I dropped Tokyo Babylon the first time I read it directly after the first few pages and decided to never pick it up again. For someone who loves mainstream battle shounen shit, the start of Tokyo Babylon already decided how weak the story line is going to be.
So why did I pick it up again? Because I saw a beautiful picture of the protagonists on someone's profile. Not because I thought it might be worth reading again, or that it deserved another try. I was just fascinated by that picture, which turned out to be not from this manga at all.

The protagonist of Tokyo Babylon is Subaru, the young head of a clan of exorcists. He is accompanied by his twin sister Hokuto and a veterinarian called Seishirou during his journey to complete tasks as an onmyouji, exorcist.
After finishing it my geuss about the story line turned out to be quite right. Weak. It wasn't bad, just weak. That's probably caused by how the story started. If all mangakas were to cut a certain part of their protagonist's life and put it in a manga, then CLAMP began to cut Subaru's during the middle of his adventures. This made Tokyo Babylon seem rushed.

The story started just like that, with all the important characters casually talking to each other. It was as if we were supposed to know who they are. Sure there is a slight character introduction, but it seemed like a quick summary of who who is in a series after a long hiatus.

This would probably, together with its typical historical shoujo art style, make you expect Tokyo Babylon to be your typical shoujo manga about spiritual incidents, but it isn't.
It focusses on important issues on ones mental behaviour and suffering which is very realistic and sometimes maybe even relatable. No one understands them, but Subaru will reach out to all those people and try to relieve their pain.
In Tokyo Babylon you won't only get the victem's and the protagonist's point of view, but also those of the secondary characters and those around the suffering ones: "She was surely enduring a lot of stress and sorrow, but everyone cares for a sick loved one and feels the same pain."
Tokyo Babylon makes one thing clear: "No two people can ever feel the same pain!". Sure all of us, as civilised rational thinkers we all should be, know this. But do we ever consider it? No. No we don't. Tokyo Babylon however reminds us about this important fact and makes us think again about those around us.

The relationship between the characters is absolutely adorable. The twins are very devoted to each other, and with Seishiro meddling in they become the ultimate threesome. Even though Subaru is in the beginning a bit hesitant about the behaviours of Seishiro, his feelings towards him slowly develops, whether it's in a romantic way or not. Seishiro's nature is however pretty mysterious which will make you wonder about his feelings.
The messing around and quarreling of these three brings hapiness in the sad times and prevent the story from growing darker than it already is.

I would recommend this manga to everyone who's able to handle tragic events. I think that this, despite the weak story line, is a stunning manga that looks at real issues in this world from different perspectives. It contains both tragic and happy parts that balance each other quite well (at the beginning at least).