Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Gwynevyr
I have never had a bigger disappointment than when I watched B: the beginning.
I initially was exited to see it, the premise was promising, a somewhat supernatural mystery with a cool vigilante guy. In addition to the seemingly great fight scenes. However, this very quickly was dropped to focus an a half-assed story that had me checking every five minutes if I accidentally skipped to the second season. B: the beginning felt that a mystery means not letting the audience know anything about the world or the characters until the very end, having the reveal be incurably boring having me wish that they let me just imagine my own ending as any monkey with a keyboard can come up with a better one.
the show seemed like it couldn't decide to focus on the slightly better serial killer plot line o…
Read at the sourcektulu007
B: The Beginning is one of those Netflix produced original anime. It came out in 2018 and the studio behind it is Production IG. Yes, the studio behind Psycho Pass, Ghost in the Shell and some significantly less impressive works like Robotics; Notes & Blood+.
Story:
There's a mysterious super-powered vigilante going after violent criminals called B after the mark he leaves at the scene. Meanwhile, Detective Keith Flick returns to active duty to pursue B and a case from years ago that he isn't satisfied with the outcome of.
Let's start with the big narrative problem with this series. The two story lines are connected very tenuously. To the point where you have to question why they're part of the same series. You basically have two stories here. One is about these kids who were genetica…
Read at the sourceBrokenKnives
This was interesting. I went into this very skeptical, after seeing comparisons to both Death Note and Tokyo Ghoul. Death Note being a show I love, and Tokyo Ghoul being a show I'm indifferent about. This combination seems unlikely. Death Note, while it uses the supernatural as a means of driving the story, focuses more on the mystery part than anything else. Tokyo Ghoul, on the other hand tries to get its characters into gore-filled fights as much as possible, with 99% of the fighting going on between characters that have supernatural powers, one way or the other. Strangely enough, I found myself enjoying this show, both for the Death Note and Tokyo Ghoul elements.
Story 8/10
I'd really like to give this a 10, but I can find no justification for it. On the positive side, the story is w…
Read at the sourcejaisan
This anime piles on information and backstory like it's all going to add up towards a big reveal of some super plot twists at the end but it really lets you down and 90% of that information/backstory is completely useless and irrelevant. the last episode is all convoluted exposition that tries to fool you into thinking it's all deep and the first 11 episodes were worth the payoff, but as you see from my summary above it clearly wasn't.
The characters are lame and/or unimportant. They try to paint kieth as some super genius but he really doesn't do anything to earn it. lucy? or whatever the girl's name is has probably the best written character but the show can't seem to figure out if she's smart or dumb and flops back and forth between the two. She certainly has no business on any police…
Read at the sourcemagaiverix
The time came, when you wanted to watch anime like Psycho-Pass, I looked at the list of recommendations and I decided to look at, what netflix had prepared for us.
Story 8/10- I want to say now, anime would have deserved a masterpiece if there were 24 episodes than 12- the whole story was suppressed. Kazama Flick, Keith- his own story I liked more then Koku's because it was really interesting to look at it, deep investigation and enough for 12 episodes, but Koku's- could have devoted another 12 episodes, because his story from the past seems to me abnormally short, he and his school reminded me of some X men's school, but in general the story is well deserved 8/10- very good and Kazama Flick, Keith thank you! for your story.
Art 9/10- By this type I can say that appropriate art for story…
Read at the sourceArchStanton
This is a series that’s never what it seems. When you turn it on it seems to be an odd mix of Psycho Pass and Death Note. It’s obvious that the series is going to be a police procedural with a quirky and antisocial cop chasing after a supernatural demon boy who hunts serial killers. Except that it isn’t. The hunt is pretty perfunctory and they drop it as soon as they can. Same with the serial killer-hunting stuff. The detective and the boy aren’t even fierce opponents, they just happen to be following different plotlines. The boy’s story isn’t what you expect either. From someone hunting killers you expect a strong moral desire to inflict vigilante justice. Turns out that’s just a coincidence. He’s really killing specific people (who just happen to be engaged in murder) to send someone a m…
Read at the sourceHelenaHills
Okay, so what exactly makes B: The Beginning special?
What you need to know here is that this isn't just one story. It's composed by two different stories of different genres, (and ultimately two different protagonists) intersecting and complementing nicely each other until the end. The first story and strongest one, is a crime/police drama, the kind of "guess who the killer is", while the second and weakest one is the classic route where people who were experimented on were granted supernatural abilities.
