DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA DramaBabylon

REVIEWS

• 

  sushiisawesome

  10/100
  A hilariously incompetent show that constantly strawmans its own points in order to prolong its miserable run-time

  Babylon is yet the latest in a series of blunders courtesy of the seinen demographic that in many ways sum up exactly why the majority of people shun it in favor of its younger brother in the shonen demographic. It's not that I personally think seinen can't be fantastic; plenty of series have done a marvelous job living up to what the demographic, well, implies and providing interesting characters, a level of maturity not normally found in their younger contemporaries and fantastic storylines. After all, one only needs to look at the likes of Berserk, Vinland Saga, Boogiepop and Others as well as Ghost in the Shell to know that there are many fantastic titles to find.

  What Babylon is, however, is a travesty of the highest order, thoroughly incapable of telling any sort of coherent narrative and being thoroughly unsatisfying to watch. On paper, a story covering euthanasia, nihilism and morality sounds like a fantastic narrative that should intrigue even the most uninterested viewers. In practice, however, what is found here is complete and utter drivel.

  Babylon is essentially a story about a man who's lost several acquaintances to suicide, but the suicide were in some shape or form them being convinced by a lady that life is meaningless and they should off themselves. It'd take an exceptional amount of careful writing to make this work, but thankfully, Babylon proceeds to butcher it through how exactly it treats the subjects it's discussing like a complete joke.

  Scenes where characters literally jump off rooftops in complete synchronicity. Debates about why people should commit suicide in public. Strawmen being committed ad nauseum about how religions don't condone suicide and how if you're not religious there's no point to life. Entire discussions by various politicians about how euthanasia works which ironically ignore the little misstep where in several countries where it's legalized if you're healthy should visit several mental health clinics and provide evidence of that, and it's not as simple as just going there and killing yourself.

  This kind of bad writing plagues the entire show from start to finish, and it's clear that the writer has no idea how police works, no idea how the euthanasia debate works and an extremely shallow understanding of contemporary nihilism. And the worst part is, it makes entire segments of the show where characters proceed to end their lives - which you'd expect to be a gutwrenching or painful moment to watch - instead be a complete joke and unintentionally comedic instead.

  The dialogue is also noteworthy in how dry, bland and soulless it is. There's no personality to the dialogue, merely poorly researched strawman fallacies everywhere when there are discussions, and the characters' personalities never shine through the dialogue either. You could swap characters and have them speak entirely different conversations under this script and yet I promise you wouldn't notice a thing, because the series isn't interested in making its cast shine or the dialogue matter except to infodump about the poorly written setting.

  The plot is a complete and utter laughable mess as a result of all this, and making things even worse is how uneven the pacing is. And while uneven pacing isn't necessarily something that'd doom the show, there's nothing worse than a show that feels like it's going too fast and too slowly at the same time, and this becomes especially noteworthy when the soulless excuse for a cast get involved.

  I genuinely have nothing to say about the cast, they can literally be defined in one liners and minus the main villain, none of them had any strength of screen presence or personality worth remembering. They don't drive the plot forward, they exist in service of it; countless times are characters introduced, speak a few lines and then killed either later in the episode or the next episode, as if the audience's sympathy will be won over by just watching some random mook get slaughtered. And the worst thing is that this caused a massive disconnect between me, who didn't care about these dull, soulless one note characters, and the main character who clearly did.

  A particular mention needs to go for the main villain of this show for being hilariously ridiculous every time she showed up on screen, asking about whether the main character had sex or what his kinks were and always constantly messing with all the characters on screen. She was the sole character that stood out in a sea of dull, boring, empty robots and I'm genuinely glad she was there. Special mention goes for her actions in the last episode and the epilogue to the show, which actually made me lose it laughing my head off.

  On a technical level, the show is competent; while not much animation or movement exists in the show, special mention needs to go to the direction of the show, which consistently looked good and made a fair few otherwise dull scenes more tolerable. That being said, the direction also made the show hilariously bad at times due to how completely over the top the portrayal of the main villain was, which I'll admit I appreciate and made me look forward to at least seeing her on screen.

  I never thought the sound design was particularly bad, and while nothing was memorable from the soundtrack I never thought anything was unfitting. It's clear there were some talented staff members behind this project and it's a real shame that this is what they were relegated to work on.

  The core problem with this show is that by the time I finished, I had no idea what the point of the show was. Many people would proudly mention that this show was this sophisticated commentary on euthanasia and suicide, but truthfully I never felt it was competent in what it was tackling, only that it was mildly entertaining when it starts and slowly but surely fizzled out, like a pretentious old man whose advice no one is interested in hearing because everyone knows it's false. And this, ultimately, makes this show just a complete waste of everyone's time.

