DESCRIPTION

CAST

NOVEL HorrorBoogiepop wa Warawanai
MANGA DramaBoogiepop wa Warawanai VS Imaginator
ANIME HorrorBoogiepop wa Warawanai

REVIEWS

• 

  TheGruesomeGoblin

  95/100
  Dark, oozing with bleak charm, and chock full of fun psychological horror stuff. One of the best horror anime!

  

  Boogiepop Phantom is a Madhouse adaptation of the Boogiepop novel series by Kouhei Kadono. This adaptation was made in 2000 and nearly twenty years later, Boogiepop is getting yet another adaptation in 2019.

  ...This review is of course centered on the original, and most likely in the future can and will be compared to the inevitable review I end up doing on Boogiepop 2019. No matter how it turns out.

  It should of course be noted that I went into Boogiepop Phantom with no actual knowledge of the novels and etc. So... this entire review was written without me knowing that for one, the entire events of this series is actually like a sequel to the first Boogiepop novel. In addition, Boogiepop 2019 is apparently going to be an outright adaptation of at least that novel.

  ---

  Something is out there. Are you safe?

  

  Jumping right into it, Boogiepop Phantom 2000 is perhaps one of the bleakest anime series I've ever watched. The atmosphere and the purposeful darkness that the entire series is wrapped up in honestly almost feels suffocating at multiple points of the show. Like you look at some of the other shows tagged under horror and it's... it's almost depressing. There's just not a single iota of genuinely effective creepy or dark atmosphere in these series.

  And that's if they even try at all.

  

  So when I watched Boogiepop, all at once it felt as if somebody just suddenly kicked me in the fucking face.

  "The reduced brightness and sepia color palette for most of the episodes, added to the anxieties and depressions of the characters, were designed to make the series play like a psychological horror. Production staff later commented that the color scheme was more effective than they had originally intended, and were surprised by how bleak the series turned out."

  

  I think Boogiepop 2000 is a very rare case for me in that I probably love the structure and the look of the show probably way more than the actual stories and characters it presents. Granted I like those too, but I'm not sure if I would as much if it wasn't for the presentation which I think I would go as far to call almost perfect.

  

  ...While I definitely want to know more and/or read the original novels, I kind of simultaneously don't? I don't know if that makes any sense but like... the point where I realized I absolutely loved this show is episode two. Like it immediately starts out with Boogiepop chasing a guy in the darkness, and the guy seemingly eventually gets away, and he finds this weird looking bug. He starts laughing, his hand starts shaking, and he compulsively starts devouring this weird gross looking insect.

  

  Then, in a flashback, it's shown that he's just been going around and getting spiders from girls' chests and just compulsively eating them. That's weird, actually kind of disturbing, gross, and there's actual reasons for it. Because it turns out that there's another character that appears throughout the entire series that just spreads butterflies of light which show people their memories when they come into contact with them.

  

  And yet there's also this guy who's like eating these disgusting fucking spiders, is in actuality consuming these girls' bad memories. Like there are just so many of these sorts of these things throughout this show that I just really love and probably should actively want to know like more about how they fit into this world because there are still some threads or questions I don't really know the answers to.

  Like one of these earlier episodes, there's like this drug that more or less just makes the people who take it horribly dependent on it but also eventually drives them completely batshit insane.

  

  And for the rest of the show in the back of my mind, I was wondering what happened to that or how did that fit into the rest of it? Because that episode where this guy who becomes rapidly more addicted to it to the point where he can't distinguish reality from his dating sim game leading him to become horribly creepy was amazing and disturbing.

  

  This entire goddamned show I found myself thinking "where is all of this going" and actually NOT in a frustrating way. Like I was absolutely riveted throughout most of the episodes. Where is this going? Why is this seemingly exact same conversation between these two cops happening over and over again?

  

  What about this serial killer in the news? What's with this odd smiling girl with these butterflies made of light? What the hell even IS Boogiepop??? What are they even doing or where are they taking these people that they're claiming to be saving???

  

  ---

  Conclusion

  

  I honestly can't think of the last series off the top of my head where I departed it with this many questions but also overwhelmingly enjoyed the experience of watching it.

  I mean genuinely, the series does provide a conclusion to several of the threads that it mainly focuses on but I still have so many questions and partially really am interested in finding out more about the world of Boogiepop, whether it's through the new 2019 anime which I hope for the love of god is more than "just a remake", or through the original novels which will soon be released in English...

  

  But the original Boogiepop Phantom 2000 is absolutely a must watch if you're looking for a horror anime. Like an actual creepy, dark and dirty, get under your skin, HORROR ANIME.

