Babylon

This review is best consumed pretending you hadn’t just seen the score it’s 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 often boils down ... to a lot of very grave talk amongst crotchety middle-aged politicians and civil servants trying to solve real crime, all of which is presented without a lick of fun or funniness. It’s 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 its 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 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 it’s 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 its 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 whilst 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 who's mission statement is to decentralize the Japanese economic center away from the overburdened Tokyo metroplex while 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 scandal, which is to say—minor 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 its 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 was always meant to be: the Suicide Law, the right to kill yourself. And what follows is the single most cinematically genius use of mass media spectacle I’ve seen in any anime ever. 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, with every conversation adding some kind of information and the scripting continuously parceling out information in such a way which is integral to the storytelling’s engrossing identity, keeping us viewers absolutely intoxicated.

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 laudably ambitious directing fit with more memorable imagery and exquisitely shot visual metaphors than you could ever 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 crude and irrelevant 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 for many reasons. 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 its apparent 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 it was annoying for the following two…and then it was a corpse by the end of episode nine. It was intelligently structured and adherent to reality even amongst all its inane sci-fi concepts, and it kept building itself until by even halfway though I was ready to tout it as a downright intellectual giant. However, it soon 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 its 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 its 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 in the specific way he wanted it to. 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 its 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 hides the interworking of his concepts with an ostentatiously stylized exterior only to eventually expose their emptiness after its clear nothing is being said, nor is he like Shou Aikawa, who presents transparently style-over-substance codifications on behalf of potential themes which also end up being ultimately meaningless 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. It’s 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 its way down from a thematically enormous wonder of a political thriller to a boilerplate pseudo-psychological 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 leading 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 bastards 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 strict, objectivist take on the previously ambivalent, thought-provoking seven episode gem 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.

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.

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, ... but they left almost no impact to the other characters.
The 1 very close colleague's death gets covered up as quickly as ice melts in a hot summer day and the MC barely thinks about him afterwards (and move on with his new hot female colleague). Also, 64 people suicide at once as a political message. Not only MC and his team never shows any strong emotion towards that, it barely has any impact on the public as well. The effects of their death are quickly skipped over and only serve as a plot device.

-Villain
Here is where this show is getting weird and immature, the main villain is a lady who is good at manipulating people and can AROUSE men just by men seeing her and make them feel so guilty they want to kill themselves. This is just so dumb, are we in a superhero show all of a sudden? People can just starting to have supernatural abilities now? That aside, the part of the show that is supposed to show her manipulation skill is when MC interrogates her, but that scene is more about MC is terrible at his job than anything else. He just keep feeding her information and excuses at every opportunity he can and allowing her to derail the conversation as she like.

Other thoughts
The art and sound are both alright. The reason why I would follow this show for a bit longer is that I want to see if this show is going a different direction than it currently is. That could be interesting.

There is a basic philosophy that has been known for a long time, What is goodness? What is evilness? This is very easy to answer, but when confronted in a universal study, this can lead to ambiguity

Starting from a prosecutor who examined the case of the death of a doctor who allegedly committed suicide, felt dissatisfied the prosecutor and his colleagues further investigated the case until known the witnesses who suspected of being involved were named Ai magase.

When dealing with ai magase, the prosecutor realized she was dangerous because all her actions, words, and body language could influence others. This became clearer when ... the newly elected mayor of Shiniki adopted the law on suicide.

The counter mayor tried to arrest him but his guard was very strict and also in terms of legality there was no Japanese law which made him criminal so he could not make arrests & demands officially

But more and more the lives of fellow prosecutors were lost because even some cities in the world began to adopt suicide laws. The President and the prosecutor (who received a recommendation from the FBI) ​​cooperate to end this chaos

After the conference between countries they discussed the most crucial what is good & evil? Various statements made by them until when the president wants to answer a question that delayed before, he instead incited by ai magase which made him want to commit suicide

Here interesting part, political games & actual manipulation if the president of the US suicide, the world considers it as the right of all people and magase wins, but this is not left by the prosecutor who forced kill the US president otherwise the whole world will adopt a suicide law

