Zen Seizaki works as a prosecutor in the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. In what originally was an investigation into claims of false advertisement, Zen uncovers that a Japanese pharmaceutical company faked clinical trials on their company’s new drug.
Further investigation leads Zen and his entire department into a growing case of suicides spreading across the city linking to a plot in the mayoral election of a newly formed district in Tokyo. As Zen gets caught in an increasingly more complex whirlwind of an investigation, he finds the truth challenges his very sense of justice.
I was with Babylon when it was about a girl that could talk anyone into killing themselves and even when it was about suicide law spreading across the globe, but when it was world leaders debating philosophy while floating around in space, I’ll say it lost me. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Babylon, head on down below.
Anime Like Babylon
For Fans of Morality and Philosophy
Monster
Dr Kenzou Tenma has the perfect life as one of the world’s most renowned brain surgeons. However, one night he is presented with a doctor’s most painful choice – to save an injured child or the mayor, both mortally wounded.
Against his colleague’s advice, he saves the kid. However, when a series of crimes start happening around him, all evidence points to the child he saved.
Anime doesn’t actually do suspenseful crime thrillers that well or that often. So even if Babylon didn’t “stick the landing” with its ending, it is nice for Monster, a sublime example of a suspenseful crime thriller, to have some company.
What Babylon and Monster share the most in a distinct love of philosophy and morality when it comes to death. Whereas Babylon focuses on suicide, Monster focuses on homicide.
Both series follow main characters who are often the pinnacle of justice and morality. They forsake their happy lives in order to pursue their own personal sense of justice, and are willing to give everything for that.
Terror in Resonance
After a terrorist attack on a Japanese nuclear facility, the country was paralyzed to act. After six months of searching for the perpetrators, the public is shown a video of two boys known as Sphinx who take credit for a recent bomb attack. The pair are soon linked to the terrorist attack on the nuclear facility by police.
Threatening more mayhem to come, it is up to the police to catch these terrorists. However, Sphinx has been very careful to never kill anyone with their attacks. Instead, they hope to use them to expose a secret government experiment and its cruelty.
While both Babylon and Terror in Resonance are suspenseful crime mysteries, Terror in Resonance casts the terrorists as the main characters.
Essentially, Terror in Resonance explores the reasons the terrorists are doing what they are doing and makes a philosophical case for the morality of it. However, while Babylon has more philosophy to chew on, Terror in Resonance focuses more on the suspense and only really leaves room for pondering after it is all over.
Death Note
Light Yagami is a high school prodigy and genius. However, he has an ever-increasing boredom and disdain for the rotten violent world.
One day, he happens upon a notebook, called a Death Note, which states that if you write a name in it, the person will die. To his surprise, the notebook’s claims turn out to be true.
This Death Note, the property of the Shinigami gods of death, gives Light the power to change this world and he decides to become its new God by executing all criminals.
In its way, Babylon was trying to do what Death Note was a bit more successful in doing. Both series start off following small events, then you watch those events grow wildly out of proportion and invite the audience to ponder the morality and justice of the situation.
While Death Note is most beloved as a game of cat and mouse between a genius detective and a supernatural-supported serial killer of criminals, over time – like the suicide law’s spread across the world – what started off as a more righteous crusade to stop crime is twisted by the main character’s out of control god complex.
In short, by the end of both shows, what you started off agreeing with may have changed due to the exploration of the topic over the course of the plot. However, if you liked Babylon because is was mature and realistic in a way you don’t really see much in anime, you will find Death Note less grounded and realistic.
Kado – The Right Answer
Koujirou Shindou is a government-employed negotiator and great at his job. While flying for a business trip, a giant cube materializes and his plane is taken into the structure.
As they try to identify the cube outside, Shindou on the inside meets an entity named Yaha-kui zaShunina. This entity takes the form of a man and assures Shindou that he means no harm.
Yaha-kui comes from a higher dimension and seeks to transfer information between his world and ours. He makes the sweeping announcement that he wants to advance humanity and intends to start with Japan.
While Babylon takes some time to get there, both Kado and Babylon are highly speculative anime about the philosophies on what makes an ideal society.
Kado is about improving society as a whole with otherworldly help whereas Babylon only tackles the one suicide issue. Regardless, both series enjoy their dense dialogues on the topic and their ideas are often a bit detached from actual reality.
For Fans of Investigating Suspicious Deaths
Psycho-Pass
In the 22nd century, the justice system has changed. The Sibyl System now determines the threat level of each citizen by examining their mental state for criminal intent. This has become known as their Psycho-Pass.
Once criminal intent has been identified, Inspectors like Akane Tsunemori are in charge of subjugating them.
However, this tough job is not without dangers. This is why Inspectors are paired with Enforcers, like Shinya Kougami, latent criminals with just the right amount of psychopathy to keep other criminals in their place.
