Anime 37451 Boogiepop Wa Warawanai 2019 Reviews Filter Check 2

The name Boogiepop is pretty stellar. It’s catchy and unique, of course, but it also has a wealth of meaning behind it not many people are aware of, at least not here in the West. The name Boogiepop is a self-deprecating inside joke Kouhei Kadono, the author of the original novels, thought up to mock himself and his struggles in actually getting said novels published. Kadono has always been something of an arthouse writer, and he had quite a hard time getting any of his initial works published since he had yet to make a name for himself and all the publishers he approached said ... they simply couldn’t turn a profit printing pieces with such little popular appeal and no audience base, even after—according to Kadono—honestly admitting how good they were. To successfully break out into the market, Kadono made a compromise with himself. He decided to tone down his more abstruse, niche stylization, his self-proclaimed “boogie” writing, and tone up the more accessible, popular style which the inherently cynical publications were willing to print, hence the name Boogiepop: a forced dichotomy between the imagination of an auteur and the creative restraint of a corporate shill, “boogie” and “pop.” The original anime adaptation of the series, Boogiepop Phantom (2000), which was also produced by Madhouse, is founded on that so-called “boogie” style. It seeks to be tonally expressive, narratively experimental, visually symbolic, deep seated in the thematic gravity of the novels which the adaption team clearly had an genuinely intimate understanding of, and most importantly, it sought to market itself toward a largely mature target audience. On the other hand, this new adaptation, Boogiepop and Others (2019), is founded on the “pop” style, which seeks merely to appeal to the lowest common denominator of kids and teenagers with obtusely frenetic action, archetypal writing, generic self-insert character designs, spoon-fed theming, and as much modern anime pandering as they could fit in the package.

While my irrepressible love and respect for the masterful novel series this terribly disappointing and wildly misguided adaptation was based on will inevitably turn this review into a thinly veiled diatribe, there is a fair deal of credit to give where it’s actually due. Firstly, the show looks gorgeous…in ways. As mentioned, the artwork is stylistically abysmal. It doesn’t look like Boogiepop should look nor feel like Boogiepop should feel; it’s simply the most accessible, basic art style imaginable which has completely abandoned the textured, almost brooding darkness which characterized the original novels and the atmospherically brilliant original adaptation. However, the actual technical quality of animation—while plagued with about as much inconsistency as any other anime these days—can get stupidly high and make the show a feast for the senses if not for the discerning eyes. I remember hearing the Natsume Team at Madhouse had dropped One Punch Man and being utterly dumbstruck. Why in the world would they’ve dropped one of the industry’s most profitable titles in decades? The manga is always best selling and the anime was an international success, so what could possibly have taken precedence over such a commercial giant? Apparently, this. Director Shingo Natsume utilized many of the same connections he called upon for One Punch Man and Space☆Dandy and landed the show with some positively daring fight choreography and bombastic sakuga—sometimes even to a fault, seeing as a significant portion of episode directors working on the project clearly did not share his creative vision for Boogiepop, but for now I’m getting ahead of myself. Despite the exceptionally clever, thoughtful, and inventive antagonists of the novels being reduced to needlessly enigmatic, vapidly motivated, edgy shounen-style villains, I’d be lying if I said their respective confrontations and subsequent defeats weren’t animated about as well and with about as much personality as Madhouse could’ve managed, and even if the moment-to-moment of the show looked boring as hell, when it occasionally went all out, it brought to life scenes I never thought I’d see outside my imagination, and even I can’t deny that gratification.

