Boogiepop Phantom (2000)

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Director: Takashi Watanabe

Screenplay: Sadayuki Murai

Based on the light novel series by Kouhei Kadono

(Voice) Cast: Mayumi Asano  as Boogiepop, Kyo Nagasawa as Kazuko Suema, Sanae Kobayashi as Manaka Kisaragi, Jun Fukuyama as Manticore Phantom, Rakuto Tochihara as Poom Poom, Kaori Shimizu as Touka Miyashita

A 1000 Anime Crossover

[Major Spoilers Throughout]

Usually there'd be a synopsis but in my personal preference for this review, the plot is itself the first thing to discuss with Boogiepop Phantom. As someone who found this confusing and too difficult as a young fan in his teens, I will say upfront I adored Boogiepop Phantom revisiting the twelve episode series and think it's one of the better horror anime series ever made. If there's a flaw however, and it's a big one that you have to completely excise to have this opinion, and that that it's unfortunately that to completely understand what the hell is going on is entirely based on this 2000 series being actually a sequel to the original source material, Boogiepop and Others by Kouhei Kadono, and continues on from itself regardless of knowing that material's set up. (There was, before you the reader ask, a live action adaptation of said original light novel). I find however that, really, this big flaw is less to do with the gaps in the plot left, which I will admit could be irritating for some, but that when Boogiepop Phantom is itself a great psychological horror series with an emphasis more on drama and human psychology, with some sci-fi tropes emphasised as it goes along, the issue for me is that Kadono's source material in the few references you get feels far less interesting and comes off as a prototype of the bad and convoluted light novel source materials I've encountered obsessed with over elaborating lore. There's less interest for me that the phantoms and monsters in this series all stem from when an alien named Echoes lands on Earth, but that the scientists stupid enough to create a serum and various failed entities like a "Manticore", a human eating entity stalking this unnamed Japanese city, from this being kick start this more interesting series of character dramas wrapped around a central plot.

There are a few details which never get explained in this series and clearly come from the prequel - particularly the figures vaguely seen in the catalyst for this entire series, a pillar of light caused during a fight which is the first thing we witness in this series and is the beginning of it even if said series skips up to five and seven years before that moment. Barring this, and some details like the Manticore's origins, are frankly superfluous when a meaty tale is presented to you instead. Even the little unexplained or vaguely explained details, as various non-human and human figures encroach this city, do not need the source material as it feels like the series give enough to be intrigued. There is of course the saying film director David Lynch has said where he hates when a mystery is finally explained - and whilst Boogiepop Phantom has a satisfying conclusion, it not only forces you to work with the material in its challenging presentation, but the strange lack of clarity is also as much the series' virtue.

When the pillar of light erupts, causing a brief power cut on the entire city, various individuals across the urbanscape develop unnatural powers, many of them revealed to have been injected with a mysterious serum that a female doctor has acquired and, in an ill advised decision, decided to be a mad scientist with causing untold grief and mayhem as a result. The Manticore, feeding off unsuspecting victims, is haunting the streets and there is also another mysterious entity seeking to the mutated figures to dispose of them. There is also the Boogiepop, a frightening figure viewed as a being of death due to their link to various teenagers disappearing, a figure who could be a figure of good or evil...its revealed that there are actually two Boogiepops wandering the dark streets and underpasses and neither is what you'd expect. Boogiepop Phantom works, especially in lieu of its extreme non-linear storytelling, as its tale even in lieu of its connection to other source material has a lot to still be enticed by, detailed and weird in a compelling way that, juggling so much, it is compelling.

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That you have to work with the series is as much why this is the case, and likely (rightly) this series has a cult status. Boogiepop Phantom is a very demanding series for grasping details from, this series building up to the last episode with patience. A lot of this challenging presentation feels deliberate. That the realistic character designs cause character to look similar to the point you could get confused at times, especially with many cast members for one episode appearances or more. That, due to the aurora that covers the cityscape, the series has a drained colour palette, contrasted noticeably by the final episode with full colour finally appearing. That the structure of the series is completely out of order until the ending, fragments from before the pillar of light takes place, over five to more years before, and immediately onwards after, forcing the viewer to place the pieces together even within the same episode. Characters from the next episode are introduced briefly in the previous, events are seen from different angles and overlap and, were it not for the episodes showing intertitles stating the time and place, this series could've gotten so much harder or more dreamlike then it is. Thankfully, this challenge is why the series has so much mood and personality as it is, especially when it justifies it with the quality with the storytelling.