Unfortunately the prosecutor Seizaki didn't shoot Ai Magase when he was right in front of him. It is true that Ai Magase & the mayor cannot be prosecuted because they are not the direct cause of people's suicides but prosecutors of Seizaki should be able to kill her for the mutilated video evidence conducted by AI Magase to his assistants

Finally, this show is very interesting overall with political, psychological, philosophical presentation which is quite logical and even a tense atmosphere in each scene but the execution that forgets the existing chronological elements makes it like a plot hole in the end of this anime

Babylon is an anime series that had the potential to be great, but unfortunately falls short in its execution. The story revolves around the main protagonist, Zen Seizaki, a public prosecutor investigating a pharmaceutical company involved in a scandal. The anime starts off strong with a gripping storyline that keeps the audience engaged.

However, as the series progresses, it begins to lose its focus and the plot becomes convoluted. The pacing of the story is also inconsistent, with some episodes feeling rushed while others drag on. This inconsistency makes it difficult for viewers to remain invested in the story and the characters.

Despite these shortcomings, Babylon does ... have some redeeming qualities. The animation and soundtrack are well-done and add to the overall atmosphere of the series. Additionally, the characters are well-designed and have interesting backstories, though some could have been further developed.

Overall, Babylon is an anime that had potential but ultimately falls short. However, if the series were extended to at least 20 episodes, it could give the story and characters the time and development they need to truly shine.

This review is based on 8 episodes. ---CONTAINS SPOILERS---

Story: 5 - Really good start, but then it kinda goes off the rail with the whole suicide law.

Art: 4 - Nothing special, pretty good at times, when needed.

Sound: 4 - Nothing stood out. Nothing was really bad.

Character: 8 - Main character is pretty good, somewhat of a fresh breath of air from your typical school boy saving the world archetype. Main villain has some interesting abilities, however, no real motives are established apart from just being a straight up psychopath.

Enjoyment: 5 - Really disliked the whole suicide debate and politics in general. I feel like that ... could've been done in a far better way, focusing more on the villain and the politics could be the secondary thing.

Overall: 5 - Strong start, some good parts in the middle, but overall the politics kinda ruined it, feel like it could've been done a lot better. Looking forward as to how they're going to end the show.


I feel like this show would've been so much better if they've focused more on the main protagonist and the antagonist of the show, leave the politics as the secondary thing, leave them as something Ai could manipulate and have her way with it. By doing so, you could establish her motives more easily, give her a more fleshed out backstory as to why she's doing what she's doing. Because now it seems like all she wants is chaos. While the pure chaotic antagonist can be cool, she isn't given that much screen time, which is taken up by the politics and the whole suicide debate (which is really stupid in my opinion).

Also more fleshed out development on the main character would be appreciated since he goes through some rough shit. He sees almost everyone in his unit wiped out and sees her colleague hacked up into pieces by Ai during her live stream. That ought to fuck shit up for you. Could be good if her wife kinda stepped in, giving him moral support, but that kinda didn't happen, they just hanged out at the zoo without the guy showing any PTSD. You would think after going through what he went through you would have some breakdowns in front of your family, but I guess he's more of a man than me :)

The main aspect of the show seems to be the suicide debate, in which recently appointed mayor Itsuki Kaika, has established a suicide law, shortly after, a lot of people jump off a building to their deaths.

Weeks later, a debate takes place in a studio in which a few candidates who are against the law make their claims, but all that was swept aside when Kaika's son comes out, saying his dad wants to commit suicide. Then A TWIST happens when Kaika reveals that he is the kids' dad, and he's the one who wants to commit suicide in order to donate his own heart to his son.......... A couple of things that is very, very retarded with this. If i recall correctly, there are these cards in Japan that you can fill and after you die, your organs get donated (no one brought this point up by the way) . You're meaning to tell me, instead of searching for a donor that way, you're just going to straight up sacrifice yourself to the kid?

SECOND. A lot of people just suddenly wrote to the live debate saying how they would donate their own heart to the kid too... When was the last time a complete stranger sacrificed himself for another human being? Maybe once since the beginning of time?

Before the debate, only 3% of the population were for the law, after the debate, everyone had their hearts moved at the INCREDIBLE arguments presented by Dumbfuck Kaika and now it's half the population in favour of the law.

