Tokyo Babylon

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My love of CLAMP spills out again. Tokyo Babylon is another beautiful tragedy that every CLAMP follower, and manga reader should try.

Story: Find yourself in Tokyo, the 90s, following Subaru, a young progeny onmyouji. Exorcist for all who don't know what that is. Sounds so ordinary, so very relative. You can't even begin to understand how absolutely tragic and emotional this manga is. Subaru's companions, Seishirou and twin sister Hokuto accompany him as he travels throughout Tokyo and what is ultimately the setting for X/1999. There's plenty of humor here, parallel with tragedy and drama.

If you're uncomfortable with shounen ai, you may not ... like this as well, although nothing outright is done. But there is always something alluded to it in Tokyo Babylon. Personally, I love CLAMP most for this fact alone. Their mantra, of someone's most precious person, no matter what gender, age or color has always been a redeeming quality. I support them alone for this factor in all of their work.

There isn't really much I can say without revealing spoilers for the manga and I can't ruin this beauty. The story will truly bring you in and you'll want to know just why Seishirou is always there for Subaru and you'll want to see more of Hokuto's deliciously charming fashion. This is certainly a twist of a story and you'll never guess it. Enthralling and completely CLAMPesque.

Art: It's a CLAMP classic and I love their older works. The artwork of their older ones is so beautiful and so rich in texture, I always feel like I'm watching it move. There's a sensual feeling to the older works of CLAMP and this one definitely has it. Especially when you see Hokuto's outfits that she makes for her and Subaru. It's highly detailed and dark, which adds to the effect of the dark tones to the story. It's so elegant that it amplifies that tragic atmosphere to the story, making it all so much more impacting.

Character: I love Subaru and Hokuto. Hell, I even loved Seishirou despite certain things. There's certain character development that happens, that is significant to the story and what happens after the story that makes it all so...tragic. God how many times have I used that word in this review? Subaru is the absolute representation of purity and good. Watching how he changes throughout the manga is wonderful (which means you must then read X/1999-you really must. I've written a review for that as well so check it out), and Hokuto is the sweetest sister ever. She's fiercely protective of Subaru and I loved that about her. And Seishirou is like an enigma. Their interactions throughout the story are what make it all and how everything comes together in the end makes it all so much more...
Just read it guys.

Enjoyment: If you can't see it now, you're blind. I love Tokyo Babylon. I fell in love with it in volume 1. Something about self-sacrificing Subaru just made me want to love him. I think, as humans, we can identify with tragedy because we all experience it in one way or another. And this is what makes us connect to what we read or watch. I can feel these characters and I can connect with the story and I love that I am pulled into this story not of my own volition. There wasn't one second where I thought, "Nah, I'm just going to put this book down and go wash dishes or something." This book gripped me by the heart and squeezed me for every tear that I had.

Tokyo Babylon is mainly a collection of few stories about an exorcist protagonist and encounters he has during his works - both regular jobs and random confrontations.

Now, right from the start I felt like I was missing some chunk of the story, like I accidentally started reading the wrong volume and skipping the introduction. The characters aren't exactly properly introduced and thanks to their status as twins might even be easily confused for each other for first few chapters (though this might also be fault of the very low quality scanlations which are pretty much your only choice for this manga as the official ... release is out of print). The character of the main protagonist is pretty much just "being a good boy". I'm hoping for some development in the sequel, but for now he's not exactly the most interesting protagonist. The other two of the trio of main characters aren't really important to the plot except for the finale, so they too aren't exactly expanded upon.

For the stories itself - most of them feel like an attempt to portray some serious topic to make tha work deep, but they don't offer any unique take or any more deep analysis of the problem. It's like Tokyo Babylon gives up on making it more interesting and always decides that "yep, that's enough, that will do, this suffices to entertain a reader", which to be fair might work if this is one of the first fictions that takes on those themes that you've read. The last part of the manga breaks from the linked anthology format and follows more straightforward storyline. While it's nice that there is some twist in the narrative, one of them is a leap in logic like straight out of bad yaoi. Tokyo Babylon truly does not forget its shounen ai roots and dishes out a questionable narrative as it tries to push two characters to have to interact with each other as in a relationship.

About the art, I won't hide that I'm not a fan of CLAMP art and this manga sadly isn't an exceptions. It's still more readable than the usual 90's shoujo manga and I have to admit that the art indeed improves through the volumes, but it's still not for me. If you're a CLAMP fan I'm sure you'll enjoy it anyway though.

Overall, most of this manga is forgettable both story-wise and character-wise so I would suggest it only to those that are already fans of the authors. If you want to pick this up to try to get more into the intertwined world of CLAMP works and to understand the links between the works, just don't expect anything great and you probably won't be disappointed.

CLAMP's mangaography daunts me, as each work seemingly ties into an earlier or contemporary one, forming a massive amalgamation of anime tropes and bishounens. 'Tokyo Babylon' seems to be the starting point of all of this, although as far as I know there was a prototype of this story even earlier. Regardless, 'Tokyo Babylon' doesn't try to ease readers into its world at all. Even 'Reservoir Chronicle', which ties not only into this but also the contemporary 'XXXHolic", does a better job of introducing its characters and making the audience care. I believe this feeling stems from a sense of entitlement from the writers. Subaru ... (16, by the by) and Seishiro (25, by the by) are in love. We are told this from the beginning. Subaru's sister Hokuto really wants them together. I suppose the audience is supposed to as well.

However, I never once got an impression that these two were actually in love. Maybe that was the point considering the end twist, but regardless, a majority of the manga is filled with charmless romance scenes that feel entirely unearned. If the idea was to hint that Seishiro was evil, it still failed. Basically, the end reveals that Seishiro and Subaru met a long time ago when Seishiro killed a girl. Seishiro said he would spare Subaru if he learned to love him. Then he erased his memory and re-met him years later. Manga, amirite? I couldn't help but think of Griffifth from 'Berserk' while reading this, but two things separate Griffifth and Seishiro: One, we see the relationship between Guts, Griffifth, and Casca unfold. There's ups and downs. In 'Tokyo Babylon', the relationship feels stagnant until the end. Second, Griffifth does have an element of humanity to him despite the horrible things he did. He's evil, but you understand his motivation at all times. If it turns out Griffifth just always hated Guts and planned to do the eclipse from the start and also somehow manipulated Guts into being a part of it, he wouldn't be that interesting. Oh wait, that's basically what Seishiro did. Seishiro doesn't develop. Before the reveal, he's a nice, boring guy. After his betrayal, he's an evil, boring guy. He doesn't struggle. Why did he even do any of this in the first place? Why didn't he just kill Subaru instead? If he can erase people's memories, why didn't he just leave it at that? He dedicated a lot of his life to this convoluted plan, which makes me think that he wanted to love Subaru, but he acts cocky and proud of the fact that he's never loved anyone. Maybe all of this is answered in the sequel 'X', but I'm not sure how much I care at this point.

The other half of the manga fares slightly better. It's usually pretty disconnected from the romance, being self-contained stories where Subaru helps people, usually using some supernatural powers in the process. Hokuto and Seishiro usually aren't even involved in these either, so I question why they're here. They're not particularly entertaining, they don't really develop Subaru as a character, and any thematic ideas don't really tie into the main story. The name 'Tokyo Babylon' hints at something compelling, a look at the downfall of a modern city. This idea certainly appears at points, but ironically, the story fell apart far more spectacularly than Tokyo did. Despite the classic CLAMP style, I really can't recommend this manga to anyone. Go read "Reservoir Chronicle" instead.