Babylon

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 10

Fosn (All reviews)

100 people found this review helpful

[Spoiler Warning]

I was (still am, but I hope not for too long) a NEET (not in education, employment, or training), i left the school about 3 years ago, i rarely go out (even by myself), i have no friends, i suffer from Dyslexia and i also suffer from Depression/Anxiety. It's been like this for a long time, never told my parents about this (don't know if i'm going to do so) and I thought of committing suicide several times, for a long time in fact but never did. I can't say if I was afraid of death or I didn't want to see anyone cry read more

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 5

SingleH (All reviews)

58 people found this review helpful

This review is best consumed pretending you hadn’t just seen the score its headed with.

This one’s going to be real prosaic, because Babylon is a very dense, logically tight show for adults in a way you don’t often see in media, especially anime, and is certainly not for people even among older audiences who cannot keep up with sociopolitical factions and legal jargon, as it is a premiere example of a political thriller, a genre both elusive in the medium and almost never laudably delivered on therein or out. Every facet of the show is oozing with a thick sense of seriousness and—on paper—really boils down to a lot of very grave talk among crotchety middle aged politicians and civil servants trying to solve real crime, all of which is presented without a lick of fun or funniness. Its exciting simply because it operates on the very generous assumption you, the viewer, are mature and worldly enough to recognize the implications of what’s happening in the story are really serious in a hyper-realistic fashion, and the fact the world is established such that that sense of realism is actually believable, the events play out like urgent breaking news as opposed to the writings of an inherently fictitious narrative. Where Babylon becomes something of a masterwork, though, is in it’s functionality as a mystery. Like any good political thriller, Babylon is rife with juicy machinations behind the scenes and moving parts to obfuscate them, but unlike most so called mystery box style narratives which string you along offering nothing but minuscule and minute information only at times convenient for the writers—which you could’ve very well gotten at any moment—until its all over and the contents of the box turn out to be ultimately unsatisfying, Babylon continually gives you specific and totally gratifying answers to questions you have, thusly reassuring you of the show’s ability to deliver on it’s promises, and packaged within those answers lie details of an even large mystery to come to light, so—at the same time—you’re fulfilled momentarily and continually intrigued with what the hell else is going on. And while Babylon opens itself with the heavy task of untangling this mess of clues and conclusions, the reason the situation is so complicated is every player is operating of their own accord, so whilst the narrative is never dizzyingly convoluted, it is very complex, even though it soon reveals itself to be one of the shows which has you slowly realize less of it is actually a conspiracy than you may’ve first thought.

Babylon takes place in the city of Shiniki, the self-proclaimed testing ground for nations, a special administrative zone just north of Tokyo whose foundation was on behalf of the mission statement to decentralizing the Japanese economic center away from the overburdened Tokyo metroplex whilst also instating a new city with little regulation where laws are both easy to pass and easy to terminate, hence the tagline. Our main character, Seizaki Zen, is a public prosecutor who finds himself investigating a string of apparently related incidents of political sex trafficking being used to influence elections in the city, and it doesn’t take long for him and the viewer to come to the cold realization these cases are merely the tip of the iceberg of a thoroughly deep rooted case, which is to say—spoilers from here on—the police are in cahoots with the corrupt politicians. As Seizaki is lured into the conspirators camp by the fact they’re work rigging elections is actually—no matter how rigorously illegal their actions are—for the greater good of stabilizing Shiniki’s still shaky political sphere and finally giving the city an identity of it’s own as the aforementioned legal envelope pusher, the puppet candidate they’re working to instate in office suddenly cuts ties with his fellow conspirators the second he’s elected and announces—unbeknownst to them and in complete and utter surprise to all their plans—his first new law to define the courageous new world which this city is to build is going to be the Suicide Law, the right to death, and what follows is the single most cinematically genius use of mass media spectacle I’ve seen in anime. The already blood pumping, philosophically stimulating narrative of Babylon proceeds by stacking plot twists in such a way you’re constantly shocked, with every episode having some element which radically changes your perception of the events so far, all while the scale of said narrative keeps widening and widening alongside of which every conversation adds some kind of information and the scripting continuously parcels out information in such a way which is integral to the storytelling’s engrossing identity, keeping us viewers intoxicatingly entertained.