Then on 8th episode it shows one of the best fantasy sections of the anime: a shy computer nerd hooks up with a 10/10 model who he met in game and taught her about the game, who encourages him to be more confident because he's really good at video games and later on that man marries the woman, has a kid with her and becomes the president of the United States. I... don't even know...

Before I end, I really liked the feeling of the spell Ai puts men under. Before suicide, one of the colleagues describing the feeling as: Constantly having sex, but not wanting to ejaculate, but at the same time, the climax would be so incredibly good, you cannot just keep going... The sex part is living, the ejaculating part is killing yourself. THAT really clicked and made so much sense and kinda made me sympathize with the victims.

I won't start off with the artistic quotes and viewpoints of other reviewers because that is useless. There is no reason to describe an anime in such useless terms. If one were to analyze an anime, do not just pull quotes and supposedly philosophical viewpoints. I will say this bluntly, Babylon was average. It was okay...

I loved the beginning. It had numerous interesting twists and turns and kept you on edge. As an audience, we expected many things, and we got more than we wanted. These twists and turns amazed us. They were terrifying, thrilling, and out of this world, but at the same time, ... they made sense.
Each character was extremely well developed, making me intrigued to find out more about their lives. In addition, this show wasn't afraid to kill its characters. It killed numerous characters, enticing the watchers to learn more about the world and swallowing them into the mystery.
The initial conflict between the two characters of Seizaki and Magase was even more interesting. The devilish Magase was a real psychopath that awed me in how terrible she was. In addition, the development of Seizaki helped us feel very sympathetic in his struggles against Magase. The creator developed Magase so well, that she is probably one of the best villains I've ever seen. She's a person I'd love to hate.

However, there were some serious problems. We head to the main plot of the story for this.
This anime, in essence, is trying to prove a point on suicide. However, the way this main plot is set up is completely messed up and riddled with holes.
The debate between the two sides of the argument is riddled with logical fallacies and in the end, can be disproved by anyone with a working brain. I understand that the creator wants to show that suicide has many points of view, but it is very unjustifiable, and the way the creator paints it, makes it even more so.
The way the creator tries to prove that suicide is a good thing has way too many flaws. Even the anime itself knows this because the side of the argument that supports suicide refuses to answer many questions that can disprove their argument.
Furthermore, the support for suicide completely skips over the psychological and societal factors that contribute to suicide. The argument does not consider why people commit suicide and says that suicide and not committing suicide are the only two answers. Apparently, there is no therapy, medication, and psychiatry in this world.
It also further messes up many facts about world religions and governments across the world. It shows many governments approving suicide but without reason. After all, a government's obligation is to protect its people, especially from death.
It also messes up the relationship of the U.S government and how it functions and laws concerning murder and suicide.
Furthermore, tries to be philosophical and refer to the Bible, incorrectly. Thus, I give the story, especially the reasoning a 4.

Everything else was very good. I liked how the opening was only 30 seconds, helping viewers stay on the task at hand (watching the show).
It also has very good thriller elements. It is well played there.
The art is beautiful and unique and the sound design is as good.

The only major problem I have is the logic of the story. I feel like the subplot with Magase and Seizaki is way more interesting than the actual discussion of suicide. The suicide discussion is honestly one of the stupidest ways to depict suicide in any media ever.

Like many other reviewers who have seen the entirety of the show, I found Babylon to be a great disappointment. When I started it, it seemed like it had a real chance of becoming one of my top anime of all time, based on the story, characters, and themes. Up to episode 7, I was on the edge of my seat and constantly checking for new episodes because everything about it drew me in: the dynamics between the characters, the air of mystery and intrigue of the psychological thriller, and the open way in which the anime addressed an incredibly serious topic.

The story was intriguing ... at first, introducing a new special district, in which a newly elected mayor, Itsuki Kaika, breaks with traditional political parties and implements a new, highly controversial law against a backdrop of several mysterious suicides. The second arc of the show focuses on the attempts to remove this apparently loose cannon and reverse his policies, particularly after they almost immediately result in a major tragedy. But at the same time, they challenge current conceptions of morality, at least in-universe, and lead to serious discussions/debate rather than simply waving off something as "good" or "bad" simply because society has decided it to be so. Itsuki's motivations for his actions are clarified in episode 7 and evoke sympathy and understanding in the viewer, both in the anime and beyond the fourth wall, and set up the story to delve more deeply into philosophy and morality. At least in theory: it seems that the producers wanted to go in that direction, but the rest of the story fails to maintain the quality of the first 7 episodes, instead losing much of the tension and resorting to a lower level of discourse.

