WHY YOU SHOULD READ CLAMP'S "TOKYO BABYLON"
Tokyo Babylon is a seven book manga series written and published in Japan from 1990-1993. It covers social issues in Japan from the late 80s and early 90s, and is done by the 4 woman mangaka group, CLAMP (also known for Cardcaptor Sakura, xxxHolic, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, and the character designs for the Sunrise anime Code Geass).
The main storyline follows a young medium who believes in the good in everyone despite the horrors he sees in his work, his extroverted boundary-pushing twin sister, and their friend (and Subaru’s love-interest) who is an older veterinarian by day and a dark spiritual assassin by night that has questionable motives towards the protagonist. Most chapters are stand alone stories, each focusing on a particularly troublesome aspect of Japanese (and in general 1st world culture) that were prevalent at the time (and are even still hitting close to home today).
The occurring story line deals with failure to recognize a predator, dependency on a predator, loss of innocence, abusive relationships, and PTSD, although most of this doesn’t come in towards the end.
Story one: A woman who moved to the city and lived in decrepit conditions finally beings to make her acting debut years later when suddenly the lead actress causes the movie to be canceled; unable to stress and depression that follow she commits suicide. Issues hit: suicide, the struggle of the underdog, the reality of the acting business and what could be any business really, failure in a society that rewards only the successful, the ripple effect of an action enacted by a higher up in society.
Story two: Introduced the main underlying plot
Story three: A girl is raped by a gang and puts herself into a coma after hearing people gossiping about it right in front of her. Issues hit: victim blaming/shaming, rape, depression
Story four: The protagonists’s sister happens upon a “gaijin” prostitute who is being harassed by some policemen, beats up said policemen, and whisks the girl away to help her as best as she can. Issues hit: the issue of “Gaijin” and why it’s a terrible concept, racism, the failure to allow foreigners to climb the social ladder, the kindness of strangers; it was a very feminist tale
Story five: Three girls meet on a party telephone line (where you pay by the minute to talk to other people) and send nasty spells after anyone they believe is associated with the year 1999 by going through the phonebook. Issues hit: The danger of strangers in a forum, disrespect of other cultures’ spiritual beliefs, the failure to help troubled children (both with parents and the school system) until it’s too late, following occult beliefs inappropriately (this story was an entire book long and a lot more complicated than this, but these are the broad issues)
Story six: The protagonist happens upon a shrine being torn down so that a shopping/apartment district can be put in and happens upon a mother trying to summon an inugami; as he talks her out of it, he learns that her child had been raped and killed and that the man who had done it got off on the insanity plea. The spirit of the child is also encouraging her mother for vengeance, and the protagonist ends up lying to the mother that the baby is fine so that she can finally have some closure and move on in life. Issues hit: the failure of the justice system, loss of a child, dealing with grief, an extreme moral dilemma on whether to lie to save a life or not
Story seven: A young girl who is bullied at school and told by teachers that it happens because she doesn’t stand up for herself joins a toxic cult. Issues hit: bullying, victim blaming, failure of the school system to stop bullying, techniques used by cults to draw in members, why cults don’t value the individual, toxicity of cults, use of religion for one’s personal gain
Story eight: A grandfather is verbally and emotionally abused by his daughter and her family, with whom he lives with. Issues hit: devaluing of the elderly, abuse by a family member, unconditional love, and so many others I’m sorry this story is particularly hard for me to talk to about.
Story nine: A child has failing kidneys and his mother had already given up one to save his now dead sister. He remains optimistic about getting better, but his mother descends into madness as braindead patients are not giving her son their perfectly functioning organs. Issues hit: Medical ethics, the stress of medical malady, a mother’s need to do ANYTHING to help her child
Story ten: The protagonist meets a blind man with a seeing eye dog and they talk about how society isn’t accommodating for the disabled. Issues hit: disabilities, society’s lack of accommodations for those with disabilities, the importance of service animals.
The rest of the stories go back to the main plot, but also mentioned through the series in bits and pieces are, men who use women and then throw them away, global warming and greenhouse gases, homosexuality, consumerism, land usage, lack of graves, corruption of the government… Basically if you can think of it, it was covered in Tokyo Babylon.
It is hard hitting, gut wrenching, and eye opening AND WRITTEN IN THE EARLY 90s! THESE ISSUES ARE STILL VERY MUCH PREVALENT. THAT HAS HOW FAR SOCIETY AS PROGRESSED. OR RATHER THE DEGRADATION OF SOCIETY AS A WHOLE. I highly recommend reading this series. It’s not long at all and available on most manga sites. If you go with hard copies, I recommend the TokyoPop translation vs the Dark Horse one, as it keeps more of the cultural motifs and has a glossary in each books for specific Japanese cultural terms and items.