Itsuki Kaika, the upstart mayor heading the Suicide Law, was chosen by the conspiring faction to be the puppet leader because of his young and refreshing image first and foremost, but also because he personally brought in the women they used to influence policy with sex and set their entire initiative into motion in the first place. As the conspirators in the challenging political parties and police headquarters, now including Seizaki, have to deal with their rouge masterless puppet, Seizaki is let in on some of the secrets they’d been keeping from him from when he was in the dark, one of which being the sinister fact all the women they’d been trafficking—including one sugar baby he himself had interrogated when previously working the case—was actually one person, one person named Magase Ai. As the show continues on and the narrative undergoes paradigm shift after paradigm shift, it quickly becomes apparent Magase Ai is much more urgent a threat than Itsuki ever was and is also hinted to even have some enigmatic occult afflictions. And before you turn away thinking a supernatural twist would ruin a straight-faced and thickly realistic narrative, remember plot devices as genius as The Voice of the City from Texhnolyze or The Black Blob from Paranoia Agent and remind yourself magical realism can be instated smartly into serious and mature stories. I’ll stop spoiling things now hoping my hinting at this character is motivation enough to go watch the show yourself, because she is a case study on presence and easily among the most electric personalities ever put to animation and says some thematically profound things about the nature of femininity and the allure and logical extreme of sexual release. And speaking of animation, her character design is iconic, her theme is enchanting, and again, her presence is simply immense. With that said, while I’m at it, the show as a whole is quite something from a production standpoint itself. The aesthetics are not particularly appealing, and the animation isn’t consistently beautiful or anything, but if it was trying to look like a hyper-realistic human narrative taking place in the real world, it succeeded wholeheartedly. It boasts god tier music which was absolutely nail biting at times, and it staffed talented character animators like Kouki Fujimoto who delivered on the most thrilling breaking points of the story with all due flair and terror. And all this isn’t even going into the excellent and outright applause worthily ambitious directing fit with more bracingly memorable imagery and exquisitely shot visual metaphors than you could ask for. Honestly, any way you slice it, Babylon is something of a modern masterpiece.

… … …

In Spring of 2017, an original anime by the name of Seikaisuru Kado went to air. It was a modest little thing, at least on production, made by Toei Animation, the premiere home for long running Saturday Morning Cartoon shlock and pandering game adaptations. My derision aside though, Seikaisuru Kado not only looks and feels nothing like a project out of Toei, but it also looks and feels quite like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Be it the quasi-CG character animation production, the irreplaceably unique concepts to accompany an alien invasion, or the hundred-ton dialogue scripting swamped in international relations of all things, Seikaisuru Kado was certainly a diamond in the rough, even if a thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly unpolished one. While it fashioned far more comedic relief and character emotions than necessary for a work of it’s type—unlike Babylon wherein the characters are mature adults who are taking the story very seriously at all times—Seikaisuru Kado was first and foremost a fairly smart, talkative narrative of political intrigue. To avoid alienating what little of you are still reading by further narrating a show you’re not here to learn about, I’ll sum up the experience by saying it was brilliant…for six episodes…then annoying for two more…and then a carcass by episode nine. It was intelligently structured and adherent to reality—even among all it’s inane sci-fi concepts—and kept building itself until by even halfway though I was ready to tout it as a downright intellectual giant. Soon after, though, it began devolving under the surface, and sooner later snapped like a twig in the most bracing twist of quality in anime history. A more-than-average mature show about the advancement of humanity and international geopolitical negotiations behind such progress was put to death by the draw of a giant energy sworn swinging the story into a downwards spiral of over the top mindless action, aliens VS humans battle to the death, fucking daughter from the future, batshit anime insanity, and the entire merit of the work up until that point was squandered instantaneously. And it’s author…wrote Babylon.

At first, Babylon’s only real weakness was in the fact it attracts losers like myself. When you reach the stage of consumerism wherein your priorities become tone-deaf and your intentions become incorrigibly cynical, media—no matter how innocent in it’s attempts to entertain you—will find themselves endlessly, hopelessly, relentlessly attacked by your unconscious will to break something down, as you’ve conditioned your mind to be little more than a machine for critique which can only even begin to allow yourself an inch of entertainment from media which is totally infallible on every level—as you now know what it means to be so. And Babylon is not totally infallible. Babylon, much like Seikaisuru Kado, even before that heinous death blow the series dealt to itself which I just described, suffers from authorial projecting. That’s a nothing piece of terminology I just made up on the spot, but I mean it to imply exactly what it sounds like. Nozaki Mado, the creator of both works, quite frankly, seems to fancy himself more of a preacher than a writer. His works so far have been bursting at the seems with unforgivingly unsubtle theming to the point of characters sitting down and spelling them out to the audience just to make sure his oh-so-precious point got across. Honestly, as paradoxical as it sounds given the (periodic) maturity of his works, Nozaki seems to me to be thoroughly childish. Whereas the episodes wherein they do so and the degree to which they do so differ per show, both works reach a point around halfway through where the show takes all it’s ambivalent ideation and starts facing the audience directly and asserting these inherently subjective questions actually have objectively correct answers, because morals and God and shit. The works reach another turning point later on though, towards the end, where the show completely shatters itself, and while, no, there is no giant energy sword in Babylon, the series does get to a point by the penultimate episode where anyone thinking at all critically simply has to put it down. That’s right. This masterpiece died young.

