Babel Nisei
Babel II

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Babel 2 is an old friggin' manga, and judging by MAL's user metrics, I'm going to assume not many folks in the western hemisphere have read it. Now I know what you're thinking:

"This guy must be some kinda old-school manga aficionado to have read this whole series and write a review for it! Surely he'll come in here with some profound reasons to read this classic series!"

Nope. I am in fact, just some guy who stumbled upon this manga after hearing Jojo's Bizarre Adventure may have borrowed some ideas from it, and seeing as nobody else has left a review on it yet I'm taking ... it upon myself to let you know if this old hunk of coal is worth reading or not from a casual's viewpoint.

As I mentioned previously, Babel 2 is a really old manga and it certainly reads like it. Most of the "classics" that I've read in the past have been under 5 volumes; Babel 2 is 12. That number of volumes doesn't sound like much, but believe me it'll start to feel like a lot by the time you're about two-thirds through the series.

Babel 2 stars Kouichi Yamano, a child who learns he's the reincarnation of an ancient alien being known as Babel. Kouichi then inherits Babel's great psychic powers (of which there are too many to mention) and command over his three monstrous servants, each of which boasting different abilities and strengths.

First there's Rodem the shape-shifting panther (who feels like where Jojo got the idea and visual inspiration for Iggy's stand " The Fool"). Rodem is my favourite since he's really cool looking and has the most interesting ability. Unlike the other two, he can also communicate with Kouichi which helps give him some semblance of character. The unfortunate thing about Rodem is that he's not used as much as he could be, especially as the series goes on.

Poseidon is Kouichi's next servant and simply put: he's a giant robot. Much like how Rodem's presence in the series is front-loaded, Poseidon mostly appears towards the final stretch of the story. There's not much to say about him. He's as generic of a big robot as you can get.

The final servant- and one you better get used to seeing- is Ropross; a giant, robotic bird shaped like a fighter jet. It's the goofiest looking servant of them all and is unfortunately the one who gets used the most. Not only can it fly around with Kouichi riding on its back, but it can also shoot explosive rays, making it a pretty formidable tool in Kouichi's arsenal. Ropross dominates the fairly lengthy middle section of Babel 2 and hoo boy did I ever get sick of him. He looks silly and all of his action scenes are the exact same.

With all these servants at his command on top of his aforementioned psychic abilities, Kouichi ends up being an absolute beast. The kid has no qualms with murder and will quickly and violently end the lives of anyone he sees as a threat. He's stoic to a comedic degree which sorta becomes a problem as the series goes on, even if it is a bit funny at times. He's too powerful, and his personality makes him hard to relate to as a protagonist. If he had say, a more vulnerable partner who could react to stuff like a normal human, this would be less of an issue.

All great heroes need a villain, so who's the sorry schmuck who got saddled with fighting this kid?

That would be Yomi; a middle-aged man with a legion of devoted followers, who also inherited Babel's powers. This means that whatever Kouichi has at his disposal, Yomi has the potential to use too. His main goal throughout the series is to acquire the Tower of Babel, which I forgot to mention, is also in Kouichi's possesion (what doesn't he have). The tower has crazy defensive capabilities, a medical bay that can heal almost all wounds, and a hyper-intelligent AI among many other things I've probably forgotten about. Needless to say it's a pretty important piece in Yomi's world-domination plans, but in order to get at it he must eliminate Kouichi.

Yomi is one of the stranger shonen antagonists I've seen because he's oddly more sympathetic than the hero sometimes. Don't get me wrong, Yomi is a BAD dude. However the poor guy has his plans thwarted so frequently and with such ease that you can't help but take pity after a certain point, especially with how much he's humanized compared to Kouichi. He has fears, he has anxieties, and he looks dismayed as the men under his command are slain left and right by this all-powerful child. I think the aim was to make Yomi seem pathetic and ill-fit as the true inheritor of Babel's powers to hype up Kouichi, but instead I just felt bad for the guy (though I say that half jokingly).

I feel like Yomi wouldn't feel so much like a punching bag if Kouichi simply had other villains to face. Every time Yomi is defeated, he makes his comeback no more than a chapter or two later. It feels less like the triumphant return of a villain, and more like an injured boxer on death's door standing up for another beating. It gets incredibly repetitive towards the middle of the series, which lead to me dropping the series for a year before I had built up the patience to power through it. The series thankfully switched things up for its final arc and addressed many of the problems I had with the earlier parts. It's not an amazing final act, but reading it felt like a breeze compared to what came before it.

All-in-all Babel 2 is a pretty straight forward series with not too much to talk about in terms of plot and characters. Some of it has actually aged quite well, while other parts haven't at all. If you want an old action series to read, it's not a bad time, but do adjust your expectations if you've never read a series like this before.

[] Final Verdict: Check it out if you're genuinely curious, but I don't see this appealing to every reader.

(PS: A hero and villain with the same powers, a setting in the middle east, a character named "Kouichi" with three servants each stronger than the last? I refuse to believe Hirohiko Araki wasn't a fan of this in his youth.)