Even with the visuals being so strong, at least technically, the audio is even better, and more importantly, more emblematic of what Natsume was actually going for with this evidently fallacious adaptation. While the sound design—a facet of production which is seemingly overlooked to a greater and greater degree with each passing day as studios realize their main audience, young people, lack any critical sense for quality soundscapes—is expectedly lackluster, the actual score is outstanding. The composer, Kensuke Ushio, truly is the rising star of the anime industry, praised for all his rightfully acclaimed work from Devilman Crybaby’s revolutionary synthwave, Liz and the Blue Bird’s outright emotive orchestra, Koe no Katachi’s SFX-based composition, and Ping Pong: The Animation’s unforgettably rousing, electrifying soundtrack which amounted to one of the best anime has ever seen. While his music for Boogiepop and Others (2019) doesn’t quite reach the heights of his more legendary work, it’s still as magnificent as you’d expect given his repertoire, but the fact his distinct style is what Natsume was looking for in a composer speaks volumes about why this adaptation feels so off. If you’ve had the pleasure of listening to Ushio’s music before, you’ll know what I’m talking about, but the fact Natsume thought Ushio’s calming aesthetic jibed with the experimental identity of Boogiepop in any way whatsoever really shows why he missed the mark. The novels are mature, and therefore root their humanity in their nuanced characterization. Almost every novel after the first is fueled not by character, but by mystery, spectacle, and metric tons of Kadono meticulously expounding on his genius theming and bizarre concepts, all of which simply do not play well with Ushio’s soft, ambient sound. Boogiepop is contemplative and poignant, certainly, but while the first book wherein these few chapters of concentrated emotion lie would fit well with Ushio’s music, these moments are cut from the anime in their entirety, or worse yet, edited around to such a degree they lost all the catharsis which they had in the original. And this is the problem with Boogiepop and Others (2019): if you’ve read the novels, then the characters and themes will’ve lost all thought, and if you haven’t, then how could you even invest in such a hollow cast or be intrigued by such vacuous symbolism in such a seemingly aimless storyline?

Natsume has more than proven himself as a talented director in the past with his work on One Punch Man, the action spectacle you all know and love, and the infinitely better yet infinitely lesser known police procedural, ACCA: Jusan-ku Kansatsu-ka, and if One Punch Man showed us his phenomenal action direction and ACCA his equally phenomenal character direction, then Boogiepop and Others (2019) showed us just how well he could combine the two into a show as (potentially) exciting as it is (potentially) contemplative. Sadly, the script absolutely annihilated any sense of flow which those two works had and greatly limited his skill as a director. The writers of this adaptation very blatantly ordered scenes as if checking off boxes on a bulleted list and make no attempt to add characterization, style, personality, or nuance, simply wanting to show X, Y, and Z just for the sake of having shown it. Myriad scenes had frankly choppy execution, were poorly edited, had awkward pacing, and were made with poor sound design and messy audio mixing. Additionally, what exactly is shown on screen has been greatly edited and sometimes completely censored from what the original anime adaptation was willing to show in gore and what the original novels were willing to show in nudity. The characters are empty husks, since they’re given no time to be anything otherwise. It absolutely speeds through the narrative and character arcs alike, zooming past all the central themes, every chance to humanize the cast, and the alluring tone which had me and so many others in love with the original works. I know I sound like a broken record, but this is all yet another manner in which this new adaptation derails itself from its more adult source material and constricts its own charisma to sell out to the younger, more vast, more accessible audience who just want to watch some flashy action sakuga and go home. They cram an entire chapter of the novel into episode one alone—one of the most dense setup chapters to a novel I've ever read in my life into a single twenty minute episode—only to then cram the next three chapters into episode two, unceremoniously blazing through a major character death which served as the entire emotional crux of the original novel just so they could get to the fight sequence in chapter five as soon as possible, even though their speedy pacing totally killed the tension it would’ve had if they had properly built up to it.

To be fair, this problem lessens as the show continues because Natsume entrusted more technically pivotal scenes to outsourced key animators, episode animation directors, and in the case of the Boogiepop Overdrive arc, even a whole new storyboarding team. There were some Ex-Sunrise/Bones animators, some WIT Studio animators in both the show and the opening, and even some Trigger boys. Obviously, this had them ending up with the drastically inconsistent levels of quality I mentioned forever ago, which just so happened to align the “worse” at the beginning and the “better” at the finale. I mean, in hindsight, that opening itself told me everything I needed to know about this new adaptation in a hopelessly forthright fashion. With MYTH & ROID being as invested as they’ve historically been in the projects they're involved with, the opening theme for Boogiepop and Others (2019) is great. It’s nowhere near as unique, striking, tone setting, and memorable as the opening theme for Boogiepop Phantom (2000), but it still got it right more than the rest of this show did, and it warns of what the show had in store for me by being paired with an opening animation which is just a bunch of pseudo-symbolic bullshit having nothing at all to do with Boogiepop or its original message. MYTH & ROID’s theme, “Shadowgraph,” is about loss of self and general despondence and dissociation with social norms and stigma, which, while not directly touching on Boogiepop’s central theme of normalcy, is at least directly relevant to the narrative and characters, but the visuals and animation itself are nothing of the sort. And speaking of theme songs, the lack of insert songs in this show was actually, physically painful for a fan as obsessed as I am. They didn’t play Oingo Boingo’s “No One Lives Forever” during the big Manticore scene even though a song that old would've been a breeze to get the license for—especially for a production team able to get the permission to air five weeks worth of made-for-TV anime back-to-back, by the way—nor did they have Boogiepop appear at the school whistling Composer Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” despite the fact it MADE that scene in the novels, only to then use it later in the Boogiepop VS Imaginator arc anyway. I swear, it’s almost like the staff forgot when and why they should care.