Even though the second one sounds like the one which would be at the center, it only serves as fodder to explain the motives and mechanisms behind the mystery of the first. Its characters are nowhere near as sympathetic and in the end they only served as tools for the absolutely mind-…
Read at the sourceakirakishitani
Anime like this is something you either like for the sci-fi action or dislike it because its the same as an anime you already watched. so while watching i did come across characteristics of various anime broken into jigsaw pieces and made to fit the picture the creators drew. so as far as originality goes, 'b the beginning' is not the one. its riddled with the quintessential cliches peculiar to the genre. the characters, especially the supposed villain is more than a card board cut out but the anime fails to dig deeper into what more he could become. the main hero whichever one that is is lackluster. i wanted to like him and his ragtag team but when you coat a character in genius, that outward appearance alone does not make him/them intriguing. for a netflix association , this falls short…
Read at the sourceKiddishBambino
Where to begin. Pretentious. Plain and simple.
This anime is awful. In all the anime I have seen I believe an overwhelming majority of them had something to say and left the viewer with at least one thought at its conclusion. This does not do that in the slightest. That is not without it trying to do so.
Story: Garbage confusing and says nothing. IN the end it left me feeling and asking for what reason was this made.
Art: The art was very impressive and fluid. I will without a doubt mention that merit which it indeed deserves. The action scenes are very well choreographed and in full attention as well as the character designs which were absolutely inspired... EXCEPT the annoying blushed cheeks on Lily which I hate to a point of rage but the annoyance of the cheeks is minor compared to…
Read at the sourceanime-prime
B: The Beginning had a lot of hype being the follow up ONA of Devilman Crybaby on netflix which was a smash hit. It had a lot to live up to and I was curious to see if netflix would start a trend of licensing good quality shows. I saw it the moment it aired and binged it in under six hours. So it obviously held my attention, but did it live up to the hype or did it crash and burn? Fortunately and unfortunately, neither.
Animation: B: The Beginning is an original anime produced by the master of CGI vehicles itself, Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell, Psycho pass, etc.). Their animation style is always top notch and it makes no exception here as the animation is crisp and the action sequences smooth. Full marks for the animation (although the CGI was obvious at some times more than others,…
Read at the source-Rainy-
B: The Beginning combines two separate stories within each other, one of supernatural mystery and one with a detective searching for a murderer. The fundamental problem with the show is that both stories suck ass and don’t really connect together at all. You could rather easily cut out one of these plot lines from the entire narrative and not lose that much in terms of story quality in the other. Hell, the show may be better for it. So, don’t even read the rest of this review, just write the show off based on the word of one internet stranger alone. Trust me, I’m the only internet stranger that matters.
I hate when reviews talk about the meaty stuff first and then mention the audiovisuals at the end in much shorter detail, so we’re going to escalate in our meaty bonanza. The production va…
Read at the sourceMuieLaHateri
The story is relatively complex, you will enjoy it, the art is just really unique, the fighting scenes are 10000/10 it is very fluid and very nicely drawn, the characters are really charming and quite fleshed out even if some of them look like generic anime characters, but they have their own desires and motives.
This show just feels like watching a mix of Monster,Psycho-Pass and Death Note. The main character, and his best friend, I can actually relate to their friendship and the ending, never expected it to end that way actually, pretty much shocked.
Overall this is anime was a treat, something we deserved for a long time but never actually got.
Read at the sourceCrimsonIblis
B: The Beginning is an interesting anime that is flawlessly put together as an anime that has no manga or resources to begin with. It starts off pretty strange as another one of those shows that has crime and they solve the murders, but each murder and each episode builds off each other fits into place and makes the story unique. The story is good at shockers and confusion into making you question what everything means and the best part is the journey of how it gets there and how all the puzzles pieces fit together.
Story: 10
Most animes can't get a good story going and make it bland and the "protaganist" is overpowered and always wins making the villain useless and we all know the outcome. B is very good at throwing away the cliches and starting something new. The plotline example is a t…
Read at the sourceTakaCode
One very cold morning in London I went on Netflix to look for new anime to watch upon clicking on Netflix anime it showed a new series called B: The Beginning which was brand new.