Originally, the characters were also fascinating, particularly Magase Ai. Charming sociopaths/psychopaths are certainly a common theme, particularly in the role of villains, but Magase's superhuman ability to charm anyone with just a few words and her unrepentant acknowledgement of her own evil particularly intrigued me. I'm always interested in looking into characters' psyches, especially particularly aberrant ones like Magase's, to see what sort of things could push them to develop in a certain way. She has a power that could be used for good or evil, but she showed no hesitation in using it for the latter, and I had hoped that the anime might shed more light on why she was using it the way that she was, such as the motivations behind her collaboration with Itsuki, but that would turn out to be a futile hope. At best, she ends the story as a "Joker"-like character, someone who simply wants to watch the world burn, but she lacks the characterization to give that assigned role any real believability.

However, after episode 7, the anime just seems to go into free-fall without any concern for its quality and content. The rest of the anime seems rushed, with developments happening at an unrealistic rate, even taking into account the in-universe reason for them being possible. Furthermore, the ultimate definition of "good" and "evil" that the anime presents is far too childish. While the ending does make sense on the surface, the anime fails to delve into the the characters, their motivations, and the true complexity of the matter at hand.

Instead, the writers seem to simply go for cheap thrills over the measured, deep complexity that characterized the first half of the anime. For example, the episode 12 post-credits scene is certainly important to reveal a key aspect of the interactions and relationship between Magase and Seizaki, but the way that it is presented to the viewers feels like it was done for the shock value and results in more confusion than anything else. It simply introduces another loose end of the many that were already remaining. So many questions about the plot and characters remain unanswered, leaving the watcher unsatisfied. I don't have an issue with open-ended endings that encourage the viewer to think and draw their own conclusions (which would probably have been appropriate for this show), but this was not that type of ending.

WARNING: Before you proceed to watch the show, you should not previously have any suicidal thoughts. For those that continue, should you found yourself with any suicidal thoughts during or after completion of the show, I strongly suggest you stop watching and seek immediate help.

Disclaimer: This is a message to prevent vulnerable people from watching a detestable show. My ratings view the show and its story as an anime and do not include how it could present suggestive negative themes.

Babylon is a dangerous show with a story that contains suggestive menacing threats that could harm human beings. They use controversial, trending, and sensitive modern topics ... to play around on the show's main theme: Suicide.

To watch this show, one may have to temporarily forego his logic, emotions, brain activity, and intelligence. If not, like me, you would start to ponder the purpose and its existence.

Remember, treat anime logic as anime logic and do not involve, interfere, or include those logics into reality.

Thank you.

SPOILERS
Ok, where do I even begin.

Like the majority of the people said, the first part up to ep 6 was fucking awesome, and it all goes downhill from there. Since everyone's comments are quite long and analyzed things in great detail ill just cut it short and call it a day.

from ep7 on, there was quite a bit of killing of your favorite characters, I don't usually mind it as it adds to the story and makes the ending more emotional and impactful. But in this case, nothing was explained. Like how did Sekuro even get captured in the first place? And how does Magase's ... powers work other than make them horny? Literally nothing was explained even at the end of the show. I feel that is the main problem with the show. The deaths of our MC's colleges and friends was just a very unpolished attempt at adding sadness and giving our MC a motive. It also went too far into the international bs to add to the scale of the situation, it made no sense other than adding fillers and figuring out Good = Continue Evil = End.

IN SHORT:
Nothing was explained while branching too far.

Watch till the 7th ep and then read the manga , manga is way better than the anime.

Following is some stuff which I wanted to speak about.

The art and the plot is good. Anime will pass for a good psychological thriller that you're itching for after watching a lot of other boring anime.

It starts out as a typical police procedural and then shifts into what seems to be one more decently produced "crimes in high places" mystery.

By the end of Episode 3 we realize this show is going to be something else entirely.

... Production wise the animation and artwork are good.

