Tokyo Babylon

This is my first review, so I guess it will not be very clear, but lets waste no time and get to it.

It's vintage, good animation, good audio and awesome voice actors and it still has a score lower than 7!? That was surprising, honestly.

There isn't much depth to the characters, but hopefully more light will be shed upon them soon. (Yes, it has sequels.)
Yes, the characters are OP, but they blend in really well amongst the others.

Both episodes will get you hooked to them unless you aren't paying attention. Pacing was great.
It can be an enjoyable break from all the modern animes nowadays.

Hopefully this ... review is helpful!

Have a nice day/night everyone!

The two OVAs don't relate to the amazing manga so the storyline isn't really there to what Tokyo Babylon is really about which is what the manga is about. Overall I give it a 7/10 because it was still quite fun to watch, but I highly recommend the manga, it's brilliant!

TL;DR: It's exactly as you read in the summary. Nothing more, maybe a little less.

Because CLAMP has always been known for pushing the envelope between Shoujo and Shounen Ai, I've been meaning to watch this and X for a while. It was...a tad bit disappointing.

Not because of the protagonist, Subaru, who, in contrast to his rambunctious, slightly impulsive sister, is a gentle, soft spoken spiritualist who occasionally makes fatal rookie mistakes because of his naivety. Neither because of the enigmatic-with-a-touch-malicious Seishiro, or any of the supporting cast per se. The first episode gives you EXACTLY what the synopsis says. No 5-minute exposition about who ... they are, where their parents are, or anything having to do with the background of the anime whatsoever (the one-liner doesn't count). It just throws you into what Subaru is, then says, "You got all that? Great! Let's go find some dead bodies." And then throws episode one at you. For manga readers, this is perfectly acceptable. For first-time viewers? Not so much. It's not written horribly enough to make you lost, but you come away with only a superficial understanding of the overarching story...if there even is one.

The second episode is even worse because it gives you a teaser about the background of the characters, then manages to suck even more out of the episode than it gave. So you end up with less than nothing. You have questions, but there's only two episodes. You want to find out more, go back, see if you missed something--nope! They provided you two episodic plots and told you to take it or leave it.

It can be argued that both episodes are theme-based rather than plot-based. But together, what do those themes build? Absolutely nothing. So more disappointment there.

Let me also add to this the other things that were disconcerting: Subaru and Seishiro, who are canonically supposed to have a "thing" are probably no more suggestive than Doumeki and Watanuki (HOLIC), who canonically DON'T have a "thing". We get two 45-50 minute episodes, each with their own side characters and circumstances, but when we finally get to the "bad guy" of each episode...it falls horribly flat. You don't need a convoluted reason to do evil, but make it compelling, for heaven's sake. So when you finally reach the end, you might wonder what was the purpose of it all. I know I did.

Moving away from the anime's cons, the action scenes were very well done. The animation itself is passable; it feels reminiscent of Cardcaptor Sakura but if it were given a B-rated budget. There's no "high peak" to the animation, but the animation doesn't look particularly terrible in any one frame, either. A change from Magic Knight Rayearth, which, despite its close proximity in age, looks twice as good as this, but maybe that's the fault of their respective studios.

But overall, I can't say I didn't have fun watching it. There's that CLAMP charm mixed with 90s antics and the-little-BL-ship-that-could sailing in the distance. It's a bit tough to get invested in anyone (besides Subaru), but it's a good time-waster and a decent teaser for the manga (which might give more breadcrumbs than this 2-episode OVA). But would I watch it again? Meh. It was worth a first-time watch, but I doubt it'll be going on anyone's bucket list.