BOOGIEPOP PHANTOM Reviewer: Iryl Email: Private. Website: http://www.hugglebunny.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Anime Episodes: 12 Seasons: 1 Movies: 1 OVA: 0 Price: $26.99 Movie DVD (amazon.com) $(Price Varies) DVDs (amazon.com) $(Price Varies) DVD Boxed Set (amazon.com) Rated: R Catagories: Action Drama Fantasy Horror Mystery ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Review Synopsis: The 12 episode series follows the people who encounter one of three characters: Nagi the teen investigator, Boogiepop Phantom, or the girl with the shining memory butterflies. The show takes place in a small community, and characters are thrown at you like pine needles. It takes a sharp eye and a sharper memory to keep them all straight. Boogiepop Phantom is out searching for kids touched by evolution, forced to gain powers before the world is ready. Nagi Kirama is investigating the mysterious "organization" which may be responsible for a number of deaths, as well as this new evolution. The girl with the butterflies . . . well, she's a mystery better solved yourself. Age Rating: Older teens can watch this, but it's fairly dark and the plot is really convoluted (hard to follow). There is also some semi-graphic blood, violence, and death. Adult Content: Sometimes a evolutionary power is used in an interesting way. Like the boy who eats soul spiders -- he essentially "gropes" women to get the bug. In one particular episode, a boy is obsessed with a girl. He gets out of touch with reality and sexually harasses her. No skin or sexual situations. Magic: Evolved humans gain new and creepy powers. Members of "the organization" sometimes have creepy powers. Overall -- What You Really Want to Know: Here's the deal: this story is told in a very convoluted way. It confuses the heck out of you until the last episode, and even then you'll have to be paying close attention to get what is going on. It's not for the young or the casual viewer. For children, the main drawbacks are that it's dark and kind of graphic. I mean, it's not even as graphic with blood and guts as "Full Metal Alchemist," but this anime is more consistently dark in tone than "FMA." For those who have difficulty with complicated plots, this show follows a different character every episode and they all tend to look alike (no helpful blue hair here, folks). So it can get very jumbled very fast. One of the best, most artistic things about this anime is that it tells the story of the main characters by telling the stories of the people who encounter the main characters. So the person you're following all episode is someone that you probably won't see again for the entire anime -- except that they might be referenced later, like, "Hey, did you know so-and-so disappeared?" "Really?" "Yeah." Names get thrown at you like poison darts, and it's the most fun (sarcasm) when they refer to someone you haven't met yet but who is vitally important to the plot. My opinion: it's a good show. It's presented in more of an artistic way than most, which I deeply appreciate, and even though it's "weird," it's a good kind of weird that definitely comes together at the end. It does require a viewer who can handle artsy plots, and it's not necessarily a "feel good" show, though it isn't as depressing as the dark tone suggests. It's mostly a story that gives you clue after clue, and then gives you the last vital piece at the end. And it's all laid out before you like a puzzle that you couldn't quite make out before. It's a rather nice experience. Satisfying. So here's the plot at its most basic (mild spoilers): Humans are evolving, and a mysterious, mystical underground organization that deals with human evolution is powerful and sinister, and we don't get a lot of concrete "this is what they're about" information. One of the head honchos in the organization is the Manticore. Nagi Kirama is a teenaged girl investigating the organization. Boogiepop, aka Death, is the traumatized, alternate (separate) identity of another teenaged girl. Nagi Kirama, a boy named Saotome, and Boogiepop are all present at the death of Manticore, which takes place 5 years prior to our story. Manticore's death releases a bright light, and Manticore splits into several pieces, all of which go into other forms. One of these forms takes on the appearance of the real Boogiepop just because she's nearby -- it becomes Boogiepop Phantom. Boogiepop Phantom is busy hunting down a) the other forms of Manticore and b) the human kids whose evolution is sped up by the event of Manticore's death and/or by other machinations, since society is not ready for evolved humans. You can tell the two Boogiepops apart mostly by their voices -- one is kind of echo-y and the other is more normal. Also, Boogiepop Phantom looks a little more ethereal than the original Boogiepop. MAJOR SPOILER SECTION! NOTHING BUT SPOILERS AHEAD! THINGS YOU WON'T GET UNTIL THE LAST 2 EPISODES! And here's the plot with a lot more spoilers but not necessarily all of the spoilers (WARNING! If you want to be surprised, don't read this!): Nagi Kirama (our black-clad teenaged investigator) was in the hospital years ago because she was evolving. The Detective, who she is in love with, is part of the underground organization. He sneaks in and gives her an immunization and stops her evolution, but is killed for his betrayal. When he is killed, a girl* witnesses the murder and forms an alternate personality (?) called Boogiepop, who has all the same powers that we see in Boogiepop Phantom. When Manticore is shattered by Nagi, Saotome, and Boogiepop (though we never see how he is destroyed, they are all present) later, his consciousness is split into sections. Section 1 becomes an electrical being that looks exactly like Saotome. Section 2 becomes Boogiepop Phantom, who is hunting down the other Manticore sections and destroying them, as well as making the evolved kids sleep until the world is ready for them. Section 3 goes into a little girl with glowing butterflies, who was already as evolved as one could get (she is Echoes because she can only repeat what other people say). The white light that Manticore gives off during this event causes some children to evolve. The immunization fluid that The Detective used on Nagi is used by some unscrupulous folk to force more kids to evolve. Boogiepop Phantom must take care of this. Boogiepop Phantom puts all the evolved kids in stasis in a giant web sac underground until they can be safely awoken (presumably far in the future). And there are, of course, some minions sent out by the organization to do who-knows-what. One of them is a cop. You can tell organization people from real people because they talk about cryptic organization stuff and composite humans and some really weird, confusing things that they don't fully explain to you until later. * Who is the original Boogiepop? Scroll down. * Are you sure you want to know? Scroll down. * Toka. She and Boogiepop are separate entities sharing the same body. Boogiepop was created by her encounter with The Detective's death. They seem to know about one another but cannot be "awake" in the body at the same time. <--- http://hugglebunny.com/animereviews/ --->