Recommended if you're looking for something to binge watch.
Don't forget! The simping kills!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

I never write reviews but after watching the final episode last night and having spent much of my day thinking about it, I have to just say something.

The story started off well. Decent characters, nice animation, and the story started off well. Then the pace slows to a crawl, it becomes hard to watch because I felt like so little was happening in several episodes.

And then BAM! The mid-season episode came and EVERYTHING changed! And I absolutely loved it! It was engaging, hard to watch (but in a good violent way), and it made me like so many characters so much more.

It made ... me hopeful that the story would pick up and I was so thrilled for it! But then the story just got slower and so much worse.

There was an entire episode about morality where nothing got done.

And the finale has left me both bitter and angry. The psycho bitch won. She never lost a single round and she got away with all of it.

Im just so disappointed.

Plus they made us wait a month and a half for episode 8 after the mid-season episode aired. Which was also kinda frustrating tbh.

If you havent seen this anime, just dont. Watch something better.

Forewarning, this review does contain some minor spoilers!

With that out of the way, let me say this: I'm disappointed. The story starts with a great bang, great twist at the end of the very first episode that draws you in, and consistently till episode 7 you will be just astounded by the main villain of the story and how mysterious but deadly they are. After Ep7 though, it all falls a bit flat.

Unfortunately, the main villain seems to occupy only half of the story, the dynamic between them and the main cast will keep you intrigued but there is a second half to this anime ... - Political intrigue mixed with philosophical discourse. Unfortunately that part is so unrealistic and so basic in it's own concept it just doesn't hold up. The main philosophical question of this series is supposed to be "what is good" and "what is evil", but unfortunately it centres that question on "is suicide good" and "should it be legal" (It actually IS legal at this moment in all the countries involved in this anime). And even though it mulls over an answer for that question for 12 episodes, you're only graced with vague pseudo-answer that adds nothing new to the table and coincidentally is absolutely wrong in some cases (speaking from medical perspective here).

I'm incredibly disappointed because it felt like there was something more to the story, something hiding behind the mystery of the main villain, a deep intrigue to be discovered and explored. But there's none of that. Visually and musically stunning, but lacks substance, it's essentially empty story-wise.

You had my curiosity after first episode, you had my attention... And it didn't pay off at all... I'm pretty sure every single employee of a suicide telephone helpline has a better story to tell than this anime.

Thriller.
You really don't see a lot of good psychological thrillers in the anime form. They are far and few between. The one that comes up to mind is Death Note. That was a pretty good psychological thriller. It delves into psychological strategies, battles, and how character react. Very good.
Of course, I'm missing one thing essential to a psychological thriller: the thrill. You really want to know what's going to happen. What exactly is happening? What's going to happen? What will this character end up being?
Well, I'll have to say, Babylon does execute this pretty well through the anime. But honestly, it's a pile of ... garbage. Just because it's a suspenseful pile of garbage doesn't make it good, if I'm being totally honest.
I think the biggest problem with this show is definitely consistency of plot, mood, and characters. It loves to jump ALL over the place, just to create a feeling of suspense. First, you're jumping into a suicide case, and a suicide case of a police officer. Clues are found, and everything progresses slowly. Politicians, corruption, and manipulation behind the scenes. A typical, yet well executed police mystery case. But then, you just have a sort of random supernatural girl that can basically do anything, which throws the entire plot into complete haywire. Any semblance of logical series of events and character depiction are thrown out the window. Pacing? What's that? Hey, how about talking about a suicide law now? How about we just kill everyone, and then have essentially a completely different arc because we feel like it? And then focus on that completely different arc for a good 6 episodes, before spending the last 10 minutes connecting it back to the previous plot. Seriously. The latter half of this show is a complete joke.

And before I talk about the latter half, l'd have to talk about the suicide law being mentioned. What's the point of this being brought up like, at all? It's essentially an edgy plot device to draw suspense. It brings absolutely nothing to the table except shock factor and moral implications which are continuously explored for no real reason. Anyways, now we can talk about the second half of the show. It's about international countries thinking about the suicide law, and whether or not it's ethical. Then, evil girl kills everyone. WOW!!! Very cool! First and foremost, just the fact that people supported the suicide law without any sort of reason gets attributed to supernatural powers of persuasion of the girl (remember that plot point?) just means that it's lazy plot hole fixing. I think it's really just an excuse to have an extremely "intellectual" debate about what is good and evil. I bet the author was giving a pat on his back when he talks about the "true" origins of good and evil. Basically, politics, country interests, military tensions, or basically anything realistic is not there because of the supernatural powers of the evil girl. How convenient.

