Spoiler Alert!
No, they're probably not. Well...maybe... Ehh...I dunno. I'm still on the fence on it. This was alright.
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When i first started watching B: The Beginning, after I thought about how stupid the name was, I thought it was pretty good. It's a bit derivative, but entertaining.
Warning: I'll try to avoid any major spoilers, but I'm not making any promises.
Synopsis
B: The Beginning is the story of a group of detectives that are chasing a serial killer who kills other serial killers. Dexter? No, unfortunately not. They are chasing the killer known as "Killer B". Killer B is no ordinary man though, he is a winged archangel of sorts that is the alternate personality of a boy that's a friend of one of the other main characters. When he turns into this winged anti-hero his skin turns black and his arm becomes a blade made of blue steel. With the power of the winged gods, he perpetrates his revenge upon murderous psychopaths that somehow seem to have some sort of connection. The other main characters hunt him, trying to figure out just who this "Killer B" is. Yet it seems that perhaps some may already know.
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My Take
I don't even know how many movies and tv shows and anime and books this has ripped off and is derivative of. Let's just say it's a fairly well-used story. Boy meets girl. Girl gets kidnapped. Boy becomes monster. Boy chases after girl in a murderous rage. Although that was meant to be a joke, I think I actually have seen that plot several times.
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Seeing him turn into the winged creature and fight the various murderers and villians in the show is still pretty damn cool though. Have tons of other stories featured main characters that are a bit less than human? Sure. Was there another show with a main character who's hand turned into a weapon, and was way cooler? You bet. It's still fun to watch though, even if it's been done a million times before.
One thing that is a bit refreshing, that we don't see too often anymore, is the detective side of the show. "Killer B" is being hunted for the serial killers that he has killed, and some hotshot genius detective comes out of the records room to help find him after his latest killing. I'm not exactly sure why he came out for this particular murder, but I do rather like his character. He kind of reminds me of Spike from Cowboy Bebop in some ways, but he's definitely not going to end up in some amazing martial arts fight with the villain.
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I'm not sure if detective stories are still popular in Japan, it seems like truly thought-provoking detective shows aren't quite as common as they once were on this side of the pond. Pretty much all we get is a remake of Sherlock Holmes every few years, which often does more showing off of Sherlock's amazing skills than actually feel like a detective show. Of course, I'm pretty sure I can't write a detective story, so I can't blame them for being less common. You have to be the killer and the cop.
Despite showing a lot behind the curtain, B: The Beginning gave me a lot of that feeling of wonder and suspense that detective shows give. It was refreshing. I didn't know how much I had missed it.
Unfortunately, I can't recommend it as a detective show though. While it does give you a bit of that feeling, perhaps the writers were a bit rushed with time, and somewhere around the midway mark or a bit after, the main detective goes all genius Sherlock on us and you end up just following along for the ride.
That might be part of why I ended up just bored with it by the end of the show. There was all this crap about a secret society and clones and gods and oh my god just pick a story to rip off, it's just boring.
Conclusion
B: The Beginning was pretty cool, in the beginning, but by the end, I was just tired of it all, and I was bored to tears. It was a lot better than some Netflix animes I've tried to watch, but I don't think it was really great. Maybe if you can get through it pretty quickly you'll like it, but I was done with it before the last episode ended.