B: The Beginning

B: THE BEGINNING

ONA

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
March 2, 2018
LENGTH
26 min

DESCRIPTION

In a world powered by advanced technology, crime and action unfold in the archipelagic nation of Cremona. Koku, the protagonist. Keith, the legendary investigator of the royal police force RIS. A mysterious criminal organization. A wide variety of characters race through the fortified city as it is beset by the serial killer, Killer B, and a chain of crimes.

(Source: Netflix, edited)

CAST

Keith Kazama Flick
Hiroaki Hirata
Koku
Yuuki Kaji
Lily Hoshina
Asami Seto
Minatsuki
Kaito Ishikawa
Izanami
Mitsuki Saiga
Yuna
Satomi Satou
Kaela Yoshinaga
Ami Koshimizu
Gilbert Ross
Toshiyuki Morikawa
Kirisame
Junko Minagawa
Brian Brandon
Toshiyuki Toyonaga
Laica
Yuu Kitada
Boris Meyer
Minoru Inaba
Mario Luís Zurita
Shintarou Tanaka
Quinn
Makoto Awane
Eric Toga
Hiroki Touchi
Heath Kazama Flick
Kamui
Kazuya Nakai
Jean Henri Richard
Atsushi Gotou
Takeru
Nozomi Kameda
Kukuri
Nozomi Kameda
Erika Kazama Flick
Yukine Yaehata

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

Not available on crunchyroll

RELATED TO B: THE BEGINNING

Cover Art for B: The Beginning Succession

ONA ActionB: The Beginning Succession

MUSIC The Perfect World

REVIEWS

Peng
50/100
Glossy in design, mercurial in temperament
_B: The Beginning_ postured to be [Production I.G](https://anilist.co/studio/10/Production-IG)’s return to form. A gritty, near-future crime thriller with the added benefit of Netflix backing? This should have been right up their alley. Unfortunately, director [Kazuto Nakazawa](https://anilist.co/staff/101474/Kazuto-Nakazawa) struggled to reproduce the delectable amalgamation of high tension mystery, provocative subtext, and slick visual design to the standard of the studio’s [better](https://anilist.co/anime/467/Ghost-in-the-Shell-Stand-Alone-Complex/) [titles](https://anilist.co/anime/13601/PSYCHOPASS/). He tries though. Really hard. _B: The Beginning_ follows dual protagonists: a jaded genius detective seeking redemption, and an angel-winged super assassin vigilante with a sword for an arm. Already, we’ve struck at the heart of the show’s fatal flaw. It’s indecisive. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a no-nonsense detective mystery-thriller? Or is it an epic fantasy action piece? The show attempts to be both, unsuccessfully for the most part. This is not to say that these genres are necessarily mutually exclusive. Only that _B: The Beginning_ fails to find an appropriate balance between the two. Through its grounded visual style and heavy dialogue it builds itself up as dark and gritty. But it instead undulates messily between discordant poles, with jarring results. In one scene, detectives apply their wit in an attempt to prevent chemical gas from spreading throughout a building. In the next, a member of the Insane Clown Posse __skateboards down a skyscraper__, flinging hand grenades in their wake. ~~What the actual fuck is happening?~~ This tonal dissonance is far too prevalent. What’s worse is that I don’t think it’s intentional. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the the two protagonists occupy parallel story lines that don’t intertwine in any way they ideally should. And when these plot lines do overlap, it’s so utterly contrived it’s funny. Time is therefore split between the two main characters and neither receives the attention they need to make them truly interesting. Bipolarism and underdeveloped characters aside, there are a still a number of nitpicks to be had. Despite the esoteric literary references and dramatic narration, there is no subtext to be found. Not that there has to be. But all these elements manage to contribute to is the gritty tone (edgy, if you will), which as we’ve outlined is prone to sudden upending. Furthermore, as opposed to any actual police work, the brilliance of our genius detective is established by way of his ability to sketch portraits using mathematical equations. Similarly, vital exposition is delivered via clunky info dumps. Any major female character exists in order to be damseled. Shortcuts like these are lazy and uninspired, making for a shaky first half of the series. Fortunately, the show picks itself up during its latter half. Here, the mystery element comes to the fore, burgeoning into a genuinely engaging game of cat and mouse. The central villain is a serious force to be reckoned with, and the ensuing battle of wits is good old fashioned high tension fun. It’s here where the detective is shown to be cunning in ways beyond mathematical finger painting through his actions and powers of deduction. It helps that the side cast is quite likeable. The fantasy plot kicks into gear too, but simply lacks any weight. If there’s one thing Production I.G can rarely be faulted for, it’s there audiovisual design. Crisp, realistic, and dark, _B: The Beginning_ looks like what a sci fi mystery thriller should look like. It's all __really__ pretty. An interesting visual choice is the presentation of the detective’s thoughts via text and mind maps and such superimposed over the screen, _Sherlock_ style. Take that how you will. The action sequences are by no means mind-blowing, but are mostly fun to watch nonetheless. Both the subbed and dubbed version are fine. Meanwhile, the end credits are fucking amazing. Marty Friedman of Megadeth fame teamed up with Jean-Ken Johnny from Man with a Mission and KenKen from Rize to create - without trying to overstate anything - one of the best ending songs in recent memory. Chances are you won’t be skipping the outro. _B: The Beginning_ exists in a state of flux. It lacks focus, thematic or otherwise. It is comprised of two separate story lines that fail to complement each other as they should. Rather, they conflict tonally and in terms of substance matter. They detract from each other and from the show as a whole. I suspect that if the fantasy elements were removed altogether, the show would have improved significantly. Because when the pacing quickened, the mystery story became pretty exciting. With a second season in the works, perhaps the divergent story lines will somehow converge better than they did here. Or better yet, be done away with altogether.
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Yakariver
45/100
This show brings little to the table and what it does is dull at best.
Story: B the Beginning has a very messy and predictable narrative. It’s the equivalent of watching a whole bunch of tropes being thrown at a script to see which resonate with the audience. I can’t even begin to dive into just how generic this whole plot is. It couldn’t be more tired and stale if it tried. From the beginning the pacing felt completely off, the story coming at you all at once and then going at a snails pace to try and catch the audience up with its nonsense. Dialogue held your hand throughout the narrative. It felt as if the writers didn’t have the confidence that their audience would understand everything they were going for if it wasn’t spoon fed to them. Minutes would be spent on exposition dumps from characters about nonsensical details that the story would touch upon later on, making these monologues feel repetitive and unnecessary. None of the emotional reactions the writers may have been expecting were earned. Comedic scenes felt out of place and awkward, empathetic moments felt shallow, and reveals always fell flat due to a painfully predictable pattern in the writing of the twists and turns.