  At best, the show is unintentionally comedic with bland, soulless characters who I never cared for. At worst, this show is a painful slog that I only finished because it was airing and for no other reason other than to see what some people were overhyping all over the internet. And like many a forgotten, boring seinen, it too will be remembered only for having all the same flaws that most other entries in the demographic do, and for similarly having its fanbase in the first few episodes exhibit everything wrong with the kind of people who rally behind these kinds of shows.

  Your time is better spent watching something else, be it watching a properly done crime thriller, reading some book about euthanasia or nihilism, or doing anything else you find enjoyable. It certainly isn't well spent on this show, and I recommend that if you haven't seen it, to not waste your time doing so.

  And yes, while I can make this review longer and flesh out my points more, I don't consider this show worth putting in that much effort, because if the writers didn't care about putting any level of effort into what they've done here, why should I?

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• 

  CodeBlazeFate

  44/100
  To all the people hesitant about this show and its writer after the hellfire that was Kado’s finale: you were right

  Prologue

  Approaching this show is a difficult task. This isn’t because the show tackles harsh subject matter involving the likes of suicide as one of its fundamental talking points. It’s not because the show isn’t exactly good at doing so, either. It’s because I’m still coming to terms with what an absolute shitshow this series has become. There’s this immense swirl of emotions that come about from watching a show crumble before your very eyes, keenly aware that there were signs of trouble from the beginning. Babylon showed promise of being a fascinating police procedural with some of the most noteworthy directing of 2019...or at least that was the case for the first 7 episodes. Unfortunately, the last arc happened. Not only was I unable to accept any of the more idiotic decisions the show had been making as its presentation became blander and more obtuse, but the finale is one of the most devastating trainwrecks of recent years, invalidating almost everything the show had built up to that point.

  Part 1: The Rise

  Back when the show was about Zen Seizaki and his colleagues being wrapped up in a murder turned mass suicide mystery, the show had some of the best pacing of any recent seasonal. Its ability to generate tremendous cliffhangers was borderline unrivaled, even in the same year that Beastars and Promised Neverland came out. It never spent too much time dawdling on what the audience already knew or on presenting a character’s entire backstory since finding how the cause of a murder and eventually putting a stop to two people related to a string of suicides was at the forefront. Some of the characters that Zen interacted with, such as the morbidly nonchalant Shinobu Kujin and Zen’s first subordinate, Atsuhiko Fumino. Their banter often added a sense of levity to the tense first two arcs, and they’re involved in some of the more shocking scenes of the show.

  The music was done by composer Yukata Yamada, the composer for the music of Vinland Saga. He creates several moody piano melodies that add to the show’s sense of gravitas. On top of that, there are some more electronic tracks that morph in ways that accentuate some of the show’s craziest moments and cliffhangers. The track “A Given” which plays during several key moments, is the perfect example of this. Unfortunately, as good as the soundtrack is, it often feels overplayed. Vinland Saga suffered a similar problem with its piano tracks, where the same few tracks are used in almost every episode. Regardless, there are several quality pieces here. The show’s 3 EDs are also fine songs in their own right, particularly 1 and 3. The first song “Live or Let Die” by Q-MHz feat. uloco, is a more chaotic piece while the last ED, adds a sense of finality to an arc that otherwise has none.

  As for the visuals, this is Studio REVOROOT’s first full-length project and their second solo outing. The production values are rickety, with awkward CG environments and people scattered all over the place, and very few sequences that have much in the way of good animation. The show often feels jank, and the rough art style with white outlines does not help matters. Despite all of this, director Kiyotaka Suzuki was able to finally let loose after the horrible Psycho-Pass 2 and the decent yet already forgotten FLCL Alternative. The camera angles are often dynamic, there’s the usage of sepia tones and several interesting techniques. Episodes 2 and 7, in particular, have some of the most fascinatingly presented scenes of 2019. The former accentuates the sense of dread and confusion the former is meant to evoke, while the latter further conveys the sense of sheer agony that the main character feels in the final scene of episode 7. It’s a 5-minute torture sequence where the main character, Zen Siezeki, is forced to watch someone get cut to pieces as his ideology crumbles to the helplessly crumbles to the ground after everything he has been through. This is where the show peaks and you should stop, before the direction largely begins falling flat, and the show takes a tremendous nosedive.

  Part 2: The Fall

  spoilers beyond this point

  Where do I begin? Just know that I'm not even gonna go over everything that was particularly off about the show's writing.

  The first sign of trouble came at the end of the first arc, when it turned out that the new mayor of Shiniki had proposed a suicide law, making it do that you can commit die of your own free will without penalty since apparently that's actually illegal. He insisted this by having dozens of people gleefully jump off a building. Needless to say, this required a bit of suspension of disbelief.

  It turns out that this was made possible by Ai Magase whispering in their ears. There are several, several problems with Ai and her powers in general.

  A. She has offscreen shapeshifting powers. This isn't like with Fujiko Mine and other femme fatales that put on disguises. With those, they generally wear feasible wigs and can be identified by their face if you know what they normally look like. With Ai, despite having long hair, she can easily pull off all hair sizes, and her face can become unrecognizable with how different it is. It's as if between disguises which sometimes get deployed within mere minutes of one another, Ai goes through plastic surgery. It goes beyond having convincing disguises and into the realm of having supernatural abilities.