I apologize for dropping my eloquence and devolving into a ranting, raving fangirl in the last little moments there, but hey, I warned you it would happen. Bringing it all back to a place of critical review, though, I think it’d be healthy to unbiasedly examine what we ultimately have here. We have me, some fanatical Boogiepop Superfan who recognizes the perfection of the original novels and will criticize anything and everything which isn’t equally infallible, and a well made yet emotionally, thematically, and stylistically unfulfilling and often destructively unfaithful adaptation. If someone watches this and likes it despite everything I’ve bitched about, then that’s awesome. They have another anime to enjoy. And if someone watches this and sees its hollow core for what it is, then they’ll just read my review or others like it, go check out the originals, and love them instead. Neither scenario is negative. Sure, I’m disappointed a godsent novel series and its superb original adaptation weren’t followed up with by an equally outstanding work of art, but nothing it did offended me, because while it certainly fails to fan Boogiepop’s flaming brilliance and all which makes the series so legendary, it didn’t go and make Boogiepop downright bad. So, at the end of the day, I honestly recommend this show if you’re for some reason hesitant about getting straight into the classics, if only as an introduction to the Boogiepop franchise and giving you that initial push. I know that’s cheating, but I’m honestly just worried if I’m too critical, then I’ll scare people away from one of my favorite titles to date and force them to miss out on what could be one of theirs as well. The last thing I’d want is for you to shy away from a timeless masterpiece because a less than competent adaptation team failed to fully capture its magnificence and some hack asshole on MAL gave the whole property a bad name by going in too hard on their work, which itself is both the worst version of the story, and not even all that bad.

Thank you for reading.

Lackluster adaptation of a great book series. This anime adapts it's source material at such a fast pace that all the nuance and character moments are lost. The first Boogiepop book was full of inner dialogue and had 6 different narrators that saw a central event through different lenses. The beauty of Boogiepop is learning about these narrators and how they view life and what they think is "normal" and then seeing how they react to supernatural occurrences. The anime adapts this first book in 3 episodes and completely lacks inner dialogue. So, the anime feels pretentious with characters spouting out haughty lines with little ... to no context. Because of this the first episode was kinda boring and up it's own ass. Not to mention the anime literally cuts out the most interesting narrator completely, essentially leaving one of my favorite characters in the first book, Kamikishiro, a husk of her book counterpart.

Then there's the production. It looks bad. Animation is lackluster and not very plentiful while characters look bland. They completely changed the character designs from the light novels. Even the light novel and manga adaptation artist went on twitter to complain about these character designs. Characters are also often drawn with no face which really bothers me.

The action animation is sometimes decent and sometimes laughably bad. The rotoscope looking fight scene of episode 3 was so just weird looking I couldnt help but laugh. However, The music from Kensuke Ushio (Liz Blue Bird, Devilman Crybaby), the op/ed, and Yuuki Aoi's voice acting is probably the best part of the show. Also there's weird directing with a lot of cutting from a scene with swelling music straight to silence in another scene which throws me off and annoys me every time it happens.

I wouldn't recommend watching this as all it'll do is spoil the amazing novels in an unsatisfactory way. I'm not saying you can't enjoy the show, I'm sure plenty of people who like a nonlinear mystery story could find it interesting, but as a reader of the light novels I just can't see this as anything but an uninspired butchering of a classic series. I usually dislike the whole "read the manga" stereotype but for real, the difference is night and day when it comes to the Boogiepop Anime vs Light Novels.