Sound/Music: The OP is rather short but I have to say it worked for what it was. Simple, short and elegant. As for the ED it was honestly the highlight of my experience with this show. I never skipped listening to it since it matched so well with the visuals of the closing sequence. Feels far too good for a show like this. The music during the fighting sequences was alright, nothing too outstanding. The voice acting for the most part was adequate.

Animation: Wasted. Production IG has talented staff but the direction of this show was uncoordinated and incompetent. I don’t know who thought the floating words indicating clues was a good idea. It’s distracting and stylistically unnecessary. We can hear the characters describing clues as words crowd the screen and is unappealing to look at. Character designs are generic, each character looking exactly as you’d expect their archetype to look. It’s boring. And these characters are just as forgettable in personality. It’s so frustrating because there are moments that the animation does shine through. Fighting sequences look nice, especially when they take the time to slow down the movements. There is some effort in bringing this world to life in the environments, with some nice details in some establishing shots. However, it’s not enough to carry this story and its characters.

I don’t even recommend giving this show a passing glance. There are much better shows out there that are worth your time.
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CaninnTurtle
72/100
B: The Beginning is a show that feels like its two entirely different stories shoved together, with mixed results.
B: The Beginning feels like a show that's extremely promising in concept, but poor in execution. Almost everything in the show is a cool idea but put into motion poorly. I'll dive more deeply into those issues later on, but the most obvious thing you can point to is a simple question of who the main character actually is. We look at the cover and say Keith, but we start the show and think Koku, but they end up kind of sharing the main character role in what feels like two entirely different shows that only collide occasionally and make very little sense when they do. It's a bit of a shame, because I actually bought into the premise in the first three or so episodes, but quickly was let down by the poor direction the story took. The result of B: The Beginning is frustrating, because of how much promise so many of the themes show if they were properly fused together. It could have been this weird mix of Psycho Pass and Tokyo Ghoul, but instead, only mixed together the worst parts of each. As always, spoilers in the sections between favorite character and the last paragraph.