  B. Mere moments before ending his own life, Shinobu tells our main protagonist that Ai can convince someone to uncontrollably want to kill themselves. Even the most steadfast and iron-willed individuals have a hard time resisting, so whatever she says, you do. It's how she was able to get out of interrogation in episode 2, and how all of those people in episode 3 ended up jumping off. As of the finale, it turns out that her saying...anything is grounds for suicide, rather than her seductively whispering a suggestion for you to kill yourself.

  What's wrong with this picture? In this seemingly grounded police procedural with no confirmed supernatural elements, it seems a bit asinine for her to be able to pull this off with just her voice. What's stupider is that she doesn't even need to even specify that you have to die. In the finale, she whispers the phrase "good job" into the earpiece President Alexander Wood had on with his translators after speaking to a Japanese girl who was considering taking her own life. This was enough to get him to attempt suicide. Ridiculous, isn't it? Even more ridiculous than the idea that her whispering can trigger suicidal urges while her talking does nothing. Sure, whispering can be more seductive, but this is absurd. On top of that, there's a contradiction in the previous sentence. How come the horde of building jumpers in episode 3 kept themselves together and jumped off only on someone else's cue rather than their own accord while everyone else was unable to control their urges? This isn't the biggest issue, but it is still another knock against her whisper powers from a writing perspective

  C. Episode 5. In middle school, she was somehow able to walk and talk in such a way that every male she encountered found themselves feeling so unbearably lustful that they genuinely felt raped. Even in the 7 episode grace period, I had a hard time swallowing this pill. Walking seductively is admittedly a thing but this is just tasteless and asinine. Luckily the idea of rape never comes up again, but this was definitely where I started to realize that maybe Babylon might be full of shit sometimes.

  D. Ai herself is a rather disappointing character. She’s flash without the fire. She’ll get inside Zen’s head with borderline inane monologues about good and evil, but thanks to the director going ham during those sequences, they’re some of the most entertaining in the show. They obfuscate how dumb and insubstantial her dialogue is, like when in episode 7, she is trying to make Zen think about what evil really is (despite him doing so but I guess his answers don’t align with hers, which we’ll get to) all hile butchering one of his subordinates right in front of him. All she amounts to is just a person who loves being evil and wants to spread an asinine notion of good and evil around. One of her interactions with Zen reveals that in spite of and because of the villainous acts she is knowingly doing, she believes she’s some hero spreading an important message, doing a service to humanity so they’ll understand what good and evil really are. It would have been interesting if part of Ai’s motivation was for people to be able to understand her, and what it must have felt like to feel almost alien to everyone around her as everyone always thinks of her as a twisted, enigmatic female figure. That sure went nowhere despite the show delving into how she received therapies that ended up being worthless to her and how she finds this plight to get people to understand her version of good and evil to be a just cause.

  The other major antagonist, Itsuki, isn’t that great either. While he does get an interesting debate in episodes 6 and 7 where he reveals that he wants to die so his kid can have his heart during a necessary heart transplant surgery that may happen in the future, afterwards he has almost no presence in the show. Nothing regarding his suicide law even gets resolved by the end. Speaking of characters that get shafted in the final arc, the last 5 episodes had the potential to really show how bad Zen’s mental state is after every single one of his colleagues in his field got killed. While episode 8 has him hallucinating here and there, that’s the last time the show does anything particularly captivating. Afterwards, he states his desire vengeance, gets aggy at a recording of her voice, and then fades into the background until the finale. Everyone else who survived the first two arcs gets thrown to the wayside as well, including Zen’s family that have death flags all around them despite nothing happening to them.

  Before we get...there, one character relevant to the finale has to be mentioned, as no one else is that interesting or important enough to bring up. Alexander Wood gets introduced via a scene where he monologues his life story to the audience, about how he got a girlfriend, how he became god tier at this MMORPG, how he now has a wealthy family and a kid that’s healthier than he could ever be, and everything. Not only is that a terrible way to introduce a character, but it becomes the first sign that the wonderful pacing of the show would go downhill. Then you learn he’s also the president. I’ll let that one sit on the part of your brain that’s forced to process it. He thinks a lot and is a decent guy. That’s really all there is to him.

  Part 3: THE ENDING

  You ever think of a worst case scenario for how a promising show you're not entirely sure about will play out, and then wish you got that instead of whatever the fuck you just saw? That's Babylon's finale. It might be one of the worst endings I have ever seen.

  Throughout the entirety of the show, there have been two main ideological conflicts at play: the nature of good and evil, and the ethics/logistics of suicide/the suicide law. Episodes 6 had an engaging debate where several government heads oppose the suicide law through the socio-economic, moral/ethical, the extreme scenario and accusations, and and “people naturally avoid death” perspectives. While they may have felt surface level due to them getting one minute to make one point, it was at least able to offer up several perspectives that would logically be used to approach controversial laws.