So, let me recap, because it is quite a bit of information to digest. It's a confusing storyline for sure. I mean, that's basically the reason why it's thrilling to watch in the first place. A sort of random adding of events to make you want to know what happens next.
So first, it's a super gritty, realisitc, slow paced, police mystery thriller about strange murder cases. Then, it moves onto a girl that has powers to kill anyone, essentially. She kills every police force member other than the MC investigating it. And then, the girl just randomly supports this random guy to create a suicide law, so that suicide is now legal and normalized. THEN, the anime goes into a super long like 4-6 episode tangent on international figures such as the prime minister, president, etc, dealing and trying to figure out whether or not suicide is bad. Probably because the author had to put in new characters since he just killed all the old ones. In the end, bad girl kills everyone because of shock value. And of course, main character dies.

That's a mouthful for a 12 episode anime. The story just moves on, and on, and on, with no real logic or meaningfulness. It's fuel is confusion, and that confusion creates a thrill. And that was why I watched this in one session. Still, once the ending kicks in, some thinking happens, and you end up thinking: "why the hell did I watch this to begin with?"

My first written review on Mal, as I am really disappointed from this show.

The author is trying too hard to recreate "Monster", specifically recreating "Johan Liebert".
The show was decent till the interview of zen and ai. The discussion of suicide law, and good vs evil was stupid thereafter.
I did enjoyed the show a lot, as I enjoy thriller and mystery show. I was hoping for a decent conclusion to the character of the evil woman, and better dialogues from her, which can justify how she drives people to suicide with few words. But it was not given.
Don't waste time on this show.

Fall 2019 was a bit boring season for me since if I expect 3 to 4 series and some sequels there wasn't something which hooked me but babylon was the show which I liked and I thought it will be the gem of the seasson . Oh boy I was so wrong if only I knew but lets start probably spoilers . Plot The plot of Babylon its difficult to be talled in a review but I will give some informations During election year [that's Important for a part of the plot] police investigates a pharmaceutical company for a new drug they ... created while they investigate they found a macabre find which is stained with blood,hair , nails and letter ''f'' scribbled all across the sheet . Our protagonist Seizaki Zen continiue to investigate the case but what he will find it will make him to think again what is justice. Promising plot in my opinion its so sad that they just ruined it in only 2 episodes . Babylon for the first 7 episodes were really good [espesially episode 7 was painful and dificult to watch for me] but after episode 7 babylon just ruined its own plot magase Ai and suiside law became subplot [ the main two themes of the anime] and foccused to the president of usa [who was a boring character in my opinion] and a side character . Moreover the main question of the anime which is '' is death a crime;'' was faced really flat to the point I didn't cared anymore for it and last but not least some iportant questions like Ai power didn't explained so in a few words good plot but end up to a bad mess .Art animation of babylon its beutiful ,clear and some scences were so well designed lto the point they felt real [interogation scence ] so yes awsome animation. Sound Babylon didn't had that much music like other anime I will just say that the opening gave me monster vibe .Character oof characters in babylon were in the majority one dimensioned but 2 characters were really intreasting Zen the protagonist who is a person who haves a sense of justice and he lives his life according to the path of justice I like how he tries protect his ideals even though he lose everything in the progress and Ai magase an intreasting villain and a bad person and by bad I mean with the sosiopath killer who will seduce enyone she will see only to drove him to the death she haves a different option in what is good and what is bad we don't need to talk for the other characters since they didn't had a serious character development . Overall babylon had a lot of potential but in the progress it became a mess which is sad in my opinion having this good plot and just ruined like this its really sad.

