Babylon: Mid Airing Thoughts

While Babylon's first episode may start out as rather dry, I think it's building up to be one of the most entertaining thriller and psychological anime out there. Convinced by the acclaim its recent episode 7 has gotten, I decided to binge watch all of its current seven episodes last night. Here are some of my thoughts.

Interesting note: the tears in the poster foreshadow how the characters die

What I like

The Villain 

Ai Magase feels like a seductress villain archetype crossed with the Joker from a Stephen King book. Her power to influence people borders on the supernatural- just walking past people and whispering into their ear compels them to commit suicide. Also, suicide is apparently akin to busting a nut for the men who meet her (see Kuujin's death). I don't think the anime is gonna be able to explain her ability in any rational sense without it sounding far fetched. Even her own damn psychologist doesn't know how to explain it. It's easier to just accept that the Ai Magase is a supernatural thot.

We live in a society

The other part of her character, the Joker aspect, is also very apparent. She toys with Zen when he interrogates her, avoiding his questions and providing non answers. In the most recent episode she traumatizes him, all while going on the age old philosophical spiel about what good and evil is, describing doing good and evil being just preferences like loving cats and dogs. While viewers can bring up the myriad of arguments as to what defines good and evil, her speech's main purpose is really just to screw with Zen's idea of justice, and it works. Whether Ai really has any motivations for doing what she does as she claims, or a point she wants to make to society, is really up in the air right now.

What I didn't like

The Suicide Morality Debate

To be fair, the whole suicide legalization subplot (chasing Ai is the main plot) isn't really important. Storywise, its legalization will allow Ai to kill people without being convicted for abetting suicide. But it's still an interesting conflict in the story. That said, I think it was handled poorly thanks to the weak arguments brought up by Itsuki. It also doesn't help that the people he was debating in Episode 6 are mostly incompetent too. Itsuki's comparison of legalizing suicide to that of Marijuana makes no sense as they are not the same thing. The idea that suicide is morally wrong because it will destroy mutual trust between people is a decent argument, but Itsuki skirts around it by saying that morals change. Finally, the worst offender is Itsuki's final argument, where he brings up the possibility of vital organ donations, even though scenarios like these are few and far between and would most likely act as an exception to the rule. At best, his argument that the suicide law will increase discussion about suicide is somewhat plausible. Because suicide or abetting suicide would no longer be a crime, then people may be more honest about it. However, this wouldn't indicate that suicide rates may decrease. If anything, this debate only reinforced my personal view that suicide is wrong and that legalizing it would be a bad idea. That's just unfortunate.

What I'm hoping for

The thing I'm most excited for is, which is really what I think is the best part of the show, is developing Ai Magase's character. I want to see what her deal is. The reason behind the madness. I'd also like to see how the show will choose to explain her abilities- whether they do a pseudo-science justification or will leave it as straight up supernatural. So far she's been a really interesting antagonist, and I hope the show won't let me down.

I also look forward to the struggle of Zen- will he catch Ai, or will she break him before that? Up till now he has been painted as a very morally righteous person and one that believes strongly in justice. I actually think it was rather plain at first, but having him question his beliefs thanks to Ai is turning him into a more interesting character. How far will he go just to catch her? Will he sacrifice more people, or even his own morals in the pursuit?

In all, I'm excited for what the show will do next, and it's a shame we'll have to wait so long for it.

-GaryMuffuginOak