  Episode 11 has world leaders make strawman viewpoints about how “people gain their sense of morality through us leaders so we much teach them that suicide is wrong” while completely forgetting that most people still consider suicide wrong and that no one gets their sense of morality through world, country, or state leaders. The other viewpoints expressed are no better and just result in mindless bickering before President Wood decides that we need to examine the nature of good and evil in order to determine a unanimous position on the suicide law. What follows is the most tiresome deliberation I have ever heard, as everyone just spins their wheels examining the two most common and basic moral quandaries without actually pressing the issue further than the most surface-level ideas barely getting much exploration. My logistics class went further into moral dilemmas and that is a class where we learn about jobs, warehouse jobs, and forklift-driving. This is the epitome of the show’s incessant wheel-spinning on its topics, as even before this point it has already become a cyclical game of “what is good, what is bad, what is justice?” getting shallow, simplistic exploration despite the show constantly acknowledging how complex these issues are.

  That whole idea means nothing anyway and is an excuse to wax about concepts the show barely has a grasp on before Pres Alex Wood is called to convince a girl not to jump off a building. Itsuki, who initiated the summit, sets this up. In the last episode, Alex gets a translator and gets to work. The day is saved until it turns out that after this, all of the translators (since apparently there is more than one despite there being only one volunteer) are dead and Ai Magase, who is disguised as someone that was not in the building and was never shown prior, whispers “good job” in good ol Woody’s ear. After this, we never hear about Itsuki or the suicide law ever again. During the convo, SudoWOODo finally comes up with the answers to what good and bad are.

  Good = continue
  Bad = end

  Let’s talk about how mind-shatteringly stupid this is. If continuing is inherently a good thing, does it remain that way when applied to the act of continuing to murder innocent people? What about continuing to bully people? What about continuing to swindle people, kill animals for the hell of it, gamble all your money away, suffer, etc? Can continuing be used in a positive context in those situations? No. Is continue just the show’s silly and obnoxious way of saying life? No, but that’s the only context being applied to the term in the show. You can apply it positively to say, continuing to prosper, continuing to help people, etc. but the show isn’t smart enough to do so. The idea of ending being a bad thing is just as stupid. Should “end world hunger, end your addiction, end someone’s torture, end the show on a high note, end your career with one great game, etc.” be used negatively? No. Is “end” the show’s shorthand for “end your life”? Probably. Can you apply end in a negative light with ideas such as “end someone’s life, end someone’s career, end your relationship (that one can be positive or negative), etc.”? Yes, but the show doesn’t think of that because it’s too busy thinking it has all the answers to a broad concept.

  This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Ai Magasee, that fucking idiot, wanted to spread to the world. This is what Zen ends up answering with once he and the president figure it out after a standoff where Zen has to shoot Wood in order to prevent him from committing suicide. As laughable as that sequence is, the idea that he has to stop Wood from killing himself after the man had just talked a girl out of ending her own life on international television, is the smartest thing the finale could come up with. After this, it is implied that through this last standoff, despite Zen pointing a gun at Ai and her just pointing a finger gun gesture at him, he dies and she gets to walk off and meet his kids. That is how the show ends, with the most anticlimactic and nonsensical ambiguous ending I have ever seen.

  Also, in episode 11, Morning Wood decides that perhaps the key to answering the suicide law debate and the fundamental nature of good and evil is to decipher the meaning of life. This never gets brought up again. The suicide law gets no resolution as we never find out what the decision was regarding the law or anything about what would happen to it either. Itsuki and his new country, Shiniki, just disappear halfway into the finale. Ai does not even get challenged by Zen despite him pointing a gun at her after everything she had done to him and to hundreds of people. The three main conceits of the show, all rendered moot in the span of 10 minutes. None of this meant a damn thing, and all it would amount to is negative answers and Zen potentially being dead without feeling like his rivalry with Magase ever really came to a head. The entire show was just one big waste of time. You could honestly just stop at the first scene of episode 8 and act like Ai drove Zen irreparably insane while she wreaks havoc on the world. It’s about as conclusive as what we actually got, and a lot less stupid to boot.

  There is one last thing to mention before we wrap things up. There’s an easy fix to the suicide law debacle, one that is based on what Itsuki wished would happen. The answer is simply to treat it on a case by case basis, making sure to educate people on the ramifications their actions would have on their families and those around them before they decide to off themselves. The more knowledgeable they are of the severe effects taking your own life would have, the less likely they are of committing suicide and the more open and knowledgeable they would be regarding the subject. Not once is this idea brought up in the final arc of the show by any of the world leaders, when at least one politician in the second arc weaponizes this idea.