  

  Obviously, I do think that the horribly bleak and dark tone and look of the show isn't for everyone, but personally, I just ate it the fuck up. I'm not gonna hate Boogiepop 2019 if it goes outright in a completely different direction as long as it manages to be good while doing so, but I do really hope it doesn't outright drop the more horror stuff that is just... EVERYWHERE in the original.

  A 9.5 out of 10 or 95 out of 100. As I said previously, it’s almost perfect in my eyes.

  
  Continue on AniList
• 

  carothersmarx

  85/100
  A dark and gritty escapism journey.

  “The true ending is a privilege for those who haven’t been born yet. Once a person is born they will never feel at peace again as life goes on.”

  Boogiepop Phantom might not be your ideal horror anime to watch on hallowen night. The show only candidate for something that can be called as "ghost" does not appear to be threatening, the soundtrack while atmospheric was used to amplify the mystery and not the horror, and the scenes that can be called as jumpscares wont haunt you on your dreams.

  No, Boogiepop Phantom wont offer that experience. It's not chasing for the amusement of momentarily horror, its more interested to haunt and play with your mind.

  Boogiepop Phantom is a non canon spin off of Kouhei Kadono's long running Boogiepop series. It's an original anime story that was supposed to be a "sequel" to the unsurprisingly mediocre live action adaptation of the first book.

  Animated by Madhouse, it offers a bleak, dark sepia visual that may turn some potential viewers off. While it serve a purpose to make the show looks bleak and gritty and is a symbolism of human mental illness, it generally looks blurry, some scenes are too dark that sometimes I can't see anything but darkness, seconds of frames without any animation at all is not a rarity and sometimes it use heavily edited real life footage that shows even on the opening and the ad break, It is clear that Boogiepop Phantom does not have the best budget in Madhouse anime production history.

  The characters use the original design by Kouji Ogata. They looks realistic, with more grounded hair color and hair style, more normal looking uniforms that aren’t made for skimpy fan service. but they are admittedly looks too similar to each other that the only thing that separate them is their clothings. I won’t blame anyone if they don’t know the differences between Boogiepop Phantom and Kirima Nagi if they wear the same outfit.

  Boogiepop Phantom visual is stylish, but its admittedly looks cheap and made with minimum budget in mind. The same however cant be said about its direction, sound design, and superb writing. Scenes structures and how it handled timeline is something to praise, it constantly juggle between the past and the present to give more depth to the characters and their emotions when necessary while still keeping the flow going. Transition of scenes while looks cheap is fitting with the show theme and atmosphere they are going for with musics and ambience that flows together with the darkness.

  Having Tsuruoka Youta on board, the sound design in Phantom may sounds familiar, his signature style of playing with electronic sounds and ambience is making a return in Phantom giving it industrial vibes. The iconic wavy dialogue unfortunately does not translated well to the English dub audio, it does retain the reverbs but other effects that are on the Japanese audio is not existent. Unfortunate because the Japanese audio is superb.

  The good audio doesn’t stop there because the soundtrack is something to be praise, electronic musics might not be the best genre to accompany a horror anime, but it works well here. And really helps with the industrial feels that the direction take Phantom to.

  And now, the story.

  __While I do believe that Boogiepop Phantom is not a show that will be ruined if you have been spoiled beforehand, the next section of this review will be full of spoilers, this is a warning. Don’t mind? Okay let’s go.__

  Boogiepop Phantom pick up right after the event of the first book, Echoes beam of light has kickstarted the evolution of some MPLS, evolved humans that has special abilities. Gone is the typical take over the world trope of the main series. The Manticore--or the man eater--itself is making a return in Phantom, but its not playing the role of the big baddie villain like it did in the first book. Manticore is only there to accentuate things, Because now is the time for a new set of enemy of the world to shine.

  What we get instead is a more grounded cast of characters with their own motives and state of mentality. The 12 episodes Boogiepop Phantom offered follow these characters and their story, that while can stand on their own, share some similarities and connection with the others. Most notably, their themes.

  There is two types of horror media, the first one is the fear of creatures that you don’t know, they’re scary because they’re powerful, can easily mess you up with a single hit, and they’re scary because you don’t know what they really are.

  The second one is the fear of human nature itself, the fear of rejection, the fear of own past is something that we might experience but never really realize. Boogiepop Phantom is the latter, Manaka power to draw people past opens up a lot of interesting plot points, the “You can never be young twice.” is the main showcase of this approach of horror, and it works wonderfully.

  Memories of the past, the fear of future, and most notably, escapism took a huge chunk of Boogiepop Phantom, there is an interesting dynamic between the character stories that might contradict the one that has been told in the previous episodes. The last episode does not really fit with the rest of the show, it serves its purpose of a conclusion of the gritty horror we have been through for 11 episodes and the exclusion of its iconic sepia filter is a really great symbolism of that the mental insanity, is finally over. Its so different that it feels out of place, and comparing manticore story conclusion to the super satisfying Manaka resolution make it really weak in comparison.