B: The Beginning's soundtrack was actually really good. Most of the music choices were tasteful, especially the Koku scenes. The police music was mostly forgettable, but that isn't necessarily a knock, because it's not like the show would want you distracted by the music during those scenes anyway. I loved the short but impactful opening sequence's music and especially loved the ending "The Perfect World", which was quite the banger. The voice acting was excellent as well. I watched the English dub and was pretty impressed with it. Honestly, nothing to knock here, music and sound is one of the most solid things that B has going for it.

Perhaps the greatest strength in B: The Beginning lies in its animation. The fights are an absolute treat to watch, especially the Izanami/Koku duel early on. Admittedly, this fight is also an early peak for B, as it never recreates something of that caliber again. That being said, the following fight scenes are still enjoyable, albeit not as impressive. Visually, B is beautiful. The backgrounds are stunning, the character designs are done really well, especially the Reggies and Koku. One small issue I had with B visually, however, is that the CGI blending wasn't done particularly well and it really breaks the mood of the story a lot of the time, but that's a fairly personal complaint.

Favorite Character: Izanami

As much as I desperately wanted to put Yuna here, I had to go with Izanami, who absolutely stole the show in her scarce screen time. I just simply couldn't get behind any other major characters enough to really support them more than Izanami. For instance, Koku is barely a character and has zero personality, Keith is rather unlikable, Lily is annoying, and everyone else is too minor to mean much (except for Kaela- what a champ). It's simply an issue with these characters: their lack of personality development. Lily has perhaps the most defined personality in B, and she just comes across as nosey and annoying most of the time. Koku is the biggest victim of this, as he gets no development until around episode 8, after which it's way too late, but that ties into another issue with B that I'll get to shortly. To put it simply, Izanami might just be the most developed character in the show's first half, which is incredible since she's in the show for all of three episodes.

So what did I like about B? Well, I liked most of the concepts and ideas that B put forward. The supernatural/sci-fi blend with crime drama was a really cool idea that could have worked if it was more tightly woven together as a whole instead of feeling like two separate stories that somehow ended up in the same show, because let's face it, Koku had nothing to do with the ultimate resolution for Keith, despite the fact that they should have been a part of each other's stories. I actually really enjoyed the supernatural bits and wished that they had spent more time fleshing that side of the story out. As it stands now, the supernatural elements feel insanely hamfisted into the overall narrative. Again, there was absolutely no part of the supernatural storyline that affects the cop drama. The two storylines are sort of parallel at the beginning of B, but quickly separate and do not come close to connecting again. Lastly, I loved Gilbert, mostly because he gave me Shogo Makashima vibes, but he was a fantastic villain for the crime storyline.

I touched on most of the things that I thought were poorly done about B already, but I'll mention a few more here. I didn't like the writing too much, it felt too weak and a lot of the big shocks fell flat because the writers didn't want to kill anyone, for example, why didn't Brian actually die? What purpose does him living serve? There are a few more examples of this, but enough on that front. This is sort of a facet of a bigger problem that B has, which is a horrible lack of focus, as I've alluded to previously. There's so much reliance on info dumping and expecting watchers to simply follow along and suddenly understand what Reggies are and why 13 and 4 are different in addition to many other plot points. There's more nitpicking to be done, but I'll leave it at that.

Despite tearing into B like this, I really enjoyed watching it, thus the higher score than you'd expect. I loved the themes and the suspense as you got jerked back and forth on the twists and turns the story took, even if they ultimately weren't the most effective twists and turns. This is definitely a show that shows more and more cracks the more critically you think on it, but as a simple one night binge, you could watch worse. I'm definitely interested to see where season 2 takes us, where it hopefully cleans up a lot of the mess that this season has left behind. I would hope that it makes this season seem more cohesive in retrospect, especially if they can drive home some of their concepts and such. Either way, I enjoyed B and will tune into the second season whenever that gets released due to simply being so entertained the first time around!
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