Common Name: Boogiepop wa Warawanai
Alternative Names: Boogiepop and Others, Boogiepop Doesn't Laugh, Boogiepop (2019)
Score: 8/10, 5/5
Length: 18 Episodes
Genre: Drama, Action, Mystery, Supernatural, Psychological, Horror
WARNING: Many of the show's arcs feature scenes of violence and horror and one arc is strongly centered on a young, female character who is forced into prostitution, making this series as a whole discomforting for some.
Summary: Humanity's future is far from certain. The world is a dangerous place where there are no absolute truths and all things are twisted and distorted in one way or another. Systems, both man-made and universal, work to both maintain and unravel an uneasy peace and the very concept of normality. Humanity, whether it knows it or not, is steadily evolving and taking new shape and gaining abilities that might overthrow the enforced natural order. Regardless of where its origins might lie, though, all threats to the world are hunted down and disposed of by the enigmatic reaper known as Boogiepop. Known primarily for the rumor that he kills women at the peak of their beauty and easily identified by his characteristic black cape and hat, Boogiepop is one of the world's primary defenses against any substantial threats to humanity. Even that, though, might not be the truth though. Perhaps he is simply the delusional split personality of a high school girl, Miyashita Touka, and nothing more. Regardless of what the truth might be, the only real certainty in this world is that nothing is certain.
Review: Calling a show "cerebral" has always felt like a kind of insult to me when it comes to describing its content or what you can expect to get out of it. Part of this stems simply from the perception that it sets a kind of gated, elitist tone that makes the work seem much less welcoming to potential viewers than it might actually be. Particularly when we exist in a community where lots of different people can have vastly different means of enjoying and engaging with a title, terms like "cerebral" and "high-minded" come across as a direct insult to those who "just don't get it." Off the top of my head, I can think of a few shows that I've seen classified as cerebral but are just as enjoyable regardless of whether you try to dig into the deep philosophical nonsense. Ghost in the Shell and Psycho-Pass, for starters, are fantastic action titles in their own right that strike a good balance between their deeper messages and the surface-layer excitement of watching a good, tense drama. Kino's Journey, while full of moral, ethical, and social quandaries, is just a gorgeous show you can sit back and watch, taking in the sights of the titular "Beautiful World" in much the same way Kino herself does. And as much as I personally dislike it, comedies like Shimoneta can be worth a good laugh regardless of their direct social commentary. Yet, despite my distaste for the term, "cerebral" is the only way I can really describe the madness that is Boogiepop.
Yeah, high school will do that to a person.
To be as blunt as possible, Boogiepop is just an all-around bizarre title. It's a story told in disjointed parts that speak to a larger narrative without ever actually addressing that narrative in a direct or concrete fashion. Even within the shorter scope of each story/arc, though, nothing is ever told in a simple, straight forward manner. Not to mention, the chronology of each story is just blended into something that seems primarily interested in making it that much harder to make sense of things. You get the epilogues spliced into the beginnings, entire episodes dedicated to a secondary character's perspective, cuts to events that have yet to actually happen in the story or are happening concurrently with some other event, and lots of flashbacks to monologues inserted throughout the final conflict of each arc. A good way to describe how this show's story generally functions, each story functionally exists as a puzzle that simply hasn't been assembled yet. As you watch it, you can tell fairly easily what pieces and scenes make up the borders of each arc and can follow that line of beginning to end fairly easily. Figuring out how the whole thing comes together, though, is a bit of a challenge--even more so when you start to realize that each puzzle is just a piece of a much larger work of art.
So, yeah, like I said, "cerebral" just kinda defines how this show functions on every level.