The series keeps the viewers on their toes, episodic stories which build to the climax with a few noticeable reoccurring characters - Boogiepop, Kazuko Suema who is a high school student who survived mutation killing her and has decided to prowl the streets as a one girl exorcist to stop who is a high school student who has decided to prowl the streets to stop the supernatural events taking place, and figures like Poom Poom, a mysterious little boy in a Pied Piper costume of unnatural origins, or Manaka Kisaragi, a mentally disabled young woman who can created butterflies of light which induce memories, usually painful or locked away, to those they touch.

Through all this, and why Boogiepop Phantom succeeds even if its tied to a more convoluted narrative from the larger source material, is that this is a series built on episodic tales between these figures which are moral fables or tales of real, uncomfortable subject matter amplified by the unnatural entities in this world. Of a slacker whose unhealthy obsession with a younger female co-worker in a restaurant is fed by wanting to turn her into the 2D Moe character in a PC game like a more subservient version of Pygmalion, an unhealthy misogynist fetish fed by the hallucinations of a drug he is completely addicted to. A girl with obsessive compulsive disorder and a complex relationship with a boy she had a crush on that comes to haunt her in the first episode of the series. A guy who can devour the bad memories of others, removing them in a form of amnesia, as they are personified by bugs on their breast he literally consumes and only he can see. That Poom Poom is a literal piper, who can take away a person's inner child with a red balloon to play with him forever in an abandoned theme park, only for those who allowed him to do so, to escape from their current day and their broken dreams, to usually feel more hollow and in one tragic case commit suicide against the piano she was told she wasn't good enough to play.

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These stories are why, even with the issues of the source material, Boogiepop Phantom is a great series everyone should see. One of the best aspects of Japanese horror, even at its most lurid and ridiculous, is that there was never an issue of weaving human drama and ordinary environments into their stories settings. In contrast to a lot of mainstream Western horror which over simplifies this type of drama or even sets the stories in abstract, separate environments - castles, woodland etc. - in much Japanese cinema and storytelling, likely due to the importance of the supernatural in their culture even in urban myths, the unnatural walks among the ordinary public with greater frequency rather than character having to go outside their ordinary environments to be in peril. Particularly with modern horror stories, they also deal with themes of urban alienation, technology's moral issues and pertinent issues like suicide and self harm without any issue as this shows.

Boogiepop is the same only with its unique style, not only its unconventional fragmented aesthetic but also the tools to create its atmosphere. Due to the plot, as mentioned a few times, the colour palette is limited for most of its length. Real life footage is spliced throughout as well that sometimes feels like it was shot on VHS. The music as well is vital to the mood, the score impeccable between actual melody and pure electronic noise. The opening and ending credits songs, whilst they might sound deeply inappropriate, have the right air to them after multiple episodes - the opening song in particular is the best, a lounge romance song which actually becomes more appropriate as the lyrics are suitably melancholic alongside the general tone of the melody, sounding its being played in a dingy bar after midnight.

In fact, watching Boogiepop Phantom is really a testament to why Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) being such a smash hit really proved to be a reward for anime fans. It is completely different in genre but, with its acclaim and notoriety, it did usher in far more unconventional series in tone and story, not just in the mecha genre as the likes of Serial Experiments Lain (1998), the closest to Boogiepop in tone, show which could've only been made because of that 1995 series being such a success. Boogiepop Phantom in particular, even if its speculation from my part, feels like it was deliberately made to be watched by a dazed, narcoleptic otaku after midnight on a tiny television, its difficult plot structure willing to induce a fan base to have it recorded or watched every week and the tone, from the opening lounge song over live action footage of Japanese streets to the horror's more psychological edges, feeling like it would've sucked in some unexpected viewers channel surfing and made converts. Boogiepop Phantom at least was riding the zeitgeist, even into the 2000s, of experimental and bold anime Evangelion let the gates opened for and considering the virtues that Boogiepop shows throughout, its small and constant cult is one I'm gladly part of.

Abstract Spectrum: Dreamlike/Melancholic/Mindbender/Non-Chronological/Surreal

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): High

Personal Opinion:

An absolute pleasure to return to; I had nothing in terms of memory of the series barring my confusion back as a teenager, the desire to return back to Boogiepop Phantom an awareness that as an adult I'd appreciate it far more than before. How right that instinct turned out to be.

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