Boogiepop is a DC Universe comic about a girl who becomes a superhero after being bitten by a radioactive private detective. Unfortunately, she has a terminal case of chuunibyou, so she dresses in a ridiculous outfit, speaks in a weird voice, whistles a random Wagner melody she once overheard on the radio and spouts the typical chuuni nonsense like “so this is the will of the world” and “I’m the terror that flaps in the night.” There are other people with superpowers, who all want to make the world a better place, usually by killing or brainwashing everyone, so she’s not so bad in comparison. ... There is a mysterious organization whose stated goal is to prevent the emergence of said superpowered freaks, except everything they do achieves the exact opposite - a scalding and totally intentional satire of the ineffectual nonprofits and NGOs that do nothing but create lofty jobs for moral busybodies. There is a guest appearance by Batman, who’s a waifu, because anime. Also, there is a random non-sequitur alien, because JoJo has a random non-sequitur alien, and everyone must know that the author loves JoJo.

If that synopsis doesn’t strike you as very accurate, it’s about as good as everything you hear about this series. Boogiepop employs a convoluted non-linear structure, which, actually, is the best thing about it. Unfortunately, a big chunk of the audience finds it 2confusing4me and another big chunk thinks convoluted equals profound. In its essence, Boogiepop is a cheesy urban fantasy with on-the-nose social commentary about 1990s Japanese society plus some cool mystery elements. It’s also an anime adaptation of a series of books. I’d like to elaborate on the social commentary, mystery and adaptation aspects.

The problem with doing social/political commentary is that it risks becoming outdated very, very fast, and this is exactly what happens here. For example, one of the plotlines (in the original book) involves a gay teen who can’t process feelings he has for another guy because he literally doesn’t know what “gay” is. How plausible does that sound in the Current Year? The anime does a good job of addressing such narrative problems, but that, in turn, attracts ire of the source material readers doing their usual “they’ve changed it, now it sucks” routine. Also, the social commentary here is quite hamfisted to begin with. Said teen is then brainwashed into essentially being a robot, and given an instruction to “await further orders without attracting any attention.” Because he was originally a delinquent, this makes him no longer skip school or get into fights, which prompts all adults around to commend how he has now reformed into a good, productive member of society. Gee, I wonder if there is some sort of message here. It’s only natural, though. Don’t we all have profound conversations with strangers that conveniently fit whatever narrative our author is preaching? That’s just how life works.

Like I said, mystery is a good part of this show. Here is how a typical Boogiepop arc is structured: The first episode begins in medias res, throwing a bunch of characters and supernatural concepts at you, as well as posing some conflict. You’d expect it to dial back to the start and provide some explanations next, but the story instead throws in even more characters and concepts, and there are probably at least two plotlines developing in parallel. It seems overwhelming, but the last episode of the arc actually ties up all the loose ends neatly, providing the necessary answers (key word is “necessary”, doesn’t mean it spoon-feeds you). The plot never tries to be confusing just for the sake of being confusing, there are plenty of things with the sole purpose of helping the viewer to keep up. For example, there is a scene of a character smoking a specific pack of cigarettes shown three times from three different angles just to establish which events happen in what order. The show challenges you to pay attention and appropriately rewards you for doing so. Unfortunately, the non-linear structure kinda fizzles out in the second half of the season, making it less enjoyable.

My last point is that Boogiepop originally is a series of books. This, however, is an anime, and anime are not books. It seems to me that a lot of source material readers struggle to understand that concept. Books can be long. Books can have dozens of plot points explained entirely through narration. Books can be written 20 years ago - the outdated social commentary point. Anime, however, has these things called “episode length”, “pacing”, “show, don’t tell” and “not putting your audience to sleep”. Most criticism I’ve heard coming from disgruntled source material readers is about how this Background Character B should have had two episodes worth of backstory, or how they’ve cut this very important “the guy walks alone for an entire chapter, thinking about stuff” moment. So, if you’ve heard this anime is bad because it is a bad adaptation - that’s uninformed nonsense. Considering the narration-heavy nature of the source, it is adapted about as well as it could’ve possibly been adapted by someone whose name isn’t Oishi Tatsuya and whose studio isn’t SHAFT. If we’re talking about medium-specific things - the animation is not exactly sakuga material, but it competently does its storytelling job. For example, the first big fight looks goofy out of context, but it perfectly sells the narrative point that the fighters in question are supernatural monsters that only look like humans, who obey neither limitations of human anatomy nor gravity. The voice acting of Boogiepop and the OP/ED songs are the high points of the production.

