So, it’s been a while. If you’ve read my most recent post up on the Ochibichan blog, you’ll know that I have recently purchased some FIVE DOLLAR MANGA. Yep, I got a pretty good deal. 
Anyway, I’m going to do some little posts about the first impressions of the manga I’ve bought, and the first one I’m gonna do is Tokyo Babylon, an early 90s manga by the female manga-ka group known as CLAMP.
Personally, I love the 90s artwork of CLAMP, but there’s one thing that always seemed a bit off to me: male characters always have these huge shoulders and then a skinny waist and spaghetti legs… it’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s okay.
So. Sumeragi Subaru is a onmyoji, a person with the power to tame, manipulate and vanquish spirits. To be more specific, he is the 13th descendant of the Sumeragi clan, whose purpose is to defend Tokyo from hostile spirits. He lives with his sister, Sumeragi Hokuto and their supposed rival Seishiro from the Sakurazukamori (wow, what a long name O_O) family, who are also onmyoji, but prefer to hide their identity. Seishiro is actually a veterinarian. So basically, we follow Subaru’s life as an onmyoji, who is tasked with various supernatural phenomenon he has to deal with.
Oh, and there’s a couple of twists: Seishiro is in love with Subaru, and they are both male. This seems to be a relationship they’re not supposed to be in, as no one in the Subaru clan outside of Hokuto knows that they associate with each other… although the forbidden part of their relationship seems to stem more from the fact that their families are rivals, rather than the fact that they are of the same sex.
Anyway, for those who aren’t comfortable with reading shounen ai (there doesn’t seem to be anything to explicit, so I don’t think it’s anything more than that), you probably won’t enjoy this, as Hokuto finds great joy in emphasizing their relationship and babbling on about how they would be such a great couple and is constantly trying to set the two up: even when Subaru has a job to do on the Tokyo Tower, Hokuto is adamant about the two spending time with each other since Tokyo Tower is apparently considered a place you *have* to go with your loved one to… yeaaaah.
Something weird: One case that Subaru deals with is a girl who has been asleep for months who also happens to be a childhood “friend”. Basically, no one has been able to wake her up, and thus, they’ve come to the conclusion that she must be afflicted with some sort of supernatural sickness. Personally, I thought that the medical staff (she was in the hospital when he meets her) would first assume that she was in a coma or something… not just immediately jump to the conclusion that she has had a ghostly run-in or something. But what do I know. XD
So far, it’s been okay though. A little weird and very 90s, but as someone who spent most of their childhood in the nineties, that’s okay with me ^_^ . If you’ve read Tokyo Babylon before, let me know what you think of it! Talk to you soon!