The strange thing, though, is that this honestly the best means of telling Boogiepop's circuitous and indirect story. After all, this series comes from a collection of "proto-light novels" that are only loosely connected and feature themes and concepts that are occasionally at odds with each other. So, given its origins, it comes as no surprise that this is a series that would prove difficult to adapt into something coherent. Though there have been a few attempts to do so in the past, ranging from the older Boogiepop Phantom series that attempted to be a sequel to the light novels and a live-action movie adaptation of the first novel, none have really captured the essence of what made this franchise a cult classic. This new series, however, feels like it's come the closest to capturing that bizarre, magical, and conspiratorial heart of the franchise as a whole. After all, the heart of Boogiepop lies in attempting to puzzle out the truth of a world full of contradictions, mysteries, and impossibilities. What better way to present that than with a show that requires the viewer to puzzle things out and draw conclusions in much the same way the show's characters do?
What's even better, though, is the simple fact that this show looks gorgeous
while it's busy twisting your brain in knots.
Now, as for the show's actual content, i.e. once things start to become clear, it's difficult to say whether or not Boogiepop is actually worthwhile. As fun as it might be to solve the mystery that is this show's overall narrative and the structure of its various stories, there really isn't much to be had for those who want anything else. For those who want to sit and think and build their own theories and conspiracies into how the Boogiepop world and its numerous factions function, there's plenty of ambiguity and uncertainty to keep those gears turning for some time. As for the action, though, there really isn't all that much to be had. There are a good number of fights with some great animation backing them but there's never really any question of who will stand on top when all is said and done. For all intents and purposes, the titular character Boogiepop is so enigmatic that there isn't any kind of established upper limit to what they might be capable of doing. Though it can be assumed that they are as fragile as their host body/alternate personality, Miyashita Touka, Boogie is so skilled that they only get hurt once in the course of the entire series and even that's just a minor cut from some stray debris. By comparison, the show's other combatant and resident Batman, Kirima Nagi, is a lot more engaging to watch since she does appear to have some very set limitations of what she can handle. Unfortunately, though, she doesn't actually get to do much in the course of the series, only getting to shine during the VS Imaginator arc and the Fear Ghoul arc which is primarily focused on her backstory. So, while the show's action can be called good, it isn't pronounced or explored enough to really justify watching the show with that focus in mind.
Though, again, that's not to say it isn't fun to watch lady Batman whale on some dudes.
In much the same vein, the show's horror element isn't entirely worthwhile in its own right either. Terrible things certainly occur over the course of the show, but it all remains fairly subdued. The only arc where the horror shines is the first and that's simply because it centers on mankind's capacity for cruelty and evil, making one human's actions comparable to that of a literal man-eating monster. To come even close to accomplishing that goal there had to be some bloody and brutal moments. Yet, brutal as it is to see someone devoured by a monster or see someone's throat slit, all those scenes are either framed in such a way that the details obscured or happen so quickly that they can easily be missed entirely. Then, after that one arc, the horror is more or less gone. There's nothing excessively gory or violent after that point. Some moments of body horror and violence do still dot the series but they are all obscured to the point of not being even remotely frightening. So, instead of showcasing that kind of traditional horror, the show shifts toward a more psychological focus, emphasizing the implications of certain events and setting a discomforting tone via a particular character's actions. Yet, apart from mild discomfort, I never felt particularly scared by anything this show had to offer. If anything, I only felt a kind of detached disgust for some characters actions of the situations they are forced into--the worst of these being once such character being treated like communal sex toy--but even that was addressed with a "told, not shown" manner. So, in other words, this show wasn't any more horrific to watch than something like Ghost in the Shell: SAC and that can hardly be considered a member of the "horror" genre.
Even Boogiepop's uniquely harsh means of killing their foes becomes something you actually
look forward to, since they only ever kill those who really deserve it.
Unfortunately, that same kind of disappointing lack of focus can be extended to the overall story as well. As I've said already, there's a great deal of ambiguity to how things truly function over the course of this show and while that might present a fun challenge for people naturally disposed to theory crafting, it's absolutely infuriating for anyone who just wants something more concrete. But certainty and absolutely are not the goal of this show when all is said and done. Rather, it's focused entirely on asking open-ended questions about what defines humanity, how society subtly influences human thought, and how human evolution might conflict with social norms. It never tries to answer any of these questions but considers various possibilities and how certain types of people might react, leaving the audience to decide what they believe themselves.
At least the show has the decency to outright state that finding those answers
yourself is, in fact, the ultimate goal of the series from the start though.