5/10 for a mystery show with some fun to be found, as long as you bother to pay attention and don’t mind anvilicious preaching (or Pokemon-level artistic license on evolution).

I never really feel compelled to write a review but I enjoyed Boogiepop Phantom (2000) that it wouldn't be right to let you know the 2019 series sucks so badly.

Seriously, don't watch it, especially if you were brought here by the 2000 series.

It's super mundane with no substance and which is a shame because of the occasional poignant statement that has you thinking there's a payoff to the dry dialogue otherwise.

The music during episode is actually very interesting, if the dialogue wasn't so desiccated I wouldn't have been able to have appreciated it as such.

Do yourself a favor and just watch Boogiepop ... Phantom (2000)

TL; DR Review

Boogiepop wa Warawanai started off on a very high note. The first arc, although short, was interesting and fun to watch; I loved it overall. The second arc was fun too, not as great as the first one though. However, what ruined it for me was the last arc. This anime, in general, is very vague and I had no idea what was going on at the time, but the last arc was the last straw for me. During the first section of the last arc, I was like, "what the fuck is going on," and we later found out why people were ... asleep, I was already asleep. I kid you not. ZZZZZZZZ. I've rarely fallen asleep watching anime, yet this has succeeded. In case you don't get it, the last arc ruined it for me completely. However, if I were to say one good thing about this anime, it would be that I totally dig the Boogiepop costume and I will cosplay as them.

- Spacecraft555 UwU

Pros:

- Voice acting (sub) was very good. Not only that but the sound design as a whole was very good, also.

- Some of the characters (namely Kirima Nagi and her brother) I found to be very well written. It's always a sign that I find characters well written if I want to know more about them.

- Interesting concept revolving around the Boogiepop mythos. Not quite what I was expecting from this series. Subverted my expectations in a good way.

- The second arc in the series was very good.

... - Soundtrack was very good also.

Cons:

- Extremely slow paced, and often very confusing to follow. Many times I thought about dropping the series altogether because a few times I was so thrown off by how the plot was constructed. While it does add an extra level of mystery that I could maybe see working in some instances, I don't think it fully succeeded here.

- While the artistry was good, but nothing too much to write home about. It was quite dull and muted most of the time, even when it didn't need to be. The character designs were alright, though.

- Quite forgettable. I only finished this series earlier this month, and I still can't tell you what happened in some parts.

- Too many characters. This is probably handled better in the light novel, but in the anime they crammed too many characters in before the audience could comprehend who was who.

Conclusion:

This is a perfectly average psychological thriller series. Some parts are quite good, but overall there's a lot of better stuff out there in this same kind of genre that you'd have a much better time seeing. My recommendation is to watch only if you've read the light novel/manga first, and are already a big fan of it. If that's you, then you may enjoy this more than I did.

I'm fascinated by the fact that the anime is deeply philosophical, I like to get a headache from overthinking, even though it took a strong curve to the point where it annoys some because it hid important things, but I liked it.

The characters are great, especially boogiepop.

Madness is good at it.

The great scenes in my opinion were few, it would have been better if they were more, the music is somewhat good

How can the anime be better than this?. Is there anything that can be added or modified? What is the worst thing about anime? What is the thing that attracts you the most to ... anime?

In my opinion Boogiepop and others is nothing too special. It does not live up to boogiepop Phantom. Largely due to its lack of incredible soundtrack/design and distinct aesthetic Style that are present in Phantom. Additionally, although Boogie pop and others has more episodes, it is telling four different stories that are only Loosely connected, none of which are as good the single story told Boogiepop Phantom.