How anime which seem to so thoroughly understand the ways of the world lead themselves on with such delusions as evolutionary providence in Seikaisuru Kado and now a moral death in Babylon, I honestly will never know. I don’t get it, and now that we’re two for two with this guy, I frankly don’t even want to. Nozaki isn’t a writer the likes of Tow Ubukata, who presents promising concepts fronting on behalf of a thematic core which ends up ultimately vapid if not totally nonsensical, nor is he like Shou Aikawa, who presents transparently meaningless codifications on behalf of promising concepts which also end up being ultimately style over substance all the same. He presents concepts which do, indeed, payoff, and he continues to do so expertly, only for the process to devolve somewhere along the line and have the ideas stop churning out intellectual content and begin churning out holier than thou horse shit attempting to convince you of pretentiously figured objective answers to subjective moral questions. Its like the latter ends of his works are written by an entirely different person with an entirely different set of priorities and personal values. On it’s way down from a thematically enormous masterpiece of a political thriller to a boilerplate pseudo-psychological vapid character study, Babylon doesn’t break any one character, nor does it defile the established ideas, and it only really disrupts the tangible plot in the final episode and—I suppose—the cliffhanger leaded into it. It only wastes itself in a general sense, so unlike Seikaisuru Kado who’s devolution wholly invalidates all merit it had accumulated up until the point the energy blade came out, Babylon is actually worth watching in a sense. In fact, you could probably just watch the first seven episodes as a complete story like all the brilliant legends who dropped Death Note after episode twenty five. But do so knowing it continues. Know the following three and a half episodes slam on the breaks and attempt to convince you of the objectivist take on the seven episode masterpiece you just saw. And know, as well, the following episode and a half remaining after that turn out a finale which you’d never guess, not even in your wildest dreams, could ever have been derivative of the expert craft with which you began your viewing.

Thank you for reading.

Helpful

permalink | report

Oct 28, 2019

4 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

Krunchyman (All reviews)

60 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Babylon is quietly becoming (one of) the best anime of the fall 2019 season. That’s because it’s taking itself seriously, in a way that is not pretentious or quirky. Two common traits that are recycled time and time again in psychological/thriller based anime.

One of the key themes in Babylon is the dichotomy between what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong.’ This concept is fleshed out in episode 2, when Seizaki is interrogating Ai Magase, and he agrees to answer her questions in exchange for her confession. Seizaki — a good intentioned, self-sacrificing prosecutor — discovers that his ‘firm’ beliefs, are quite read more

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 5

SpikyTurtle (All reviews)

46 people found this review helpful

Review contains some spoilers:

This is going to be a short review/rant about Babylon.

I remember when the first 3 episodes came out everyone was impressed since this show had amazing cinematography and direction, a dark and thrilling atmosphere and the story was executed very well. It continued to be very good until the 7th episode, then it had a long break and everything went to shit.

Babylon would have been great if if was just a political thriller with mystery elements. But the suicide law going worldwide and the law in general ruined the show. It is just very unrealistic that people would react to this law read more

permalink | report

Nov 5, 2019

5 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 5

JermasShort (All reviews)

46 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Premise
Since this show seems like is treating itself as a serious show with important message to convey, so I will compare it with the greats, not just an anime show. Also, this is just some thoughts 5 episodes in.

Why I think it is sub par at best (includes heavy BIAS and SPOILER of course):

-Commercialsed TV Violence
Borrowed the term from David Lynch, meaning the effects of violence in this TV show is completely shallow, just a means to an end. Let me elaborate, there are 60+ normal people and 1 very close colleague to MC died, read more

permalink | report

Oct 28, 2019

4 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

Ilovebeanbag (All reviews)

40 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

This show was written by the guy who made "Kado: The right answer". Although these are totally different shows, both have the same structure... A very interesting premise, gradually becoming a disaster of story telling and destroy everything it stood for.

Please read my view on the show and it's structure:

It is not as clever as you think it is. It's really not. It just gives if the illusion that it's a good show. Nothing more.
The only character which undergoes an character change is the main character, but it shatters all it's development... For what? For a catastrophic anticlimactic ending.

To give the positives, the morality it read more

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 6

Marinate1016 (All reviews)

35 people found this review helpful

Every now and then a show comes along and has an absolutely amazing start, dazzles with great narrative, action, characters, etc and then it throws it all away at the end. Unfortunately, this is one of those. Babylon offers one of the most interesting examinations of the classic philosophical debate of Good vs Evil I have ever seen. While on paper, it’s easy for us to say what’s right and what’s wrong, in reality, it’s often much more difficult. Life is more often in shades of grey than black and white. Babylon does a really good job of making you question everything you thought you knew in terms of morality. Unfortunately, the show's premise goes by the wayside in one of the worst endings I have ever seen in anything.