  Epilogue

  To all the people hesitant about this show and its writer after the hellfire that was Kado’s finale: you were right to steer clear. Truly this is a case where the ending will overshadow the show as a whole after eliminating any goodwill many had with the show’s first 7 episodes. Honestly, the cover is the most clever and thought-provoking aspect of this pretentious mess, and the “p-word” is a condemnation I don’t use lightly. Spare yourself the disappointment, aggravation, and sense of betrayal. There are a lot of silly moments and twists I did not even go over, and as I was writing this review, it became genuinely difficult to remember the more positive aspects of the show’s writing. The more I think about it, the worse the show gets. For something meant to be more intellectual, filled with more gravitas than your average anime, this is perhaps the most succinctly damning thing I can say about it. Let this be a lesson that if an anime looks like it can go either way, it's probably going south.

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• 

  WokgranX

  100/100
  Read the title first. If you like morality debates and investigative/criminal shows. Give it a try. I enjoyed a lot.

  Disclaimer: If you have considered suicide or is facing hardships, please steer away from this Anime and search professional help

  .
  Now that's out of the way, let's get into it.

  I would say this anime has about 3 or 4 layers of which I will describe briefly below when I go into the spoiler section. But I believe I should give some insights to those that want to go into blindly without any spoilers, and as such will do so.

  In terms of general history, I understand why many will not like it. I can say for sure that it does not follow the rules of typical criminal investigation and detective shows as one might think it does from the synopsis alone. This is not the purpose of the show and what I understand to be the author's intention to debate with its premise.

  Rather, the show is a somewhat fantastic setting to present opposing ideas that touch on morality and its core, with different characters conflicting each other of what should and should not be done and what is the true definition of "Justice". So if you enjoy or like some degree of this type of discussion I do recommend it, although, I must say it is not that "in depth" or heavy as to go on a very detailed or cautious manner to fully explore its subject.

  Aside from that, I still think it is a very compelling show to watch, it is nicely animated and has the cliffhangers in the right pacing as to keep one's glued to the seat, trying to understand what will happen next. Although some parts may feel a little bit predictable if you give some time between episodes to think about it, and some even if you watch it non-stop. So please consider this as a more or less highly produced and good looking entry-way or initiation to a very moral and complex debate that has plagued some by decades, centuries and might be an ever increasing topic of interest in the upcoming decades.

  The characters, specially the protagonist, have a solid personality and a very passionate position about life and justice, which I thought to be very interesting in this setting, as it does promote the clash way better. I was in fact a little disappointed that the series resorted to "unnatural" things to move the plot, instead of trying to arrange to a more what-if reality-based scenario. On the other hand, due to the delicacy of the subject... I believe I can understand this choice.

  So, in summary, if you have a sound mind and is emotionally stable enough to subject yourself to some dark morality and even enjoy the experience, I think this might be the right anime for you.

  SPOILER ALERT

  From this point on I will touch on the history, and it is basically impossible to refrain from spoilers, therefore everything that will follow might reveal important plot points and plot-twists. So consider yourself properly warned. There will be spoiler marks, but I decided to mark the entire text for specific reasons.

  SPOILER ALERT

  The layers of plot and meaning

  0. "Police investigations"
     1, Political scandals
  1. Legalization of assisted suicide
  2. The meaning of justice (and general morality)
  3. Good x Evil
  4. Meaning of life
  5. My personal previous opinions on the matter and general takeaways.

  0 - The premise of being a show about prosecution and an active criminal case.

  This is the most outer layer of the show and what the synopsis more heavily hint at, but true to other similar shows like Psycho-pass, this is just but the vehicle to carry the ideas and the plot and is not one that is heavily adhered to. For instance, if you are thinking of applying "Knox rules" of mystery or anything like this to explain in a natural and human way what causes the events to unfold, please give up. This show have no qualms in resorting to the unnatural to boost the antagonist side, or rather, advantage, over the protagonist.

  Therefore, although it is thrilling and very interesting to see the investigation of the cases moving forwards, after some point it will be made clear to the viewer (repeatedly in case one does not get it the first time) that the other side plays a rather unfair game of having supernatural powers, almost to an esper-level degree. If one was playing RPG it would be as if the villain has a hacked dice that always rolls 20 on a certain roll, and this roll is only for one specific but game-breaking action: "Persuasion".

  This must be what bring many to hate the series or make bad of its ending, and I totally understand it as it was a little bit of a letdown for me as well, I usually prefer to have both sides on equal power of footing, and this was simply not the case. It would be as if we have Danganronpa except that the villain is the only person alive with "Ultimate" powers.... well, you would guess how well that would go for the protagonists.

  And very similar in nature to this concept, those powers are never properly explained or given hints as how those came to be, as they are deemed as something "natural" from this specific entity that moves the plot forwards against the protagonist, just to make a point. It is not all-powerful, it does have limitations, but it seems to be rather impossible to counter.... sort of. Given that the entire series spans for some months in "real time", it would be wise or expected to have humanity to recognize such evil opponent and derive ways to counter it, and if the setting had any intentions of being a little bit more realistic, this would more likely be the outcome. But again, this is quite likely not the intention of the anime, it is more of a "let us have this discussion for the sake of it, for the sake of a better understanding between both sides", and is expressed as such quite early on.