The whole point of boogiepop is that it is told in an abstract way, it has a bunch of characters and a bunch of different stuff that happens to them, and you aren't necessarily supposed to put ... it all together instantly. The characters are also given very realistic designs which means there's nothing visually distinguishing for a lot of the characters. After I finished watching Boogie pop Phantom I was able to make connections that I didn't pick up on while I was Originally watching, for me this enhanced that show by making it all come together, once I understood what was happening. Although this show was longer it seems as though there is less connections to go back and make, because it's telling multiple stories that aren't really connected. From my current understanding only the main characters of Boogiepop and the other girl are relevant to stories outside the first and last one. I'm sure there are connections that I missed although I have little inspiration to go and rewatch as it would only help to understand that small section as opposed to the whole story, So the story doesn't all come together, Even if everything is understood. And the universe isn't interesting enough or explained enough to allow these stories to stand on their own. I know that the original Source material is capable of creating something so much better, as was proven 20 years earlier, I'm not sure why they changed the distinct style to look like every other anime.

The intro is kind of odd and only relates to like sort of the Second Story, it doesn't really serve as a good Overture for the series. Also Boogiepop kisses with Meeoshta, which is herself, And this is not explained at any point and doesn't really work with the story because Of what is revealed about Boogie pops jealousy.

There are certain aspects of the show that I did enjoy, the way in which the story is told, the weird form of Storytelling I often times found enjoyable, some of the abilities are sort of interesting, oftentimes character dialogue would point out profound and interesting aspects of the story, There was a fair amount of high quality poetic conversation, often times the way that they talked was cool but what they were talking about was not that interesting Or relevant. I thought the building that the last story takes place in was a pretty interesting original concept, unfortunately it didn't feel like they fully expanded on the building aspect, I honestly wanted the building to start moving, I'm not sure how much this would have helped the story but it would have definitely helped my enjoyment of it, as I of course have an affiliation for anime architecture. I think without Boogie pop Phantom I would have a negative opinion of this show but because this show didn't really take away from Boogie pop Phantom it currently barely sneaks out an average opinion from me. For now.

Review contains spoilers for episodes 1-3!!

I walked into Boogiepop with no prior knowledge on the show, and walked out horribly bewildered. This series is extremely confusing and fails to help the watcher understand the direction of the story. While some may find the unknown factors of this anime interesting or attractive, I did not. I also found that the pacing of this show was questionable. The setup and execution of the flashback in episodes 2-3 is a perfect example of my complaints. I did not understand the timeline until the very end of episode 3, and had a difficult time understanding the story content throughout ... it.

The characters were bland, hard to follow, underdeveloped and very cliche. There was not a moment where I wasn't going, "Who's that again? Who do they have a connection with?" This anime suffers from too-many-characters syndrome, too. There's too many people with minor roles and all of them are involved for bullshit reasons.

In all, this show was weird and bad. I would not recommend it to anyone who struggles with focusing or is confused easily.

It's one of those painfully mediocre series with small dialogue lines, that just break you apart.

I don't know what to say about this one. The story is about this weird mystery system where good and evil are always fighting, always spawning out of nowhere because one of the other exists. The protagonists are the people seeking to solve these things, until the supernatural trusts itself to beat each other.

I have to say, the story was just really mediocre for me. Characters don't follow that much logic, only serving as a medium for the story to continue endlessly until the end. A mystery is established, ... with a person following a strange phenomenon in their hearts, or how they're affected by another one with said powers. They discover what's happening, try to fight it, and at the end, the titular, Deus Ex Machina, Boogiepop, appears to set things right. It's a formula, like a monster of the week, with people just doing things to get to the ending. Sure, I cared about some of them, but I can only remember around four characters I wanted to see succeed.

The characters, not much to talk about. The third story was probably my favorite, and I have to go on a tangent to talk about that story. A man, whose done nothing good with his life, encounters a person who he can save at the cost of his own. It's such a simple idea, and we see the consequences of his actions taking part on the rest of the series. He's a person who mattered, for as much as he regrets having done something good for the world. Then another person gets involved with that saved one, and it's such a cathartic idea, that good inspires evil to change, and real evil to die. I loved it, and it was the sole reason I finished the anime, since I expected something similar to that story to play out.

My interest died after that. I dragged myself to reach the ending, and I didn't get much out of it. If only it was all like the third story, but you know, maybe it's just not my thing. My ADHD brain convinced me that this non-linear structure would tell me an interesting ending to everything, but when they stopped using it, it turned way worse, revealing the real problem. If you can't tell a story unless it's with a gimmick, it's not a good story to tell.

4/10. At least the fight scenes are pretty cool. The character designs, though, they really confused me on who was who sometimes. Since some dialogue was superb, I'm inclined to believe the novels are greater by a mile.