On New Year's Eve 2014, a countdown party is in full swing at the luxury hotel Babel in Tokyo, Japan. Kota, a new hotelkeeper of Babel, is dissatisfied with his lot in life but resolves to confess to his fellow employee Yukiko when he can muster the courage. His encounter with two mysterious guests, Ozaki and Naomi, only makes him feel more pathetic, especially in front of Babel's Concierge.
The next morning, he sees Ozaki with Yukiko, and is angered when Ozaki comments on the taste of Yukiko's lips. Before he can punch Ozaki in the face and quit on the spot, a barrage of missiles descends on Tokyo, and the blasted top of the nearby Tokyo Tower crashes into Babel and onto Yukiko. He barely has time to comprehend what just happened when time suddenly freezes around him and he's contacted by Yang, the Guardian of Time residing in the Royal Suite on the top floor of Babel.
After giving Kota a short demonstration of his own abilities (by sending Kota back twelve hours, when he was at the countdown party), Yang entrusts him with the future of the world, and gives him his mission: he has until New Year's Eve to locate and eliminate the international terrorist hacker behind the missile attack. Sent back to Christmas Eve to contact Akiyoshi, Yang's informant with extensive intel on every single guest of Babel, Kota now has seven days to protect Yukiko and the world. With Babel as the stage and a complex web of human relations to navigate, Kota's mission begins!
Babel (stylized BABEL) is a manga written by Hanta Kinoshita and illustrated by Noriyoshi Inoue. It ran in Shogakukan's Hero's Comics magazine from December 27, 2014 to August 1, 2017, and was collected in eight volumes.
The sequel, Golden Boy: Babel the 2nd (sometimes stylized GOLDEN BOY: BABEL THE 2ND and GOLDENBOY: BABEL THE 2ND), is set five years later and stars high school student Riku Mitsuishi on a mission to buy world peace by amassing all the money in the world. It ran in Shogakukan's Hero's Comics magazine from September 1, 2017 to September 1, 2018, and was collected in two volumes.
The series provides the examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Two examples in Golden Boy.
- A man named Hiro first appears as a corpse, having already been killed by Ishigami. He's later revealed to have been the Number Two of the Ihara Group under Ihara Noriki, who had Ishigami's wife and daughter raped right in front of him.
- Zhang Zhifei, the Don of the Meiguibang, injures a fellow restaurant patron for her innocuous comment by shoving chopsticks up her nose and making her bleed, just before Ishigami attacks him.
- Been There, Shaped History: In this series, Yang's the reason the 9/11 attacks didn't outright start World War III, but the attacks still happened.
- Big Bad: The mastermind of the missile attack is revealed to be Isoda, the Prime Minister of Japan.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Golden Boy has a number of independent antagonists to Riku's mission, but two of them are the most prominent:
- Oil Baron Hamdan sets up a game with Riku to make Riku his subordinate if he wins.
- Ishigami is on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Kabukicho syndicate, whose leaders are the bosses of the yakuza Ihara Group, the Chinese mafia Meiguibang, the Russian mafia Sestra, and the Kabukicho-native Triple Six.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: The cabin attendant who slept with Ozaki originally died by Naomi strangling her in an elevator before it was undone by Yang's time rewind. In the next timeline, Kota saves her from both Ozaki (who was taking Naomi's place due to a time-rewind-induced Surprise Pregnancy) and the Concierge (who was trying to finish the job after Ozaki failed). Despite Kota's efforts, she's ultimately killed in Narita Airport by another assassin sent by Isoda.
- The Chosen Many: The notebook of Yang's deceased master is implied to list the names of every Guardian of Time (past, present, and future), including not only Yang and Kota but also Riku, who wasn't even visible in Naomi's womb in the original timeline.
- The Chosen One: Yang is revealed to have been watching over Kota ever since he learned about Kota in the notebook of his deceased master.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
- Despite being a major character in Babel, Akiyoshi makes no appearance in Golden Boy.
- Minor characters Daniel and Hojo from the GL Game also don't appear in Golden Boy.
- Distant Finale: The final pages of Golden Boy are set eighteen months later, showing the main cast's lives in Riku's Kabukicho. Kota and Ozaki's absence implies that they died offscreen. Mitsuishi is also notably absent.