Psycho-Pass follows a group of police officers in a dystopian future chasing a serial killer. However, what is pervasively snaked within the series is the question of if the Sibyl System – a system that allows justice to be carried out even if a person hasn’t committed a crime yet – is just or even ethical.
In Psycho-Pass, you stay for the tense crime thriller, but you think about the philosophy of it all after finishing it. It keeps a nice balance between being thought-provoking and interesting action, something that Babylon had for about half the series before declining.
Id – Invaded
In this world, crimes are able to be solved by piecing together a criminal’s unconscious mind in ID-wells. However, in order to enter these ID-wells, you must be a killer yourself.
Enter brilliant detective Akihito Narihisago.
After his daughter was murdered, he sought vengeance on the killer and is currently serving his sentence. However, under the name Sakaido, he enters the ID-wells in order to help his fellow detectives piece together crimes.
Similar to Psycho-Pass above, Id: Invaded is about a unit of police that are chasing serial killers. However, Id: Invaded puts more of an emphasis of a mind of a killer by using a special technology to help solve crimes via their psyche.
While Babylon is a suspenseful mystery grounded more in reality, both series enjoy thoughtful discourse on morality and justice wherein the characters must abandon their principles for their goals.
B The Beginning
On the islands of Cremona, a vigilante named Killer B is running rampant taking justice into his own hands with seemingly superhuman abilities.
After being unsuccessful in their attempts to capture Killer B, the Royal Investigation Service brings in Keith Flick, an eccentric detective that was exiled to the archives department after a personal trauma effected his work.
However, as the crimes of Killer B begin to escalate, it becomes abundantly clear more than one person is responsible.
B The Beginning is a lot like the beginning of Babylon where you see a main character get caught up in a small event, and eventually that event become something large and chaotic.
However, whereas Babylon has a suicide law spreading across the world, B the Beginning only focuses on an increasing number of murders spreading throughout the city. Regardless, both series have that element of a philosophy that starts to infect others.
The Perfect Insider
Genius programmer Shiki Magata lives on an island as a recluse. She rarely takes guests, but a professor and his student manage to get a meeting.
Soon after their meeting is cut short and they both find themselves in a locked room murder mystery.
Do you like your mysteries to be dialogue-dense and ponderously philosophical? Because that can easily describe both Babylon and The Perfect Insider.
The Perfect Insider is more the standard murder mystery, but the mystery itself has more layers than the usual crime drama would have. Furthermore, like Babylon, they both feature twisted female characters whose philosophy is the focus on the main character’s investigation.
For Fans of Infectious Delusions
Wonder Egg Priority
After the death of her best and only friend, Ai Ohto became a shut in. One night while on a walk, she is convinced by a mysterious entity to buy an egg.
In a world that only materializes in her dreams, she breaks the egg. This summons a person haunted by fears, regrets, or otherwise some trauma.
There, Ai is tasked with saving them, and by saving them from their trauma, she can perhaps save her friend, too.
Both Babylon and Wonder Egg Priority start off as two very different, but equally unique anime with a common theme of suicide.
Babylon begins as a suspenseful crime mystery and Wonder Egg Priority started as a sort of surreal mystery with magical girl themes. However, they end up at the same place – exploring and pondering the infectious nature of suicide.
An unfortunate thing that they also both have in common is they both start real strong, but don’t necessarily have the satisfying endings you wanted.
Paranoia Agent
There is an urban legend going around in Musashino City about Shounen Bat, a boy that rolls around on roller blades and beats people with his bent golden baseball bat.
Numerous reports of his attacks have turned up, but the police have been unable to catch him.
As the investigation continues and more people fall victim, paranoia begins to set in.
What Babylon suggests about the infectious nature of suicide, Paranoia Agent explores with paranoia and shared delusion.
Both series start off with small criminal incidents and detectives investigating them. Over the course of the series, those small incidents grow into city-engulfing, world-corrupting events in a particularly interesting and always-ponderous way.
Serial Experiments Lain
Introverted Lain Iwakura finds herself one of many girls to receive an e-mail from classmate Chisa Yomoda, even though Chisa Yomoda recently committed suicide.
Averse to technology, Lain soon finds herself able to enter the Wired, a network system similar to the internet.
From there, her life gets turned upside down as she finds herself the target of mysterious men and mixed up in a series of cryptic mysteries.
While both Babylon and Serial Experiments Lain both start off about suicide, Serial Experiments Lain doesn’t stay on the topic. Instead, it becomes a meditation on technology in society and particularly our relationship with the internet.
What both series have most in common is how ponderous they are on their selective topics. Babylon explores justice and the morality of someone’s right to die while Serial Experiments Lain explores the corruption of technology.
While Babylon excels in making itself pretty tense, Serial Experiments Lain is more melancholic, but both anime are thought-provoking.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Babylon? Let fans know in the comments section below.