  So, do not hold too tightly to the expectations that you may have for knowing everything and solving every mystery, because the answer is... kinda simple. She just have the power that the series said that she has, period.

  1 - Political Scandals

  Now... writing this amidst 2020, for sure many things that I would normally think otherwise, surprisingly hits close to home... One would think that politicians would be at least a little more efficient on doing something, or even at overreacting, but I think this was rather well played by the anime. It was very interesting to see the more classical portrayal of many people being in the loop on the back of the scene, and having the protagonist softly break as he realized that everything he initially did was because his so called first perceived "enemy" was also having problems with some actions taken by the "true villain". Classic backstabbing for this type of theme but with an unusual twist, here they agree to disagree and despite having kinda backstabbed each other, they decide to cooperate for the greater good. And rather quickly too (which I was pleased, normally this would take several episodes if it was other anime).

  The whole affair seemed professional, and I liked how the things were handled on this aspect on a surface level. The environment and professional pressure due to the failures and lack of new information, as well as having some very big-shots being rather unproductive or using their strong opinions to fail to see the whole picture... was something very akin to what we are seeing on 2020 and to me, a very "light and simplified" version of politics and corporative structure, which was quite pleasant. Sounded even as some sort of parody of how politicians are deeply incompetent, and... one may agree with that view.

  The bad: simple arguments, simple mindset. When the subject that is coming on the next layer was brought up, a committee of opposing leaders were assembled and all of them gave the basic reasons as to why oppose the villain's proposed movement. However, all of those were very simple arguments and bounded to fail from the get-go. So, again, the game was very rigged towards the villains to have an easy win. Perhaps due to the somewhat short run of the show. I would like for it to have lasted longer and go more in-depth regarding the complications and diplomacy constrains that each politician and even nation had, but... oh well... no time for that I suppose.

  2 - Legalization of assisted suicide (the big one)

  Not even going to warm this one up. This is a big topic and perhaps the first true core of this anime. It was a "simple" matter of the legality and consequences of allowing individuals to choose to commit suicide painlessly and assisted by the government. Now, one may not know but it is true what was said in the anime that some countries already permit varied forms of this procedure. From the back of my mind I do remember this being allowed in Switzerland (correct me if I am wrong), but of course there are several procedures and one may be put on observance for a long time before the act as to guarantee this was not done on a whim, emotional stress or under pressure or direct (illegal) influence of others.

  Some countries allow for such assisted suicides in case of terminal diseases or real heavy and problematic conditions. Usually what is wondered regarding such decisions are factors that involve:

  The mental health of the individual;
  The impact that it may cause on the surrounding people that are directly connected to the individual (in terms of mental health and wealth);
  The societal impact due to losing this life;
  The moral precedence of killing someone with a moral code based on the principle of self/life-preservation.

  Those points are superficially touched upon in the anime, during an debate between the political party against it and this one big-shot young politician that is the scapegoat of the villain to enact this law. Now, not that this act or law is bad per se, I refer to the entity as a villain because this is the way the show presents itself, and the way the character presents herself. But I will touch on this aspect later.

  I do think that death as a "taboo" is a very complicated thing to manage. Any topic that is made taboo becomes that much more difficult to bring awareness to and seriously discuss it. So the idea of making it legal as to be able to more properly manage it, is something that I do support. As touched upon by the anime, making suicide legal is not really simply allowing it, as most countries cannot really refrain one individual from doing it in the first place.

  But rather, having such a system in place would facilitate to gather individuals that are considering it to have meetings with counselors that may end up dissuading the individuals to perform it in the first place and, thus, reducing the total number of suicides. This was not touched in depth, but I do think it was defended as such by the villains and, in my humble opinion, it looks right and I have the total respect for bringing this up. This idea could potentially lead into actually saving way more lives than the contrary! And it is made parallel to issues such as the legalization of Marijuana, which... does seem to have a similar effect on the countries that enacted it.

  But the whole issue, quite rightfully, is shifted to a rather more direct moral problem. As the laws are based on the idea of morality and upstanding the rights of the society and its individuals, the right... to live... how one would consider just, consider "right" to commit suicide? Which is mainly deemed as a bad thing by the most popular religions and societies out there?

  So, the show goes one layer deeper.

  3 - The meaning of justice

  The show, without much explanation and on the drop of a hat (although, again, I do agree with the overall idea and message) breaks law and morality from an unchanging or universal status. It links justice to something that is ever changing and should be always analyzed in face of what one have at hands. This goes against many philosophies and ways of thinking as some derive morality as something "divine" or "immortal" to the tests of time.