  The Boogiepop series villains are always likable, sometimes they’re a really by the book villains, sometimes they are “good” people with a relatable vision but approached things in the wrong way, Boogiepop Phantom villains falls into the latter category, they’re well written, give you enough impressions to sympathize with them but they’re somehow, forgettable.

  It might be because of their appearance that looks too similar to each other, but even after my second rewatch, I still cant name most of the character names, what happened to them is really memorable, their motives and themes blown me away in some of the episodes, but remembering their names or even their personality traits proved to be difficult, the writing is not bad by any means, no. The 20 minutes-ish I get to spend with each character was an enjoyable ride. But the storytelling format they choose make the characters feels like they are not fleshed out enough.

  The cast are like nameless shells that happened to do bad things, nobody know who they really are, where they are coming from, their origins, but everybody know what they did.

  Conclusion

  Boogiepop Phantom deserves its cult classic status. The superb music, writing, direction and sound was held back by the visuals, but that shouldn’t stop anyone to enjoy the escapism journey.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  R2R

  90/100
  A Review on both 2000s Boogiepop Phantom and 2019s Boogiepop & Others; and my recommended watch order.

  https://anilist.co/anime/369/Boogiepop-Phantom/ https://anilist.co/anime/101283/Boogiepop-and-Others/

  ---

  Boogiepop

  [](https://anilist.co/character/2598/Boogiepop) [](https://anilist.co/character/2598/Boogiepop) **"Angel of Death" "Shingami of Shinyo Academy"**

  The name in itself is kinda intriguing when I first heard about the name and I forgot when I actually got so fond about it. I've seen some forums on where to start, what's the problems, why one is/isn't recommended over the other, what's the whole point and after reading so many things alike,
  "I lost interest".
  I completely lost interest related to this and eventually stopped thinking about it, or so I thought.

  

  How it all Began

  Sometime ago, I just left everything I read or learnt about the series & everything related, and watched the first episode of 2019 Boogiepop and Others.
  My initial impression about the series was formed when Boogiepop stated the following in the first episode;
  "None of you have realized yet but this school.... No.... This world is in danger.
  And that's why I'm here"
  After hearing this my impression was,
  "Ah.. Great. I can already see where this is going" and stopped watching after that, keeping in my On-hold section. But when I continued it, I realized it wasn't the way I thought it would, thankfully. It turned to be a good psychological mystery with a some philosophical depth. After that, I watched the 2000s version which is very different from 2019s version as it's more of a psychological horror with some artistic scenes and moments. Both of them, turned out to be something that genuinely made me.... think.

  

  What Boogiepop is even about?

  The 2000s Boogiepop Phantom is about change in perception as we grow. This was shown in a very dark & eerie way possible with the purposeful use of dark screen effects, spooky OST and the way it explores it's themes with different characters while loosely connecting each individual story.

  The 2019s Boogiepop & Others is about a few highschoolers trying to figure out the sudden and mysterious murders/missing cases in their locality, about some drug, a man eating monster and many more. The series conveys it's themes and philosophy while constantly giving an intriguing mystery that at first looks jumbled but gradually comes together piece by piece. With some good music, well animated action sequences and an overall intriguing mystery makes this a very enjoyable ride.

  

  Comparison between "Boogiepop Phantom" and "Boogiepop & Others"

  

  While both series bare the same name "Boogiepop", both are very different in their approach, and have their own pros and cons.

  Boogiepop Phantom

  Pros

  • Horror Aspect

  Anime, generally can't achieve Horror in the sense, it's hard to make people scare from just a bunch of pixels. Many Anime use gore as means to invoke horror but it just end up being laughable or straight up stupid. Phantom, however uses it's psychological aspect and delivers a sense of horror. It didn't really make me jump off and scream in terror, but it left me at an uncomfortable & eerie spot.

  • Character Exploration

  Phantom follows an episodic storytelling while loosely connecting each story with some characters making appearances in every or most of the episodes. Each episode is different and explores different situations & themes with different characters which results in this deep study in themes like obsession, memories, past, regrets and few others of sort. My favorite episode is "Episode 10" where it dwells into the effects of becoming an adult and it's an amazing experience viewing how it got unfolded in the end.

  • The Visuals

  I really didn't expected to like the visuals as much as I did. It kinda reminded me of Serial Experiments Lain, a show I really didn't enjoyed, but it turned out to be compelling to watch.