The show deals with a recently passed legislation in a newly built city adjacent to Tokyo which legalises suicide. Unfortunately, not all of the people choosing to take advantage of this new law are doing so under their own will. Tokyo Prosecutor Zen Seizaki is tasked with investigating the cause of this movement and of several suspicious deaths and eventually finds himself involved in a philosophical and moral battle that’s bigger than he could have ever imagined.

Babylon doesn’t have much in the way of physical action in terms of fights, explosions, etc, so if you’re looking for that, this is not the show for you. What it makes up for it with is a mature story, absolutely masterful writing(first half), tension and direction that will consistently leave you on the edge of your seat, in my opinion, the greatest anime villain of all time (Magase) and challenging you to examine your own definition of morality.

The art is really well done and is quite unique in my opinion, the score is brilliant and adds a lot to the tension in scenes, the Voice acting is also top notch, particularly the work done by Yukino Satsuki(Magase). I will warn you that the tone of the show shifts quite dramatically after episode 7, there was a 6 WEEK break between episodes 7 and 8 which really killed a lot of the momentum of the show, and once the show resumed, the tone shifted from a fast paced detective thriller to a much more philosophical and narrative driven experience akin to End of Eva, which some people didn’t like, I personally enjoyed the shift initially, but things began to go south real soon.

Overall, Babylon started as one of my favourite shows of the year, and ended as one of the most disappointing I've ever seen. This was purely self inflicted damage. The author was on the cusp of greatness and let it slip, completely with an ending that is as nonsensical as they come.

I still would recommend giving this a watch, as I believe Magase is one of the best anime villains ever in terms of pure evil and being an unstoppable force. I also believe the first 7 episodes are some of the best you will see, just have tempered expectations for the finale.

Helpful

permalink | report

Jan 28, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 1

RebelPanda (All reviews)

26 people found this review helpful

Throughout my high school years, I struggled with an illness in my mind I couldn't put into words. The way I thought of it was a roller coaster that I could never get off. My whole life has been a series of peaks and valleys.

For weeks, the roller coaster would be at a peak. I would have an endless supply of energy. I was able to make friends and enjoy every day to the fullest. Then everything would crash down and suddenly the roller coaster was stuck in a valley. For weeks, I would be exhausted and depressed. Making friends was the easy part, but keeping them was hard. During a valley, trying to talk to anyone was as painful as getting a tooth ripped of your mouth. I had to avoid my friends altogether so I wouldn’t have an angry outburst and ruin our friendship. Growing up, I didn’t have many people in my life because I learned all of this the hard way. Even my family tried subtly avoiding me because they were afraid of sudden mood swings. There were points when the roller coaster was so low I couldn't tell if it'd ever go back up.

Babylon is like that roller coaster. It entices you with an interesting premise, it begins at the bottom of the coaster, and gradually rises. It has bursts of greatness, then it suddenly shoots downwards leaving you frustrated and trapped in the headspace of the demonic antagonist. She beckons everyone in the series, including you, to consider suicide as the answer to life-long suffering. Along the way, it touches upon—or rather, beats with a baseball bat—themes of suicide, depression, and morality. It puts a unique spin on the conventional cat & mouse murder mystery, while also tackling politics and the central theme of whether or not suicide should be legalized. Much of the screen time is dedicated to intellectual politicians debating the show’s themes. To the untrained eye, these arguments may seem intelligent, enlightening, and enthralling. Anyone who has ever taken an intro-level philosophy course can tell this entire show is pseudo-philosophical bullshit laden with logical fallacies.

It asks questions such as: Is suicide wrong? Should suicide be legal? What if someone could coerce you into killing yourself within seconds? What is it she can say to change your mind? And if you figure it out would you be convinced to join her victims? It begs you to understand these questions. If you don’t get IT, you’re the minority, if you don’t get IT you are not intelligent enough. Politicians, citizens of Japan, and entire countries vote to support the suicide law. But you simply don’t understand why because you are a normal human being. You know what's right from wrong, and you can tell that everything that occurs within the world of Babylon is illogical. Rather than asking questions rooted in modern-day society (such as the legality of euthanasia), the writer discusses the suicide law, an argument no one in the real world would benefit from pondering. No one acts like a real human being in this show. They are all cardboard cutouts existing to preach philosophy from the insidious mind of an uninformed writer.