For example, one of the show's greatest mysteries is the nature of the enigmatic, manipulative system known as the Towa Organization. Over the series, they are recognized as a faceless conglomerate with no limitations of what it can and does get away with, even as they turn their focus toward directly experimenting on human society. Supposedly out of some desire to control human evolution and understand what made mankind intelligent in the first place, the conduct countless atrocities in the hopes of better understanding humanity itself. From creating monsters and artificial humans to distributing drugs that could kill hundreds and murdering anyone they feel might to a threat to their control of humanity's future, there's no end to what the Towa Organization can do. Yet, as evil as they seem to be, none of the characters show any real interest in tearing them down. Since they ultimately work to maintain a kind of status quo, Boogiepop doesn't even consider Towa their enemy, even though their experiments often create a threat that Boogiepop can and does deal with in their own time. Over the course of the show, we never even see the system itself or any kind of representative figurehead--just pawns that are all dealing with their assignments in whatever manner they please. So, when all is said and done, all we can really do is add up everything we've seen regarding the Towa Organization and determine whether they're something that should be torn out by the roots or a necessary evil. All the more so when you consider where the fault for all the evils they commit truly lie since many of their pawns seem to commit atrocities on their own initiative, rather than because it was a direct order.
You can say that again, Boogiepop.
Of course, there is also just the issues present with the story that are born purely from the nature of this adaptation. Namely, in its attempt to capture the heart of the Boogiepop franchise, this series actually leaves out a lot of key details that might have worked to better explain some of the show's more dodgy moments. For example, at the start of the Fear Ghoul arc, we're greeted with a bizarre setting where Boogie randomly runs into a character who should have no longer existed at that point and goes on to explain their origin to him. Though this setting sets a wonderful tone and is particularly poignant to Boogie's comment later on that they do feel something akin to loneliness, having no real ties to the world or the people in it, it doesn't really seem to have any proper place in the overall story. In reality, though, that scene is meant to be a brief moment that takes place in the middle of the King of Distortion arc that directly follows it. With the way the show chose to adapt that scene, though, that connection is entirely lost, leaving it adrift in a vacuum. Throughout the series, those kinds of gaps can be felt, leaving the general feeling that we might be missing part of the overall puzzle when all is said and done. So, in other words, we're very much dealing with an incomplete product. Much like with a piece of IKEA furniture, we're meant to draw assumptions where we can and cobble together the larger story on our own, hoping that all those stray, extra pieces weren't important.
Like how Suema forms all her opinions and beliefs regarding the abnormal
from baseless conjecture and pseudo-scientific bullshit.
Like I said from the start, the only real way to approach Boogiepop seems to be from that of a purely "cerebral" perspective. Since nearly every other aspect to it is lacking or simply just not accounted for, all we can really do is watch it and consider either how the show's own internal world functions or what the show's stories have to say about our own world. But, problematic as that might be for some, it bears no illusions that it can or should be anything but "cerebral." This is a show meant to be picked apart and evaluated from any and every angle possible and, in that goal, it seems to succeed beautifully. On top of offering a lot of intellectual cud to chew on, Boogiepop quite simply looks good doing it, but that's to be expected considering the talent Madhouse put into producing this piece of critical art. Everything from the art and animation to the streamlined character designs is simply wonderful to behold. To top all that off, the music for this show is far from a slouch either, focusing on creating an eerie or unsettling tone with trance music full of sounds that can get a person's paranoia going and stuttered chanting that feels otherworldly or unnatural. And then there is, of course, the wonderful use of leitmotif with some of the character songs that key into how magnificent and enigmatic they are. With all that said, Boogiepop is obviously not a show I can recommend to everyone. However, now that the series is done and can be easily binged, it's infinitely easier now to piece things together now that there's no week-long pause between episodes. So, if you want to try your hand at this intellectually elitist piece of art, now's a better time than any to see if you're smart enough to understand Boogiepop and Others. Alternatively, though, if you just want something strange that'll give you something to think about, then you'll probably love what this has to offer.