can't be sure X'D
Shishou
Shishou was a scary man at first, but ended up being a cool guy. He had planned on waiting for Zofu's signal and then killing Cissy and Gary so that Henry never would've been born.
He'd come to be acquainted with Cissy and so it was definitely hard for him to kill her. That being said, he did what he could, drawing comics for her in which she directly spoke to her unborn son and tried to convince him not to do the evil that he'd done.
Shishou died in his struggle with Gary.
Audrey Culkin
Audrey worked for Chuck Culkin Enterprises. She was the one who recruited Kevin Goodman. After Kevin Goodman gained success, we thought that maybe Audrey was one of the good ones.
Audrey wanted Timmy to ghostwrite for Kevin Goodman at first, seeing as it was a successful model for her own father growing the business. However, Kevin Goodman pushed hard for Timmy to be recognized.
Things really took a turn when Kevin Goodman tried to do a PSA telling people to stay away from the Twin Towers on 9-11. Instead, Audrey replaced the segment. She later told Kevin Goodman that she used to hate her father, but only in his death did she understand his greatness. That part was pretty freaky, because we saw a ginormous portrait of her father right behind her desk.
Over time, Timmy pushed Audrey out of the business. That probably wasn't as big of a deal for Audrey though because she could see that Timmy's comics weren't selling. All she was left with were the rights to print the paper copies of Billy Bat. However, in the timeline of Billy Bat, the comic that we the audience are reading, printed comics have become much less popular compared to reading electronic comics.
She went into art dealing for a while but it wasn't working out so well. Her artists kept falling through, and she had to resort to dating guys and running off to get her meals paid. Instead, she started to reprint paper copies of Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman's comics. She also later started to print Kevin Yamagata's Fuji Pontaro comics.
Audrey also got Chuck Culkin in touch with Kevin Yamagata, which brought a tear to her eye. Audrey tried to convince Monica that she was an unfeeling businesswoman though.
Audrey had her ups and downs, which made her feel like a real character, and I appreciated that.
Akechi Kotarou
He was the director who filmed the moon landing. I thought this art was SUPER conspiratorial because as we know, some people nowadays do think that the moon landing was faked.
In Billy Bat, the moon landing was only filmed because the authorities didn't want people to see that there was a bat on the moon.
Later on, Akechi Kotarou and Maggie Momochi went to Tibet where they were to film a documentary on the Bat.
Maggie Momochi
She was Jacky's daughter. Her relationship with Jacky was like Jacky's relationship with Randy. Maggie thought her mom was a bit loony because she was talking to a bat in her head. Maggie just wanted to go about her own life, but she fell into all of this Bat business and later got invested to the point that she called her mom to call Kevin Goodman over to Tibet.
Yamashita-kun
He was a fan of Zofu's work and was called on by him to aid Kevin Yamagata when he was in Japan. While maybe not the most savvy, Yamashita-kun was very enthusiastic and sincere, and did what he could to help both Zofu and Kevin Yamagata.
As an adult, Yamashita-kun worked part-time at Billyland in Japan and worked his way up to becoming President, where he did wonders for Billyland's popularity. I don't think that Yamashita-kun was particularly loyal to Chuck Culkin Enterprises, but working with Billy Bat made him feel close to Zofu and Kevin Yamagata.
He eventually started seeing the Bat, and it led him to Jacky in the USA. In the end, Yamashita-kun was helping out Kevin Yamagata, seeing as how he had no arms.
Another good dude, this Yamashita fellow.
Monica Maura
She was a lawyer who was leading a case against Chuck Culkin Enterprises for its unethical practices which led to dangerous water sources around the world. She eventually won. At this time, Chuck Culkin Enterprises was already losing its grip on the world.
Monica was also a classmate of Kevin Goodman's in university. She worked at a cafe that Kevin frequented, and that's how the got to talking. In the end, they married, which was nice and cute :3
Historical figures
The biggest historical figure who actually got a big role was Lee Harvey Oswald. LHO was portrayed as a guy who wanted to be a patriot, and the Bat was manipulating his motivations to lead him to be framed for the JFK assassination. Of course, this is very conspiratorial. While I appreciate what the writers were trying to do, I think maybe it would've been easier to enjoy if they'd created a crime based on the JFK assassination rather than the actual event itself.
The other historical figure I want to discuss is the Fuhrer. Apparently he'd asked the fake Chuck Culkin to spread the Bat all over the world. We're never told much about his motivations for doing so. My guess would be that he wanted world domination, and that is probably why the fake Chuck Culkin developed his business the way that he did.
Other historical figures included Judas Iscariot, Francis Xavier, Albert Einstein, and a number of other Japanese historical figures.
Themes
Time travel by rewriting the past
I thought the idea of using comics to change the past was very cool. As mentioned above, I really enjoyed the arc where Zofu had to send a message to Shishou in the past.