  This thought is constantly bashed by the Protagonist, but it is more properly (but again, not in depth) broken at the end of the anime where they give some simple (but not really wrong) answers which hints at how morality is ever changing. What I do not like about it, is that again, the reasoning is rather weak in examples and substance. Although I do agree with the results...

  To put it simply, they agree that what is deemed precisely as moral has been changing, and that such a system was a creation by the humanity or the society as a whole, to function better. This based on some pillars one being natural instinct which leads into the final "official" layer.

  So, to the protagonist justice has no inherent definition. It is rather a pursuit of what is "good"... So we head into our last problematic debate.

  4 - Good x Evil

  Oh, the classic problem, what is good, what is evil. Why villains are the villains, why the loser is always the bad one, and why """justice""" always prevails. Well, simply but, because we define good as the one that continues. And the show gives us this hell of a long ride only to present this point, but on a rather different way than normally presented.

  You may hear that whoever side wins a war, will define its actions as just and good, and the opposing side as vile, bad and evil. And one might find truth to that. The problem is that due that as we derive very specific rules to govern society based on this system, some level of hypocrisy will always take place. As to say, we always do the "unjust (in some degree)" to "punish" or "correct" those that were unjust... An oxymoron.

  This anime takes a little bit of a different route, and a far more interesting one, trying to generalize good and evil back to its roots. And tying what is deemed as good as the "self-preservation" of life, but not quite. But rather the possibility to only "continue". Which is, may I say, quite correct.

  Except... there is a little bit of a physical problem with that, which I will raise on the next point and that was left out of the anime, but not entirely. In the end the anime makes this very clear that to continue (one's life) is usually what is deemed as good. To be able to go against it, to actively interrupt the acting of living to be what is bad.

  And that despite of fully knowing this as a "fact", people are easily coerced into wanting to be evil...

  And, to have a clearer understanding and to have this debate with the protagonist, and to show him that being evil is necessary to being good, the whole plot of the anime was made. And the true villain of the series made what she made, just to break this one prosecutor's life and moral code. Or rather, force him to acknowledge that he must act in an evil way to achieve a greater good.

  I enjoyed the ride quite a lot, and enjoyed even more that in the end.... "evil has prevailed". Which, I present why is relevant on the next point.

  5 - Meaning of life.

  The show then presents, via the so claimed president of the United States, "The Thinker" which, thinks really hardly about the whole moral issue... a conclusion: being good is the meaning of life, and the meaning of life is to "continue".

  Hmmmmmmmm I would give that probably a 8/10 in terms of the complete answer, because you know.... There is just a little bit of a problem with this answer and you see... is that, by answering that life is "good", and that "continuing" is also good, one creates a little bit of a contradiction, as, you see... in the end of the day and on the large scale of things... The only thing I can define as of meaning of life is to accelerate its own demise.

  So, maybe you want more information on that? It may be boring but I go on further detail below:

  Life, as I understand it and seems to be the logical continuation of the anime train of thought (not really hinted at though), is but one of the mechanisms of the universe that accelerate its equilibrium (of energy).

  In other words, if you have an ice cube on a ambient temperature table, the ice will melt without any external help, and there is no remaking this little pound of water into an ice cube again... unless you use energy from elsewhere to do so.
  So is the way of the universe. Life, helps to make processes similar to this one to take place more frequently and faster.

  And, by that I mean, to more rapidly increase the entropy of the universe. As one may quickly understand as life seems to do very stupid and logical damaging things to its environment and even to itself. I mean, why would nature invent something that basically ruins planets and consume resources for sheer entertainment and procreation? Well, simply put, to move energy from point A to point B in larger amounts and faster than it would move if there was no life in the first place.

  This may sounds rather boring, so let me give you the final spice. When there is no energy to be moved anymore, life is impossible. Which is to say, that we reached the so called "death of the universe". So, if life does quite a lot only to accelerate this process one could easily argue that the purpose of life is to end the universe (as fast as possible). And thus, to end itself.

  Hmmmmm? But then.... if "evil" is "to end"....? Would that not make the act of living... evil? Even more so, the act of protecting life itself and allowing it to "infect" land, sea, air, entire astral bodies and who knows how much more in the future... even more "evil"?!

  I see most brushing or shrugging this one off as "so what? we kill everyone?" or "the universe has time, who knows we discover a way to revert entropy by then...?" Well, enticing ideas, no doubt, but... it does not seem to be headed this way. The system does seem to be rigged as to not allow one to ever break the fundamental thermodynamic laws. Yes, laws.

  And before the smartest (but not really) tool in the shed points out to seemingly law-breaking experiments, articles or headlines. One needs to learn and read the fine-print. It is, indeed, possible to decrease entropy locally. The same way that it is possible to make a room cooler with the use of an A/C. There is a catch though, there is always a catch, and it is that by decreasing the entropy in one place you are increasing it in the same proportion (or rather even more) on another place.

