The 2021 Tokyo Babylon anime website announced that the production committee has decided to cancel the series indefinitely.
The reason is that some clothing designs of the characters had been plagiarized, beyond the two designs that they had detected at first. These two designs in question belong to the characters Hokuto and Subaru Sumeragi. Hokuto’s was pointed out as similar to a promotional visual of the South Korean group Red Velvet in a photograph taken to promote the event “The ReVe Festival” in 2019.
Subaru’s design was pointed out of copies the wardrobe for a Volks product design that was released in 2017.
However, both the producers and CLAMP, authors of the original manga, intend to resume the series with a new production as quickly as possible.
TVアニメ「東京BABYLON 2021」プロジェクト制作中止のご報告https://t.co/b2IgjKGSKN pic.twitter.com/6ClLsEXx8a
— TVアニメ「東京BABYLON 2021」公式 (@tokyobabylon21) March 29, 2021
The canceled Tokyo Babylon anime was scheduled to premiere on Japanese television this April, however, due to this incident, the series is currently left without a release date. Once the development of the new anime progresses enough, the air date of this will be announced.
CLAMP plans to remove the promotional images and offer a public apology asking fans for patience for the presentation of this project. This reached an indefinite hiatus after the separation of the anime’s investment committee with the animation studio.
Now Tokyo Babylon 2021 enters the search for a new team that can correspond to the work of the legendary authors, being a remake of great value that not just any team could lead to success.
Tokyo Babylon is a manga with supernatural overtones created by the CLAMP group, known for other works such as Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. The manga ran between 1990 and 1993 on the pages of Shinshokan’s Wings magazine, ending with a total of 7 compiled volumes.
Although it is the first anime series based on the work, the manga already featured a series of two OVAs produced by the Madhouse studio, as well as a live-action film.