There is no reality in which suicide will be legalized as a law. If someone is determined to take their own life, they will not stop to consider what the government has to say about it. People still have morals and know right from wrong, no decent human being would stand aside and watch a person commit suicide when they have the power to save their life. Meanwhile in the ass-backward world of Babylon... Hundreds of people commit mass suicide and the police do not investigate anything because they “want to avoid a scandal.” What the fuck. This is Japan not fucking North Korea. I find it impossible to believe the police wouldn’t care about a string of violent deaths at the same time in the same place. Babylon imagines a nightmarish perversion of reality where suicide is morally acceptable, encouraged, and the solution to depression. The sun emits a hellish hue of orange, water is colored blood-red, and the many deaths are shown in gruesome detail for shallow shock factor. The deaths also exist to get under your skin, desensitizing you to suicide in record-breaking speed. If had to I live in a world where suicide is legal, enforced, and considered unimportant to the justice system, I wouldn’t want to live in it either.

Suicide is glorified in a way that only someone who has felt suicidal can contextualize. Like an angel of death, the Whore of Babylon whispers sweet nothings into someone’s ear and they commit suicide. Victims become crazed, there’s nothing that can stop them from the uncontrollable urge to die. This is what it is like to struggle against the overwhelming need to release yourself from the pain of life. One victim compares suicide to sex, and the end of his life is the orgasm. At the end of his monologue, he puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger, blood squirting, but for a brief moment, it appears completely white to finish the sex metaphor. This sort of disgusting self-masturbatory directing is used throughout the show. I cannot fathom how people find this kind of unsubtle imagery remotely good. Babylon targets a large subset of the anime community who seek out mature seinen and psychological-thrillers, I consider myself part of this audience. If an anime has dark themes, dramatic music, and adult characters speaking very seriously, this subset of the community will flock to the anime. Babylon has it all, everything except the execution. I have no ill will towards anyone who likes this anime, after all, it coerces you into believing you are watching a revolutionary work of art. For me, this is one of, if not the worst, anime I have ever watched. None of the philosophical anime I have seen come close to being as pretentious as this one.

This show may have redeeming qualities: the music adds suspense, the animation is mostly acceptable, and it has an intriguing premise, but every positive aspect is doused in an impenetrable layer of poison. Babylon is an abyss with nothing at the bottom but despair and hopelessness. It gaslit me into believing its ponderings on suicide were of substance and worth reading into. Perhaps it is because I am in a valley as I write this, but analyzing Babylon made me contemplate suicide as a valid cure to a life of struggling against that roller coaster. I’m sorry this is not like my other reviews, but someone needed to warn people about this vile sack of shit. It’s about time I put this out of my mind for good. I think I’ll go outside today and enjoy the wonderful and beautiful things the world has to offer. Maybe later I will watch a comedy or a relaxing slice-of-life.

NOTE: If you have Depression, Bipolar Disorder, experienced suicidal thoughts, or a history of self-harm, please do not watch Babylon. If you are currently feeling suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255.

Helpful

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 4

literaturenerd (All reviews)

24 people found this review helpful

Babylon is one of the oddest series of early 2020. That's impressive considering the fact it's competing against Ishuzoku Reviewers! Babylon is odd because it's tonally all over the place. An adult discussion about the ethics of suicide and euthanasia becomes a poorly written, Shonen cat and mouse game between Japanese Batman and an evil psychic who uses mind control powers to kill people. Did I mention her mind control powers work by being so incredibly sexy? Trust me, it's as dumb as it sounds.

The story begins with Japanese prosecutor named Zen, investigating wrongdoing by a pharmaceutical giant. This leads to him discovering a murder and eventually this leads him to a shady politician named Itsuki. It turns out that Itsuki is bribing and killing politicians and other powerful figures in an elaborate scheme to create a new libertarian district of Tokyo. This will be a place where suicide is not only allowed, but often encouraged. To kick off the ceremony, he gets his psychic minion to kill 50 people by forcing them to jump off a building. The anime tries to write Itsuki as a well intentioned extremist. His motive is ultimately to donate his heart to his ailing son. Apparently, Japan currently has a law that suicide victims can't donate their organs. If that's his MO, why not just use his psychic minion to get a law through the Diet that says suicide victims CAN donate organs? Why create a new district, kill all these people, and go through all this shit? Well, it's so we can have a show!

Sadly, Itsuki doesn't get the bulk of the screen time. The main antagonist is the psychotic psychic, Ai Magase. Ai is basically the poor man's version of Legato Bluesummers from Trigun. She works the main villain and devotes her entire existence to make a pure, incorruptible soul suffer. She wishes to defeat Zen's idealism and force him to kill. Sadly, Ai never has Legato's intimidating presence. She's extremely over the top and her powers work in such a STUPID way. We have to believe that she's so sexy that it breaks people's minds. However, the show can't possibly draw her that sexy, so we're just left scratching our heads. Really? She's supposed to be THAT sexy? I'd give her a 6 being generous.

