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While the idea of using a VR machine to change reality is quite derivitive, the history and seeing "What could have been" was nothing short of sublime.

The moral of this is simple. Own up to your mistakes and don't let anyone take the fall for you, regardless of how trivial it might be. We knew Kenji from his adolescence, we knew he wasn't a bad kid. Dumb, absolutely, but well intentioned. For the most part, anyway. The only time we don't see him trying to do what's right is what ultimately doomed the world.

We see Kenji shoplift a prize from the shop when the ... proprieter wasn't there, despite not winning the prize. We then see Maruo with a winning bottle cap get his prize, and who we belive to be Sadakiyo with another winning cap. It turns out that this boy is Katsumata, a boy we were told had died before middle school. This makes perfect sense from the point of view of Friend, because nobody would ever suspect someone who has been dead for nearly 40 years.

The proprieter of the stall then proceeds to blame Katsumata for what Kenji did. Berating and shaming him publically, causing Fukubei to tell him he's dead.

It turns out his death was entirely social, but as he wears the same mask as Sadakiyo, he starts to take on his name and role in the Friend group whenever Sadakiyo wasn't around. When the Adult Kenji goes into the past he tells his younger self to make it right, all while humming Bob Lennon. Gutalala Sudalala.

When Katsumata was about the jump off the roof of the school, stopping when he hears 20th Centry Boy by T. Rex, he plans to get revenge on Kenji, but in this version of events, Kenji admits to being the one who stole the prize, making revenge unnecessary. We then end the series as a whole with the two boys on the roof of the school sharing their love of music and showing us all how one act of kindness and doing what is right can change the world forever. What an unbelievably powerful statement and what a perfect ending to what I consider to be the greatest manga series ever made.