  Cons

  • The Mystery

  Phantom is a psychological horror Anime, but it tries to build a mystery behind the scenes while dwelling on characters. But this mystery never really got payed off. It leaves more questions than answers and just makes it more confusing. Speaking of confusing, another demerit is;

  • Character Designs

  This is tied to the Mystery point. It builds mystery with interconnecting seemingly unrelated events by characters, but due to the art style choice, all the characters kinda look the same and can't really follow the whole thing if you can't remember them which makes it hard to follow the plot.

  ---

  Boogiepop and Others

  Pros

  • Mystery Element

  Each Arc starts with an episode that has unordered events jumbled in between which doesn't make sense at first, but will unfold slowly and gives the main picture as it progresses. This makes it a very intriguing & interesting to watch.

  • Dialogue

  The series has some great dialogue and the delivery is pretty good. Some of my favorite dialogue comes from the second arc, the VS Imaginary arc. The series has this subtle philosophy tied to the dialogue for each character and it's very interesting at how these philosophical tones often clash with each other.

  • Production

  The show is very aesthetic in it's mystery aspect. It really makes an interesting and mysterious world filled with unnatural phenomenons and unnatural events, with fluid animation and amazing OSTs.

  Cons

  • Lack of Personality in Characters

  While characters have their philosophy or psychological aspects, they never really comes of as "Good" characters due to lack of personality. They feel bland, static and sometimes a little generic. Even the biggest highlight, Boogiepop himself, looks more like a cool & cocky character who can solve anything at the end, rather than a entity who's existence should be mysterious and hard to understand.

  • Gore

  It's a demerit not in the sense, it's bad but in the sense it isn't doing a good job. Often times, the Gore is used to spark a shock factor, the same problem that many "Horror" Anime try to achieve but fail.

  ---

  TL:DR;

  Boogiepop Phantom is a psychological Horror Anime, while Boogiepop & Others is a psychological mystery Anime, with both of them failing at what the other did a good job at.

  Both are a 9/10 series for me. But I liked the mystery aspect of Boogiepop and Others more than the psychological aspect of Boogiepop Phantom.

  

  My Recommended Watch Order

  The main reason I haven't watched this much sonner, is because I was a little unsure of what comes first.
  But based on my experience, my recommendation is;

  • Watch the Boogiepop & Others 2019
  • Then watch Boogiepop Phantom 2000

  Reason

  "Why (I think) you should start with Boogiepop & Others?"
  The 2019 Boogiepop contains 4 arcs.

  • Manticore Arc
  • VS Imaginator Arc
  • Backstory
  • King of Distortion Arc

  The 2000s Anime takes place in between the first two arcs, that is "Manticore" & "VS Imaginator" arcs. 2000 Boogiepop is an original story made by MADHOUSE and doesn't really add anything new to the story (i.e., the characters in Boogiepop Phantom, except the Mains won't make any other appearances in 2019 Boogiepop & Others), and just exists in the Boogiepop Universe. 2019 Boogiepop is the main story, 2000 Boogiepop is an original story. Storywise you don't miss anything if you aren't interested in something old but it is an excellent psychological horror that I highly recommend. So, Binge 2019s adaptation and then watch 2000s Boogiepop Phantom.

  "Why I recommend not starting with Boogiepop Phantom 2000?"

  1. 2000 Boogiepop isn't necessary but highly recommended. But the series suffers with character designs. When you start watching Boogiepop, you gradually understand that you should remember the character's names & faces. Due to it's non linear structure, you have to remember events & characters to piece together the puzzle like story.
  2. 2019 Boogiepop does a better job at this than 2000 Boogiepop. So, if you watch the 2019 adaptation first, it makes you familiarize with some important characters that also appear in 2000 adaptation and makes it more clearer to follow the narrative.

  This is just my opinion based on my experience btw.

  

  I think we all have this one moment where a show, a movie or just a short Video you saw on YouTube leaves you in this state of thought, where you just do your daily cores as usual but your mind still revolves around that one experience or memory you had while watching it. This series is one of those for me. I often see people claiming that a certain Anime changed their life, changes their perspective and something along the lines. There might be some people don't really mean everything they say, but whenever I see/read something like that, it just leaves me wondering, "Do I find something like that too?". The Answer is... Still a "NO". Yes, this series made me loose in thought and the closest thing so far, I still think it didn't really changed me that much. Maybe I'm just looking into this too deep or just giving too much value to the word "Change" when mentioned by others, but it sure made me think and that's a great thing I'll remember. Something I don't really understand completely yet it made me think. Whatever reason there is behind, maybe it's just a small intrigue, or maybe it's something I haven't realized yet, but it did made me question a few things about my thoughts, opinions and probably, myself.

  

  And so this ends.
  Hope this might helped you a little.

  Have a nice day!

  Continue on AniList

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