The word pretentious is a buzz word that got overused until it pretty much lost all meaning, but boy oh boy is this show pretentious. Why? you ask, well let me tell you.
If you want to present a thought provoking piece of expression, you should at least be aware of the state of art related to your chosen topic. Babylon pretends that suicide has never been discussed in the history of humankind, and as a result, the show starts manufacturing these unbalanced dialogues where the pro life side is presented as illiterate dumb hacks who get obliterated everytime they open their mouths by the ... fake intellect and charisma of the pro suicide side.
Now, if you are an eighth grader with eighth grade syndrome, standing in front of the mirror and trying to win every imaginable imaginary debate ever, then yeah, I can understand portraying your opponents as pathetic losers, in fact that's the only way you're going to win. But, if you're an author who's trying to describe this moral dilemma as a global threat that in just two months got the world's leaders uncertain and scared, then you've got to come up with better arguments instead of putting utterly foolish opinions in the mouth of one side for the other to debunk, just for the sake of advancing the plot.
The mystery/thriller aspect however, was actually pretty good, if only it wasn't tarnished with that miserably failed philosophical attempt.

I went into this series completely blind and have to say that I am pretty glad I did. The series revolves heavily around the concept of suicide which by all means is not an easy topic to address.

The series starts out pretty strong with its first few opening episodes by establishing the world’s setting and characters. However, the story’s narrative did leave much to be desired The primus of analyzing suicide through a country’s legal system is certainly an interesting way to put this topic on display.

At the beginning of the show, the main characters were put into a situation where they were ... tasked with investigating a newly forming independent prefecture that was being established during a high profile political election. It was quickly addressed that this newly forming prefecture was being formed in order to circumvent the country’s legal system in an attempt to allow Japan to test out experimental laws/procedures that could not be implemented in a normal government structured society. Specifically, this new prefecture wanted to start the distribution of an experimental drug that induce death upon its consumption. Along with this the prefecture enacted a law that legalized suicide and this was the main starting point for the series.

At this point in the story I was assuming the series was going to continue down the path of a legal/political debates that would eventually result in the main characters of the series not only trying to find the political members of this independent prefecture guilty of a crime but also ways to try and convict them. However the narrative devolves down the path of a conspiracy that revolves around one person somehow having the absurd ability to convince anyone to commit suicide simply with their presence which end up revolting around a series of mass suicides.

The series definitely has a problem with keeping its focus during the series later half and this result in the series having a terrible ending. With all of that being said, I still did find this series quite entertaining and enjoyable as I watched through the series runtime. I really do find that the series presented the topic of suicide in a very interesting manner but it certainly could have been executed much better.

If you find you can stomach watching a series that revolves around the concept of suicide and if you are interested in seeing a somewhat unique perspective on the concept, I think it may be worth giving this series a try if you are looking for something to watch.

I rated the anime way higher at the start, but over the course of it my opinion dropped quite a bit.

I liked the art.
The characters were interesting and I loved how some of them progressed throughout the show.

The story was kinda awkward all things considered.


The enjoyment was pretty low for a few things I massively disliked.

The debate when talking about whether suicide is good or bad, was really low level imho. The experts had long time to inform themselves and make good points and failed massively in doing so. I've seen/participated in better ... discussions on that topic in college classes.
When they revealed the father of the son I was perplexed, because it just didn't make sense.
You wanna tell me no one realized he's the son of the other politician? No one doing any background checks?
The debating on what is good or evil when deciding on suicide law was too far stretched.
We lacked critical background motives etc. from Magase or the political party involved.
So many suicides were just ignored, without doing proper investigation.

The ending was? Like what happened to him, did he kill himself, because of Magase?
Was he shot by a security, when he saw him holding a gun at another person?
Did he shoot Magase, but she survived or can't be killed by something like that and is now in prison or something?
What does she plan on doing with his son?

Babylon started as one of the strongest animes in 2019 and it had the potential to climb the ranks up higher but alas!

At the start, it did a pretty excellent job of asking the questions of what good and what bad. And WHY!? Personally, I really loved that one scene with the eggs. And the investigation scene in ep 2 or 3 was really some top-notch writing.

However, soon it took an absolute U-Turn in the story and all the politics and world politics was brought in which wasn't really needed. Ai Magase could've been the next Makishima (from Psycho-Pass) and Johan (from Monster) but pfft...

I ... had such high hopes for Babylon. It could've been in 2019's Top 5 anime if it was rightly executed.