The CLAMP Project: Episode 13: Tokyo Babylon vol 1

A quick note: I'm reading the Tokyopop 7-volume version of Tokyo Babylon, not the new omnibus versions. I've read that the new omnibus versions are very nice, but since I already have the Tokyopop version, I'm not going to go out and buy something new just because it might be a little better.

This is probably only my second or third time reading Tokyo Babylon. My first exposure to the characters of Tokyo Babylon was through their appearance in X, so I went into reading the series knowing what was going to happen, but not knowing why.  The impressive thing about Tokyo Babylon is that even when you know the ending, the series still works.

Perhaps that's because the hints of things not quite being right are dropped pretty early in the series. At the end of this first volume, we see the portentous first meeting of Subaru and Seishiro, where Seishiro tells Subaru that each cherry tree has a dead body buried beneath it and then tells Subaru that he will let him go - for now.

Years later, Subaru has forgotten that meeting, and has become as innocent as a teenage onmyouji can possibly be. Many of his actions are driven through the desire to make other people happy. He frees the spirits that he goes to exorcise by coming to an emotional understanding with them. He suffers his sister Hokuto's teasing about his relationship with Seishiro and lets her dress him up in outfits because that's what she enjoys. His openness and desire to please are putting himself into grave danger, but at this point in the story, he doesn't know that.

Seishiro, even at this stage of the story, is revealed to have a terribly pessimistic view of life. When a spirit reveals that she committed suicide, he scolds her for making trouble for other people. The only things he says that aren't dark are related to his professions of love for Subaru, which at this point, I don't believe are sincere. Somehow, Subaru and Hokuto don't see his dark side. They see him as a happy veterinarian who just happens to be the heir to a family of assassins.

I think that is largely Hokuto's doing. She fills in for what the readers of a typical boy's love story would be saying, encouraging Seishiro in his pursuit of Subaru. At one point, early in the story, Hokuto accuses Seishiro of having no intensity and being too happy-go-lucky. It's almost like Hokuto is writing her own doom. She loves drama and wants there to be more of it happening in her life, and soon she's going to get it.

So with Hokuto pushing Subaru into Seishiro's arms, neither Subaru or Hokuto notices that Seishiro says really shady things, or that he seems to be hiding who he really is. That's the key to the story: What seems like a typical boy's love tease is really hiding a dark destiny under the surface. Hokuto, by saying what the readers would usually be wanting, helps to hide what's really going on.