It has been rather strange reviewing this book. Partly this is due to the experience of reliving Tokyo Babylon, having been reviewing these new releases from Yen Press since 2023. However, there is also the issue that while this is the end of the series, it’s not the end for the characters within it.

The previous volume ended with Subaru Sumeragi about to declare his love for Seishiro Sakurazuka, who is in hospital recovering from the loss of his eye. However, when he goes into Seishiro’s room, he enters a spell cast by the one he loves. Seishiro takes him back to the recurring dream Subaru had of himself as a child before a cherry blossom tree, and meeting a teenage boy telling him the colours of the petals are due to the tree consuming blood. The teenager made a bet with him, but Subaru could not remember it.

It turns out the teenager in question was a 16-year-old Seishiro, who had just murdered a young girl. In his job as the Sakurazukamori, the onmyoji responsible for assassination, he should have killed Subaru as he witnessed the crime. Instead, he made a bet that Seishiro would one day meet Subaru again, and once he had he would try to fall in love with him for a year. If he did fall for him, Subaru would live. If he felt nothing for Subaru, he would kill him. To indicate this bet he carved stars into the back of Subaru’s hands, hence why his grandmother forced him to wear gloves at all times.

Seishiro has come to the decision that he does not love Subaru, and breaks Subaru’s arm, repeatedly beats him up, and finally prepares to kill him. However, Seishiro’s spell ends up being broken by Subaru’s grandmother, saving his life and causing Seishiro to flee. The incident however leaves Subaru in a state of catatonic shock, with twin sister Hokuto looking after him. Upset at his state, Hokuto ends up taking Subaru’s onmyoji robes and disappearing. A month later, now in his grandmother’s care, Subaru finally awakens when he sees a dream of Seishiro murdering Hokuto. When he does wake up, his grandmother gets a phone call revealing that the dream was true. Subaru decides to leave school and sharpen his skill so he can get his revenge on the man he once loved.

The manga ends with two special chapters, each referred to as an “annex”. The first takes place shortly before Seishiro’s attempt on Subaru’s life, revealing his true desires, plans, and how he built his cover for his schemes. The second sees a now adult Subaru taking on another paranormal case, this time in a recently constructed apartment block.

If you feel that this review is giving away a lot of plot for what is the end of a series, there are reasons for this. The main one is that while this is the end of Tokyo Babylon, the story of Subaru and Seishiro carries on in X, in which the two end up on opposite sides of an apocalyptic battle. Even Hokuto reappears in X from beyond the grave. Like all of CLAMP’s major characters, they are also referenced again in other series, namely Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, in which Subaru appears as a vampire and Seishiro as a vampire hunter.

The finale of Tokyo Babylon is thus open-ended, allowing for the characters to return, although frustratingly leaving the reader wanting more. While of course X does provide more, that too has its own problems regarding its ending, due to the fact it too doesn’t have a proper one, what with the series being on hiatus since 2003 and thus ending at Volume 18.5 – genuinely, when X was given the same “CLAMP Premium Collection” release as Tokyo Babylon was given, it doesn’t end at a completed 19th volume, but with what remaining chapters there were being put into “Volume 18.5”, which has never been released in English.

As for the production of this final volume, overall it is good, with more colour pages and a few translation notes. While the lettering from Phil Christie is decent, I do question Amanda Haley’s translation occasionally. For example, on page 61 when Subaru escapes from Seishiro’s spell, some nurses rush into the room and scream “Eeeek!”. Personally speaking I cannot recall anyone vocalising a scream of horror as an “Eeeek!”; it usually tends to be something like an “Aaaagh!”. It’s not a major issue though, it just looks a bit weird. However, it still feels more believable than what appears in the Dark Horse version in which the nurse says, “What happened?!”. To me that response seems a bit more lackadaisical and less immediate than a simple scream of shock.

Tokyo Babylon was the first of the series released in Japan with specially redesigned covers as part of the “CLAMP Premium Collection”, with the cover in this case showing Subaru in white religious robes, while Hokuto and Seishiro have their backs to the viewer and are dressed all in black, with Hokuto in a long veil. Given that white is the colour of mourning in Japan, there’s a lot of symbolism in the design. Why Yen felt the need to write “Final”, though, below the volume number though is a bit frustrating. I don’t see why you need to point out it is the final volume when you can just look it up online.

At time of writing, no other series released in Japan as part of this collection has been subject to an English re-release. This includes X, which in English is out-of-print physically but still available digitally from VIZ Media. Currently, CLAMP have just revived xxxHolic: Rei which is now the subject of bi-monthly strips. The next CLAMP releases scheduled for English readers are two art books, CLAMP Color, which are being released by two different companies. Yen Press will release Color Kuro while Kodansha will release Color Shiro, which are both currently scheduled for publication on the same day, 18th November 2025 (which for those people who have been following Tokyo Babylon closely, is four days after what would be Seishiro’s 60th birthday).

Having finally finished re-reading this classic series, part of me hopes that we might see more CLAMP re-releases in the future, especially X for those who want to see what happens to Subaru and Seishiro next. I hope to see the new xxxHolic: Rei chapters get published in English too. However, my biggest hope is that having reviewed all seven volumes, and gone over them in detail, that despite what some people might still think, and despite the fact that ultimately Seishiro rejected Subaru, there can be no doubt whatsoever that Subaru Sumeragi and Seishiro Sakurazuka are very definitely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, gay!!! They are so gay! Nothing the doubters can say will persuade me otherwise: Subaru and Seishiro are 100% gay. Happy pride month!

Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.