This is a series that wants to be adult and wants to be smart, but often it ends up just getting silly. When Zen chases Magase to America, we get to meet the greatest President ever! Alexander Wood was once the top ranked Diablo 2 player in the United States and an internet celebrity. After helping another player get good, she asked him out on a real life date and it turns out she was a super model! This gave Wood the confidence and popularity to become the President. We have a real estate mogul turned game show host as the President and that's still WAY more believable than this shit! Wood exists in the series to ask moral questions from a religious perspective. Wood is a devout Christian and doesn't know if suicide is wrong because the Bible doesn't explicitly forbid it. However, the writer of Babylon decided to make Wood a devout Catholic. The Catholic Church has clearly forbidden suicide for over 1,000 years! It makes little sense that Wood would struggle so much with this problem. Then again, this is the series where we're told Mark Twain was born in Connecticut and was a moral relativist who didn't believe in good or evil.

It seems like every time Babylon tries to be smart, it makes a blatantly wrong statement that the writer could have double checked on Wikipedia!

The art and animation by the brand new Studio Revoroot is quite good. It's a shame that Babylon's story doesn't hold up after the first 5-6 episodes. The music is done by the same guy that did the Vinland Saga OST. A lot of talent was involved in the making of Babylon. Unfortunately, I feel it mostly goes to waste.

If I could sum up Babylon with one word, it would be "disappointment". This looked like it would be a mature, intelligent anime that would ask difficult moral questions and challenge the way viewers see the world. Instead, it's a rather mediocre experience and far too messy for me to personally recommend.

Helpful

permalink | report

Oct 30, 2019

4 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

Ellenwitch (All reviews)

17 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

This is my first time watching something new of this genre as it's been airing, and I'm so glad it's this.

The characters and setting are really great, and the plot points just leave me wondering what else is going to happen. I honestly get the same vibes as I did while watching Death Note. Not that I'm saying it's the same. But the type of shows in general. I also get the same vibe as a recent movie, but won't mention it for spoiler reasons. I'd say if you're into crime, drama, and mystery, then you should give this one a shot!

The main character read more

permalink | report

Jan 28, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 4

CodeBlazeFate (All reviews)

16 people found this review helpful

*Prologue*

Approaching this show is a difficult task. This isn’t because the show tackles harsh subject matter involving the likes of suicide as one of its fundamental talking points. It’s not because the show isn’t exactly good at doing so, either. It’s because I’m still coming to terms with what an absolute shitshow this series has become. There’s this immense swirl of emotions that come about from watching a show crumble before your very eyes, keenly aware that there were signs of trouble from the beginning. Babylon showed promise of being a fascinating police procedural with some of the most noteworthy directing of 2019...or at least read more

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 1

sushiisawesome (All reviews)

14 people found this review helpful

Babylon is yet the latest in a series of blunders courtesy of the seinen demographic that in many ways sum up exactly why the majority of people shun it in favor of its younger brother in the shonen demographic. It's not that I personally think seinen can't be fantastic; plenty of series have done a marvelous job living up to what the demographic, well, implies and providing interesting characters, a level of maturity not normally found in their younger contemporaries and fantastic storylines. After all, one only needs to look at the likes of Berserk, Vinland Saga, Boogiepop and Others as well as Ghost in read more

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 4

DarthInvader (All reviews)

14 people found this review helpful

*Minimum Spoiler Review*
TL;DR: Psycho Pass meets Mirai Nikki before they have a child so horrible they decide to leave it at the philosophy class for freshman's to decide what religion the child will have.
[Story: 6/10 , Characters: 5/10, Art: 5/10, Sound: 4/10, Enjoyment: 3/10]

“a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” (Revelation 17:3–6 ESV)

Thriller anime's make it or break it point is how well it can balance the dynamic between the protagonist, the antagonist and the philosophical dilemma they both deal with to justify the decision they have made by the end. From the director that brought us, FLCL Alternative & Psycho Pass 2 (not one) comes a new thriller called Babylon where our major philosophical debate is whether people should be allowed to commit suicide, thus making it an universal law. The topic of suicide, assisted suicide, and the whole idea of the justice surrounding it is any philosophy 101's students' wet dream. We think we know what is good and what is evil but as we slowly group and become poisoned by society's corruption we learn in order to continue living we must tread on a moral grey line. Although this show had a fine premise and a mystery element surrounding this core theme of suicide with a good protagonist and a very vibrant antagonist, by the end it expanded too much to quickly for it to become the next great Psycho Pass of a show. Fortunately, it did generate ton of controversy, and where there is controversy, there is popularity. So let's discuss why this dark horse of a show had the potential but just like Icarus, it flew too close to the sun of philosophy and burned down to the ashes. Let the fun begin.

