B-yond Expectations: B the Beginning



Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!  Sunday is here, and that means it’s time for part three of Novembflix!  In this final review of the month, I’ll be talking about a show that, in all honesty, was the best so far this month.  I kid you not, I really liked this show!  Granted, it wasn’t anything that spectacular, but it was a fun show.  Well, I can’t stand it any longer, so let’s get into this week’s review on B the Beginning!
Set in the fictional country of Cremona, a series of gruesome murders are being committed by a mysterious serial killer known only as Killer B.  Investigating these murders are the Royal Investigation Service and later legendary genius detective Keith Flick.  However, this case gets more complicated as more bizarre cases pop up that lead to a mysterious criminal organization.  What’s more, they have no idea that the murders are being perpetrated by a mysterious boy whose origins from the pilot episode are unknown.  It’s definitely a dark and dangerous ride for everyone involved!
Like I said, of all the shows I watched so far this month, this was the one that I enjoyed the most.  It’s certainly not my favorite, but it definitely had me invested.  Overall, I give B the Beginning a 7.5 out of 10.  Admittedly, it’s lower than what I would give, but that’s mostly because I’ve had so much going on and I’ve had very little time to get caught up on the series.  But if I had to praise the series on one thing up and down, it’s the animation.  Good Lord, the animation is so well done here!  It’s not sakuga by any means, but the quality is something that you’d see in an anime film over a twelve episode series.  The action scenes in here are very vivid, too.  It’s a treat to watch.  The character design was also very well done.  It’s not anything new, but you can tell that it’s something that you don’t really see in character designs now a days.  Another part to B that I enjoyed was that it did a great job of presenting a unique supernatural mystery.  It knows to stay serious and keep much of the focus on the case at hand.  It almost reminds me of The X Files or Supernatural, expect rather than being episodic, it’s all one continuous arc.  So for the most part, the show did everything just about right.  However, I had one or two little concerns. 
One of the first problems that I had with the show overall was the setting.  Why is this set in an imaginary country?  Now as I said, I wasn’t able to finish the entire series, but that was one question that really hung me up from the beginning.  To me it seemed like it went a little too out there by trying to throw in this imaginary country in this not so subtle attempt to be a fantasy.  It didn’t do it as badly as Re:Zero did, but it’s hard not to notice it.  Honestly, I felt it would have made a little more sense if it were set in modern times, like modern-day Japan, or heck, even the U.S.  The characters, too, though drawn well, were not all that interesting either.  There’s nothing particularly wrong with them, it’s just they’re so wrapped up in the Killer B case that I felt like there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunities to get to know them better.  Even the show’s biggest characters, Keith and Koku (who’s the mysterious boy I mentioned in the synopsis), aren’t all that interesting either.  That’s especially sad considering Koku is this cyborg-bird thing disguised as a human.  But still, I feel like these are only small complaints.  If you love a good suspenseful and supernatural mystery, this is the show to watch.
So yeah, B the Beginning was B-yond what I had expected.  It’s a fun supernatural mystery that will have you soaring!  And with that, this review has come to a close!  To those readers living in the U.S., have a happy Thanksgiving!  And to those outside the U.S. have a great week anyway!  Stay tuned next week when I reveal November’s Character of the Month!
-Hanime on Anime


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