Tokyo Babylon, re-read
Jul. 5th, 2016 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
type_wildSooOO Tokyo Babylon, boys and girls!
I once said that I can't pass objective judgment on Cardcaptor Sakura-the-manga because there's too much personal affection going on. I've got the same problem with Tokyo Babylon, but upon re-reading it, I can at least say this much:
It's engaging. I read all seven books in two days without having to make an effort to sit down and do it, without ever putting them down because I was bored with them - and that's interesting, because plot as such has never been Clamp's forte, and Tokyo Babylon is kind of... very notably an early work of theirs? In retrospect, it reads like a proto-xxxHolic more than anything - what with a high-school-aged boy who deals with the supernatural on an episodic basis while the story really is about his personal relationships and his own view of his place in the world. xxxHolic does most everything better than Tokyo Babylon does it, but there is of course the difference in setting, tone and not the least COHERENCEY that very much marks Tokyo Babylon as a work of its own.
Anyway, on the off chance that someone reads this without being familiar with TB: The year is 1990. The place is Tokyo. Subaru Sumeragi is sixteen years old and the head of Japan's oldest clan on onmyoji (a brand of buddhist sorcerer); his daily life consists of going to school, exorsising the dead, and hanging out with his twin sister Hokuto and their friend Seishiro Sakurazuka, a veterinarian who is a decade older than the twins and loves to joke about how he's courting Subaru. And yes, it's fairly obvious from fairly early on that Seishiro normally would have better things to do than pal around with two teenagers, but he clearly has an interest in Subaru that's got nothing to do with his lanky body and girly face.
As said, Tokyo Babylon is episodic, and the single episodes are actually pretty dumb. They're very straightly told with a minimal amounts of attempts at interesting storytelling. On the other hand, they serve huge portions of heavy-handed moralising on the alienation of the metropolis. It's no coincidenve that Tokyo Babylon is the only manga I've read that actually has an honest-to-God introduction by the editor pointing pointing out the meaning of the title, particularly with regards to the timestamp; the first chapter of the manga proper talks about the hedonism of modern life, and particularly as it manifests in a city the size of Tokyo, where any single fate is overlooked in the mass. The comic becomes an attempt to fix that, by letting Subaru's spiritual villain-of-the-days have their source in human suffering. Make no mistake about the tone here: where Yuko's custormers in xxxHolic tends to suffer because of navel-gazing issues (self-esteem, habits, personal grief), Subaru listens to stories about rape, murder, suicide, violent bullying, family abuse and dying children, and the writing is not at all subtle about its opinion on how Japanese society deals with these issues. I'd say that it's a pity that that subtlety is lacking because it could've made for a more fascinating read than Tokyo Babylon is, but then I'm not sure Nanase Ohkawa would be at all capable of that, seeing how often xxxHolic is about Yuko dishing out supernatural punishment to those deserving.
What exists of plot, then, can be summarised as such: Seishiro Sakurazuka - friend or foe? And when is one of the twins going to cotton on to his false persona? And since Tokyo Babylon luckily is a fairly short affair at seven volumes, neither the episodic nature nor the constant hints about Seishiro's true nature go on for long enough to become boring. It isn't the plot that makes Tokyo Babylon stand out among Clamp's production, anyway - it's in the use of motifs, theme and narrative irony. To truly go into detail about this would be to go into some huge spoilers about the ending of the story, so let it suffice to say that Tokyo Babylon packs some emotional punches that no other Clamp series has ever quite managed. It sets up Subaru and Hokuto's kindness and altruism as a contrast to the indifference and corruption of the city of Tokyo, and this kind of thematic symbolism isn't just truly unique from Clamp, but for a lot of manga in general, I find. All the small, dumb stories are plays on the same theme, and as Tokyo Babylon reaches its honestly shocking climax, it's with the exactly same things at stake.
In the end, Tokyo Babylon isn't a terribly good comic, but it's fascinating because of the way the story works. Another interesting thing is the artwork, which I'm sure somebody with a better vocabulary on comic composition could say something about. It's very high-contrast and makes use of dramatic framework. I'm sorry that I can't put this better, but it's actually fascinating to look at this compared to, say the Clamp Campus series and X, which are all drawn in the same style and all work a lot differently on the page than TB does. Finally, Clamp has always excelled with their characters, and dear Lord do they do their characters right in Tokyo Babylon. I say you should read it, and if for no other reason, so for the existence of the best female character ever - Hokuto Sumeragi.
(also, yes, Tokyo Babylon is somewhat of a prequel to X, but since X a) is such a fucking mess, and b) resolves the Tokyo Babylon story in an infuriating manner, at least in the manga, I prefer to not think too much about that it exists).