With a clever title like Babylon, you immediately start thinking of two things, the great kingdom of Babylon or the whore of Babylon (if you know about the Biblical story). For those who don't know, the Whore of Babylon is the spirit of seductive culture, actively engaged in the deception and destruction of God’s people. Now without getting into the religious fundamentals, the story's central theme is basically justifying what is good and what is evil. Should people be allowed to commit suicide or is it a crime to in general. How do we judge what is good and how do we judge what is evil. Various philosophical issues come to play and this theme is portrayed through the conflict between Zen Seizaki (Prosecutor aka Batman) and Ai Magase (Whore of Babylon aka Joker). If you understand the reference of Batman & Joker dynamic akin to the Dark Knight movie, you'll understand better of how the plot is played out without spoiling too much. Essentially the issue arises in a small town of Shiniki, where this young Mayoral candidate Itsuki, proposes that suicide becomes legal. He explains his reasonings and he has Ai Magase carry out the "suicides" of the people in the city. For the first arc the show becomes this cat and mouse game of capturing Ai Magase and finding more about her before she "kills off" Zen's team via the method of suicide. It's brutal, thrilling and a nail biter to see who can out wit the other. They even introduced a drug early on, Nyux drug, that people can take to die in peace instead of the usual jumping off or cutting oneself or hanging method. In a nutshell, they were humanizing the process to be more ethical to today's standards. Sadly, in the second arc of the story, the suicide law went from a city policy to a universal policy, expanding to countries like Canada, France, Germany, Italy, UK to even USA. We get to see now political leaders of the country getting in on the debate. Oddly this also coincides with when the show went on a long hiatus before returning and it seemed people smoked too much because the whole tone of the show changed. It became too philosophical for its own good and less chaotic battle of wits where the characters were playing 4D chess to outwit one another. It definitely lost its charm and the show ended on an open ending for viewers to decide and talk about to learn more.

With a philosophical show as such, it's not actions or "plot" that attracts the audience, it’s the characters that offer the charm, particularly the villain. In Ai Magase, we see a diluted villain akin to Shogo Makashima of the past. She has this mystical aura with the whole Whore of Babylon biblical allusion as well as the Nine Tails folklore in Japan. She has the power to verbally mindfuck someone to submission to the point of them wanting to commit suicide without actually physically murdering them. On the other hand we have Zen Seizaki, this super moral good guy to the level of Superman and as the show progress we see how he slowly loses his sanity to maintain his core fundamentals so he doesn't become the very evil person he puts behind in jail. This Batman vs Joker dynamic is the central conflict in this entire show. Now to foil these characters and flesh out the good vs evil character grid, we have side characters like Detective Kujin, Prosecutor Sekuro, Mayor Itsuki, even the president of the US all the Americans hope to have, Alexander Wood, and many more. As the show progress, we see these characters give their output on where they stand on the issue and what we need to do as society. Once again, very open ended and lacking the mangaka's clear feeling towards this situation.

Looking at the technical aspects, this is one of those shows that doesn't need Studio Ufotable level animation, nor does it Studio Bones level music to make the show pop. It's a thought provoking anime and key people were the seiyuus voicing the characters. The seiyuu of Ai Magase and Zen Seizaki does a phenomenal job conveying the raw emotions and the quirks they have plus more. The OST is alright, nothing too crazy and animation is passable. A few freeze panes here and there but they cleaned it up near the end. Not too shabby overall. The OP and ED songs or rather medleys are alright. Nothing too great. Nothing too memorable.

Nevertheless, Babylon is an okay anime at the end of the day. It definitely had a great premise as a mystery thriller where we had to catch the "Whore of Babylon" before she corrupted God's people and led them to their deaths but it deviated in the second arc to this philosophy 101 bullshit about what is good, what is evil, what is justice and what it means to commit suicide. Not once did they just grow a pair and address the major issue of there is a cult leader, let's arrest the cult leader before they convert more to commit a mass murder. Nope, they were too good to do such a thing and as a result only our naïve boy, Seizaki suffers. It sort of mirrors the political climate of Japan in today's society where due to their naivety is currently suffering and in a population decline due to their ignorance of core issues early on when the problems were surfacing. So I guess kudos to the mangaka to mirror that. If the anime was stretched to a two cour anime, maybe it would've been far better since people would actually have a proper debate and not one or two lines to debate a serious matter as such. Regardless, viewers who like anime like Psycho Pass or Monster or Parasyte, should give this anime a watch. It's not going to be as good as those anime but atleast it will tickle your philosophical bone for a few hours. I'd never rewatch this anime and I hope there is an OVA to wrap up the loose ends. Anyways, thank you for reading this review & feel free to share with me your favourite quote from the anime. Ciao.