- Evil All Along: In the climax of Babel, Kota is devastated to learn that Yukiko has been Isoda's willing concubine and spy for a long time.
- He Knows Too Much:
- The cabin attendant who was seduced by Ozaki was Marked to Die by her employers for stumbling onto something as a "courier".
- It's later revealed that Tony and his bodyguard John were originally murdered for discovering Isoda's newest business venture: terrorism.
- Marked to Die: It turns out that Yukiko kissed Ozaki in the original timeline because he was a potential threat to the Evil Eye Organization, and she was giving Isoda the signal to dispose of him. She also sleeps with Kota in the final timeline for that reason.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Yang passes away on Christmas Day under a streetlight after Kota brings him near the house of the woman he loved.
- Next Sunday A.D.:
- Babel's first chapter was released on December 27, 2014, and the story spans the week leading up to New Year's Day 2015.
- Golden Boy's first chapter was released in 2017, and the story is set in 2020.
- No Name Given:
- The cabin attendant who sleeps with Ozaki on Christmas Eve before being killed off is never named.
- The trenchcoat-wearing Identical Stranger of Concierge Yokomizo is only called "A Mystery Man".
- Older Than He Looks:
- Yang looks eighty but is almost forty.
- In Golden Boy, Riku looks like a high schooler but is actually five years old, and Kota has significantly aged in the five-year interim. It's justified as the cost of Kota's implied use of his powers over the past five years.
- Pregnant Badass: Naomi is revealed to have been pregnant with the child of her lover Ryu at least from before Ryu's death to Riku's birth on Christmas Day.
- Sequel Hook: The final pages of Babel show Riku five years later, and he has somehow aged up from an infant to a high school boy.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Having survived the missile attack on Tokyo that killed Yukiko and set off World War III, Kota is flung back seven days to stop it from happening.
- Significant Birth Date: Riku, the next Guardian of Time after Kota, is born on Christmas Day.
- Someone to Remember Him By:
- Naomi conceived Riku months after the death of her lover Ryu (though much earlier than she probably expected due to Yang's time rewinds).
- In the ending of Golden Boy, Himari reveals to Tony that she's pregnant with Ozaki's child, while Ozaki is implied to have passed away.
- Time Rewind Mechanic: Yang teaches Kota the seven rules of time:
- Kota must not die. If he dies, the mission's over and the world will be plunged into World War III.
- Aging is the price Kota pays to control time. Yang looks eighty but is almost forty. Yang's powers also indirectly caused Kota to age, and Kota's did the same to Riku in turn.
- Kota must remember every event that occurs. Even the most minute detail can save his life.
- Like his memories, any injuries Kota receives will carry over. He learns this lesson firsthand when he's shot through the shoulder in one timeline and the wound is still bleeding in the next one.
- Kota's recently awakened powers will grow. Yang tells him that he can currently stop time for a minute or two at most and rewind time less than half a day. That growth will also eventually hit a ceiling.
- Kota can use Yang's antique pocket watch to control his powers by focusing on the watch's hands, and picturing time turning back. In Golden Boy, Kota no longer needs the watch when he rewinds time; considering even Yang relied on the watch in his old age and the watch was destroyed on New Year's Eve in the final timeline, it's implied that Kota's mastered his powers.
- The final rule is that Kota must never give up. He must make time work for him, even down to the last second. In the climax, he realizes that Isoda's Hammer of Judgment was fated to happen, but Riku's powers are needed to finally stop it.
- Trust Password: Kota indirectly develops one with Ozaki: "A man's fist is his resume." He talks Ozaki down after stopping him from assassinating the cabin attendant who was killed by Naomi in a previous timeline, and he indirectly tells Ozaki that there's a trap in Babel's lobby by saying he got wounded there and is "unable to make a fist".
- Verbal Tic: In Golden Boy, Riku tends to call exciting things "wicked".
- Your Days Are Numbered: In Golden Boy, Madam Mitsuishi tells Himari and Tony that Kota doesn't have much longer to live, which is why she supports Riku's quest to buy world peace (Tony just wants to see Riku become a golden boy like Kota and Ozaki before him, while Himari wants to save the imprisoned Ozaki). Ozaki is also revealed to be dying from lung cancer.