  A/Cs heat up the air outside of your room and at the same time consume electrical energy that is coming from somewhere. Even if the source is "renewable" energy, and it is based of the Sun, be aware that the Sun is slowly dying and will run out of fuel eventually. And instead of letting this energy slowly dissipates through the universe, we are harnessing it do to all sorts of useful and useless things. And usually doing in such a complex way that makes this energy to be even more scattered than it would be if we were not here using it.

  This is simply put called the "inefficiency" or our systems, actions and gadgets. And this inefficiency is what helps the universe to die a little earlier, just by living, and even more so by using such gadgets.

  Under this sense, yes, it is "bad" to "continue". And one could say that villains are, in the end of the day, the actual heroes that needs to convince everyone else (to die). Now isn't this quite ironic?

  6 - Personal takeaways

  Please do consider that this is all hypothetical. And a very deep discussion of the matters of life and death, good and evil, moral and immoral.
  I am prone to believe that our moral code should be defined not as what is grounded as "evil" and "good" but rather, at what is beneficial to the society as a whole. And it seems that we drift it this sense, more or less.

  Morality and laws many times have changed over to adapt to the culture of each civilization to protect what this civilization thought to be important, thought that it would help the society as a whole. Be it cannibalism (to give its warriors strength) or war (to expand its nation and beliefs). Even if such rules were remodeled as bad later.

  Lucky for us, most countries are past the "dark ages" of morality, and have a better understanding on how to promote progress and how to promote the overall well-being of the system and its parts (individuals). Is it perfect? No. Does it needs tweaks? Yes, always.

  As put by the anime, this is an ever changing system that will always pave ways to modify it and provide better conditions to the living organists of this society to promote their reason d'être, which is, in the end of the day, a very evil thing to do. But an evil thing that we are all committed to do it together, and, because we are on the winning side... we brand it as good. Even if (not) knowing of how hypocrite that may be.

  So what about the villain?!!??!

  Oh, almost forgot about that. If you really missed all of the text and debate above, if that is just not your "cup of tea" and you were too blinded by the mystery and investigations. The true villain is a representation of the whore of Babylon, and well, basically is a woman that can adopt many faces and appearances. And that, more impressive than all, can persuade anyone to commit suicide by whispering one or two phrases on their years.

  Supposedly she has some sort of wild game-breaking, "godly" pheromones or something similar to that. It is so intense that she as a teenager could already render adults helpless, feeling that they were raped by them, and raped by the lust of wanting to do anything she asks them to. So, she kinda learns how to control this power of hers to make her slaves do whatever. But she seems more interested in having they kill themselves.

  She is limited to her human body... so she cannot teleport or anything like that. But her persuasion powers, somehow, works even via wi-fi or via the landline. Do not ask me why, but apparently only hearing to her voice, even if she is in a different country and doing it via a phone call, may trigger a reaction.

  Now, the show seems to hint that she uses different tricks on different people. So she may have some extraordinary intuition as to know what to tell to each person to make them want to kill themselves. So... well, and then you ask me why I called her some sort of Danganronpa character? Or Esper? Well, that is the reason why.

  No true explanations of how this works, or how this came to be. She is there only to make a point, and to move the plot. So, to me, she is (like others like her) not a character, but rather, an entity. Like Joker, or other similar to that. They are "inevitable", and their weaknesses and flaws are usually not all that relevant to the vast majority of the plot. Usually the "good" side wins by exploiting the flaws, but this anime decided to not do it or even really try it. Which is fresh for me, and I appreciate it, I only found somewhat lacking to not even... try... to exploit it properly. If it was me everyone on the white house would learn sign language or something, and ban the entry of females on all premises... Which would raise interesting moral debates on its own, like female prejudice, or how to trust female partners. But then, what can you do? It is an "unnatural being" we are dealing with.

  It seems she is only using somewhat high-end disguises (as her breast size is usually more or less consistent). Eye color change and hairstyle could be colored lenses and wigs... So I guess? But I would not put plastic surgery past her, even though her "actual face" appears from time to time, after the disguises, so unless she actually has shape-shifting or perception altering abilities (that alters even what cameras capture) I would think those were all very clever disguises.

  In the end I enjoyed it, really. I do enjoy discussing taboo themes for the sake of it, and to push the boundaries of my personal knowledge, to not be afraid of knowledge itself... And was quite refreshing to see such a taboo theme explained in such a simple way and quite openly. Not only that the animation looks very good!

  I also like villains which are more of an entity than an actual person, villains that are evil for the sake of being evil, and want people to understand them as being right as they are having fun being evil. So, I was sold by the entire thing.

  I think it has ways to go to be a true masterpiece, but for sure it is doing something very new and daring, that could be repeated by other anime a little more in depth. I think it is a somewhat dangerous but necessary service to the society to raise questions to the themes discussed and presented, and therefore, cannot help but promote people that have no issues with the topic to give it a try, and have it as an appetizer, as food for thought.

  Hope you enjoyed reading this review and that this gives you insight as to whether or not watch this anime!

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