Crossover count: The Clamp Campus series
I once said that I can't pass objective judgment on Cardcaptor Sakura-the-manga because there's too much personal affection going on. I've got the same problem with Tokyo Babylon, but upon re-reading it, I can at least say this much:
It's engaging. I read all seven books in two days without having to make an effort to sit down and do it, without ever putting them down because I was bored with them - and that's interesting, because plot as such has never been Clamp's forte, and Tokyo Babylon is kind of... very notably an early work of theirs? In retrospect, it reads like a proto-xxxHolic more than anything - what with a high-school-aged boy who deals with the supernatural on an episodic basis while the story really is about his personal relationships and his own view of his place in the world. xxxHolic does most everything better than Tokyo Babylon does it, but there is of course the difference in setting, tone and not the least COHERENCEY that very much marks Tokyo Babylon as a work of its own.
Anyway, on the off chance that someone reads this without being familiar with TB: The year is 1990. The place is Tokyo. Subaru Sumeragi is sixteen years old and the head of Japan's oldest clan on onmyoji (a brand of buddhist sorcerer); his daily life consists of going to school, exorsising the dead, and hanging out with his twin sister Hokuto and their friend Seishiro Sakurazuka, a veterinarian who is a decade older than the twins and loves to joke about how he's courting Subaru. And yes, it's fairly obvious from fairly early on that Seishiro normally would have better things to do than pal around with two teenagers, but he clearly has an interest in Subaru that's got nothing to do with his lanky body and girly face.
As said, Tokyo Babylon is episodic, and the single episodes are actually pretty dumb. They're very straightly told with a minimal amounts of attempts at interesting storytelling. On the other hand, they serve huge portions of heavy-handed moralising on the alienation of the metropolis. It's no coincidenve that Tokyo Babylon is the only manga I've read that actually has an honest-to-God introduction by the editor pointing pointing out the meaning of the title, particularly with regards to the timestamp; the first chapter of the manga proper talks about the hedonism of modern life, and particularly as it manifests in a city the size of Tokyo, where any single fate is overlooked in the mass. The comic becomes an attempt to fix that, by letting Subaru's spiritual villain-of-the-days have their source in human suffering. Make no mistake about the tone here: where Yuko's custormers in xxxHolic tends to suffer because of navel-gazing issues (self-esteem, habits, personal grief), Subaru listens to stories about rape, murder, suicide, violent bullying, family abuse and dying children, and the writing is not at all subtle about its opinion on how Japanese society deals with these issues. I'd say that it's a pity that that subtlety is lacking because it could've made for a more fascinating read than Tokyo Babylon is, but then I'm not sure Nanase Ohkawa would be at all capable of that, seeing how often xxxHolic is about Yuko dishing out supernatural punishment to those deserving.
What exists of plot, then, can be summarised as such: Seishiro Sakurazuka - friend or foe? And when is one of the twins going to cotton on to his false persona? And since Tokyo Babylon luckily is a fairly short affair at seven volumes, neither the episodic nature nor the constant hints about Seishiro's true nature go on for long enough to become boring. It isn't the plot that makes Tokyo Babylon stand out among Clamp's production, anyway - it's in the use of motifs, theme and narrative irony. To truly go into detail about this would be to go into some huge spoilers about the ending of the story, so let it suffice to say that Tokyo Babylon packs some emotional punches that no other Clamp series has ever quite managed. It sets up Subaru and Hokuto's kindness and altruism as a contrast to the indifference and corruption of the city of Tokyo, and this kind of thematic symbolism isn't just truly unique from Clamp, but for a lot of manga in general, I find. All the small, dumb stories are plays on the same theme, and as Tokyo Babylon reaches its honestly shocking climax, it's with the exactly same things at stake.
In the end, Tokyo Babylon isn't a terribly good comic, but it's fascinating because of the way the story works. Another interesting thing is the artwork, which I'm sure somebody with a better vocabulary on comic composition could say something about. It's very high-contrast and makes use of dramatic framework. I'm sorry that I can't put this better, but it's actually fascinating to look at this compared to, say the Clamp Campus series and X, which are all drawn in the same style and all work a lot differently on the page than TB does. Finally, Clamp has always excelled with their characters, and dear Lord do they do their characters right in Tokyo Babylon. I say you should read it, and if for no other reason, so for the existence of the best female character ever - Hokuto Sumeragi.
(also, yes, Tokyo Babylon is somewhat of a prequel to X, but since X a) is such a fucking mess, and b) resolves the Tokyo Babylon story in an infuriating manner, at least in the manga, I prefer to not think too much about that it exists).
Crossover count: The Clamp Campus series
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