Unlike Devilman Crybaby this show upon its release didn’t get much attention from anime fans. It did get same attention and hype but it wasn’t in the same level as Crybaby where everyone was literally hyping the living hell of the show to a point where it’s now the second coming of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately I wasn’t a fan of Crybaby not because it was simply a Netflix show but the show simply disappointed me in terms of the tone, writing characters, pacing to even the visuals which were disappointing for a Masaaki Yuasa show where it was inconstant, didn’t flow well half of the time and it was mostly style ove…
Read at the sourceB_Hill
I love mystery anime genre so I was extremely happy to find this series is out. Felt that the beginning looks so much promising, I immediately knew that I am going to binge-watch this. Then, the downfall was imminent from the end of the first episode. From that point on, it bleeds the flaws and the story flops at times. Sadly and surprisingly it couldn't recover till the end.
Although it didn't take advantage of many chances of interluding motives between characters, I like some character compilations. But as many reviewers point out, I feel they are largely underdeveloped. AND there's an annoying shrewish female character (as always in any manga); why is this a norm in Japan?And the ending was so absurd. Everyone can tell Gilbert Ross character is a part of the bigger scheme. But it flop…
Read at the sourceArachnophobic
Before watching:
Damn, this show has a really good OP! Hopefully the show lives up to it. And the PV makes it seem like it'll be a nice crime thriller.
After watching:
Okay, thanks for The Perfect World, which was apparently the ED, but I want my 5 hours back. No one told me this was Botched: The Beginning.
I wanted to like this show, I really did. I want the new shows coming out on Netflix to do justice to the medium, since they'll be available to a wide global audience who aren't exposed to anime. I wouldn't say it didn't keep me engaged throughout, but overall my impression is definitely negative, and I would recommend most people to give it a miss. I'll try and sum up why.
This show has a severe identity crisis. It doesn't know what it wants to be, and tries to be many things at o…
Read at the sourceRebelPanda
It’s so rare to see an anime of such high quality to take as many risks as B: The Beginning does. Sure it stumbles a bit along the way, but the final result is undeniably an ambitious and thoroughly entertaining ride worth watching.
The story is totally insane on paper but is somehow even more bewildering in action thanks to such lovingly crafted visuals by Production I.G. with a talented director at the helm. It is in one part a sci-fi police procedural similar to Psycho-Pass, but simultaneously a game of cat and mouse like Death Note. These wild ideas packed on top of each other in only a brief 12 episode season makes for slightly underdone execution and lacking development. In my opinion, there’s enough good in this show to outweigh the negatives, but to summarize them before diving i…
Read at the sourcemaxmolen
At first I thought this was going to be an simple cat and mouse game. Where the police would go after the murderer only to find him in ep 12 as the nice boy no one would suspect, but that wasn't the case and I loved it. I got more and more hooked on the story as I progressed. The mystery started to unravel. Who was the real murderer? and to find it out in ep 12 got me fired up, everything fell into place, everything became clear I always love it when an anime resolves everything in the end. One minor side-note I would have liked it more if there was just an tad bit more of an explanation. also there are certain comedic scenes to lighten up the dark tones of the series. I would easily give the story an 8/10.
the art lets just say it was great it looked good it felt right and the informatio…
Read at the sourceButadonMeitantei
Have you ever thought to yourself: "Hey, I wonder what would it be like if someone combined Terror in Resonance with Tokyo Ghoul." ? or "What if someone combined Psycho Pass with Death Note?"
No? Well, me neither. However, it seems B: The Beginning is here to fulfil your non-existent needs...
But this isn't even exactly true either.
Story: Whilst the central story borrows many elements like that which I have mentioned, it is, with all elements combined, very different to most Anime of the genre. Although I have to say the synopsis given on MAL is very vague and misleading.
To start off with, Koku, the seemingly-angsty teen character, is not the protagonist, or at least, the only protagonist. The older, ragged Keith Flick, a smart but relatable detective in the Royal Police Force, is the…
Read at the sourceShinobu191
I think this anime was good, I rate it 8/10. If you liked Death Note you will probably like this one as well :) It has a lot of psychology and mystery involved :)
I would say that the art is very well made, one of my favorites.
Story - 8.5 / 10 . Looks like whoever wrote this had given it a deep thought, cause, in my opinion, it's pretty good :)
Sound - (?) I didn't pay attention :) but the original Japanese dub can sometimes be awful :D
Character-9/10. Oh man, the things I enjoyed most are the stories and traumas behind them. I do not want to spoil so I will not extend much, but it really is exciting.
Enjoyment- 8/10, I don't have much to say here, it's a good detective and mystery anime :)
Overall - 8/10.
(Don't get triggered if you do not agree this is just my opinion :) )
Hope you enj…
Read at the source