Nowadays, females want more representative, more believable female characters that aren't just here for the Token Romance subplot, which unfortunately still happens. They don't want woman-centred shows to be all about fashion and sex as in Sex and the City and they no longer want shows centred exclusively around relationships, wrecked homes and cattiness such as Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy. Women now want to actually do something in their stories, which the success of The Hunger Games attests to. Girls Need Role Models after all.
Which would be all well and good if the characters had more depth to themselves than just being Gender Flips of established archetypes. The story itself isn't devoid of interest and the humor is also decent but the characters' interactions are so predictable that the whole thing loses its impetus a few pages in. The characters just aren't fit to carry a whole story and that's a pity because this series had potential.
Mystery Babylon and Gender Flips
Nowadays, females want more representative, more believable female characters that aren't just here for the Token Romance subplot, which unfortunately still happens. They don't want woman-centred shows to be all about fashion and sex as in Sex and the City and they no longer want shows centred exclusively around relationships, wrecked homes and cattiness such as Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy. Women now want to actually do something in their stories, which the success of The Hunger Games attests to. Girls Need Role Models after all.
So naturally, we tend to see more and more stories trying to challenge the status quo and making female-centred stories about something else than men, relationships and sex. But does a mere Gender Flip make a good character? No, alas.
Mystery Babylon is simply the story of a female character with a gritty name ("Kick Girl") that concentrates in herself each and every cliché of revenge-seeking male protagonists such as Kratos, Guts, Solid Snake, Max Payne etc. She's unhinged, violent, has a Lost Lenore, always tries to look gritty and unhappy but ends up looking ridiculous. She's accompanied by a Keet priest who bears with her tantrums and tags along with her to find a "seal" that she needs to keep locked while her antagonists are mostly women in traditionally male positions (The General, The Emperor, The Captain et al.) while male characters are mostly in a supporting role.
Which would be all well and good if the characters had more depth to themselves than just being Gender Flips of established archetypes. The story itself isn't devoid of interest and the humor is also decent but the characters' interactions are so predictable that the whole thing loses its impetus a few pages in. The characters just aren't fit to carry a whole story and that's a pity because this series had potential.