P.S. Thank you for reading. I hope you found this short and supaishi review helpful!
P.P.S. If you got through it all, do answer me this on my profile the following questions:
1) What makes suicide a crime but euthanasia not a crime?
2) Will letting suicide being a universal law solve the issue for organ donation?
3) If suicide becomes an universal law, how can one punish someone to prevent from population committing mass suicide?

Helpful

permalink | report

Nov 19, 2019

7 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

KingiousWeebious (All reviews)

13 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

I have never written a review, and I do not know the lingo or really have much to say. However, I felt compelled to write this review based on the ending of episode 7.

This anime is the first good psychological thriller I have seen in a while. It does a good job creating characters and inter-character relationships, and the story is very intense.

I have watched a good amount of anime, and in that anime is a lot of gore and other concepts that are not for the faint of heart. What I really came here to say though is: 𝚍̲𝚘̲ ̲𝚗̲𝚘̲𝚝̲ ̲𝚠̲𝚊̲𝚝̲𝚌̲𝚑̲ ̲𝚝̲𝚑̲𝚒̲𝚜̲ ̲𝚊̲𝚗̲𝚒̲𝚖̲𝚎̲ read more

permalink | report

Dec 17, 2019

6 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 2

EdgyRick (All reviews)

11 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Babylon is a cliche show that pretends not to be. The issue boils down to broken characters.

Babylon starts out as a true crime show, then quickly turns into a pseudo-supernatural crime show that supposedly talks about the morals around suicide and whether or not we should allow it.

That's if you're giving it the benefit of the doubt, what it actually is is a dumpster fire.

Simply put, to make a fleshed out story, the good characters need to be part bad, and the bad characters need to be part good. Otherwise the characters next actions are always predictable, and the viewer can anticipate the entire story read more

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 1

TegamiIri (All reviews)

10 people found this review helpful

I've never felt like I've wasted my time watching an anime or *any* work of fiction THIS much in my entire life. If I could go back in time and stop myself from starting, I would 200% do it with absolutely no regret.

There have been many shows that started out great and then ended on a badly-written ending, but it’s not even that for Babylon. Yes, the show was spectacular all the way to episode 7 and excellent still even half way through episode 12. Yes, then the ending FAILED completely. But what’s different about Babylon is that it wasn’t a disappoint because the read more

permalink | report

Jan 27, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

Zerity (All reviews)

10 people found this review helpful

After just finishing Babylon I am honestly at a lost for words, this show is actually amazing and still love it after it's ending. It leaves you with many questions which are open to different interpretations depending on how you look at things. That is generally what a good mystery does, granted the first half was more intense and the second half went into a different approach focusing on another character but It was still as good.

After thinking about the series for a bit I can't really find and complaints I had, it was interesting, raised themes which left me thinking and hearing the read more

permalink | report

Nov 25, 2019

7 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 5

WhiteZet (All reviews)

10 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

This is NOT a proper mystery show. [Minor spoilers from 1st episode]

[Story: 4]
The story sets itself up fairly well. The main character is presented with a simple case, that leads to them discovering a murder that is related to an even bigger case. The first episode has some detective work and has a sense of mystery around it, but this minor mystery aspect is pretty much over within 3 episodes, as one of the antagonists already reveals his identity and plans through an over the top plot development. Now the whole show is all about trying to stop him and his supporters.

One of the biggest read more

permalink | report

Jan 3, 2020

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 4

diabolicalx (All reviews)

9 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Since the proper way to write a review is to explain why i liked or disliked this show I will only explain why i disliked it.
This show seems like it is trying to do many things at once which in the end comes off distracting and frustrating. If you are a fan of the genre this series pretends to be you will likely dislike this show. However, if you are generally a fan of supernatural harem, ecchi, and mystery fantasy with action scenes that only exist for sexy angles then this show is right up your alley.

I am struggling to write this read more

permalink | report

Nov 19, 2019

7 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

Ken_15 (All reviews)

9 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Its been a long time since I've seen a good psychological show so I didn't expect that much from this show, but after the first 3 episodes I knew it had potential to be the best this season, and so far at 7th episode, it is still that good. as it is on amazon prime not many people are watching it and its not as famous as it should be, but its actually better than most of the anime this season
its psychological detective mystery and our main character is Seizaki-san, he's in some kind of special investigation force and is investigating the case we are read more

permalink | report

Babylon

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Write a Review
Reviews

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Babylon

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Write a Review Reviews

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Write a Review
Reviews