In this universe, it seems that humans had a certain number of timelines, and they'd used them all up, so the bat on the moon was no longer able to let humans change history again. That was probably why the bat had to step in in the last arc and get the humans back on track, because otherwise their world would cease to exist.
Truth is written by the victors
This idiom was demonstrated literally because apparently whoever controlled Billy Bat drawings would control history. Many of the villains in the first arc wanted to gain control of the Bat for this reason.
The idea of using the Bat to change the past was not discussed in the second arc. It was kind of a weird turn. We did eventually learn that humans had no more timelines, but that wasn't really something that was made clear until later.
Maybe it was when Kurusu went to the moon and had his talk with the bat, that we were supposed to understand that changing history was no longer an option.
Capitalism and monopolies
This was a big theme near the end, when Timmy became the head of Chuck Culkin Enterprises. While the fake Chuck Culkin was already monetizing Billy Bat, he was doing so in a way that still technically delivered its purpose, which was to spread joy around the world.
But Timmy seemed to grow Chuck Culkin Enterprises into a huge business, something that was almost overbearing. He had a very aggressive approach to all fake Billy Bats, and anyone who was a threat to Chuck Culkin Enterprises in general (seeing as how he'd sent someone to kill Monica after their talk).
Not only that, Timmy started to grow Chuck Culkin Enterprises so that it encompassed fields that weren't even related to Billy Bat. How are oil and gas related to Billy Bat? They aren't, but it was a way to grow Chuck Culkin Enterprises for $$$.
Conspiracies
I admit I'm not the biggest fan of conspiracy theories. However, in Billy Bat, the conspiracy theory involves a literal supernatural being made up by a writer, so I think it probably won't sway people into thinking wild thoughts.
I know the moon landing being faked is a big conspiracy theory that a surprisingly high number of people believe in. I don't know of any conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination though.
In any case, I thought it was curious that the authors had chosen American events for these conspiracy theories. I wonder if it was purely because Kevin Yamagata and Kevin Goodman were American, or whether it was because they wanted to write about those events specifically.
Propaganda
Timmy's Billy Bat initially had a lot of war stories. Chuck and Kevin Goodman didn't really like them.
But the fact that they were war stories reminded me of those commercials for the armed forces. We have some here in Canada, but apparently the propaganda for the miliary in the US is much stronger.
Soft power
The fake Chuck Culkin used Billy Bat to take over the world. It reminded me of some things I'd read about Kpop, and how South Korea was using "soft power" as a way to gain influence in the world.
This was probably how the Fuhrer had imagined the Bat taking over the world, and I think the fake Chuck Culkin had intended this too.
Manipulating necessity
Timmy tried to gain control of water sources in order to control the people of the world. Chuck Culkin Enterprises wasn't doing a good job of keeping water safe, but it still technically did the job.
When Timmy was talking to Monica, it felt an awful like he was trying to have the entire world addicted to his products. In light of climate change issues, Chuck Culkin Enterprises would swoop in with their magical drinking water and save everyone.
At that point, Timmy was slightly off his rocker. He was already the super violent president of Chuck Culkin Enterprises and it was actually a little creepy to see him explaining his thought process to Monica with such enthusiasm.
It felt like Timmy had imagined this epic story of how Chuck Culkin Enterprises would be the hero that the people needed, except that Chuck Culkin Enterprises might also have been the villains that they were fighting.
Fans vs. supporters
When Timmy was speaking to Monica, the scanlation I read indicated that he'd be there to save "the fans of Billy Bat."
I'd just read a /r/Hobbydrama post about how the CCP tried to release idols to promote its image among younger people. The post is here for those interested. The way that Timmy was speaking, it felt like Billy Bat in his eyes was a symbol for the greatness of Chuck Culkin Enterprises. Billy Bat was becoming almost a political symbol, maybe someone like Waldo from that episode of Black Mirror where a cartoon became an actual political figure.
Entertainment
At the end, the symbolism was told in a way that was more obvious. Two soldiers were fighting against each other but they weren't really clear on why. However, Billy Bat united them. They were both wearing Billy Bat shirts, and that was enough to remind them both that they were just humans. They bonded over reading Billy Bat, as well as saving the kid who also like reading Billy Bat.
So the takeaway from the manga was probably that entertainment is meant to unite us in joy (like how the Kevins brought joy to their readers, and how the soldiers bonded over Billy Bat), and entertainment should not be monetized to the point of dystopia (all of Chuck Culkin Enterprises).
Overall
Overall, this was an alright manga.
The good included:
- Consistent and more realistic drawing
- Tense moments and page-turning thrillers
- Great characterizations
The not-so-good included:
- Some things left unexplained even after the end
- Conspiracy theories that might not be for everyone