"Boogiepop Phantom" (2000) is a 12-part TV series that takes Japanese animation into some of the new psychological dimensions pioneered by "Serial Experiments Lain" back in 1998. Like "Lain," it focuses on a cast of troubled Japanese high school kids, but steers clear of the earlier series' cyberspace trappings, drawing instead on the more subtle horror stylings found in such live-action Japanese successes of recent years as RING and UZUMAKI. Most of the teens highlighted in "Boogiepop" are visited by imaginary characters or "see" things or people that their classmates can't. The elusive female title figure, a self-proclaimed "Angel of Death," appears on occasion to try to intervene on behalf of the tormented kids. One seemingly normal girl, Nagi Kirima, emerges as the series' sole heroine. Not untouched by trauma herself, she is aware of all the weird goings-on and actively tries to investigate and do something about them.
Based on a popular series of novels by Kadono Kouhei (as yet unavailable in English), the series plays interesting tricks with time, jumping back and forth between past and present incidents in the teens' lives, often presenting certain events from different characters' viewpoints. Five years earlier, strange phenomena occurred in the small Japanese city where the series is set, set off by an inexplicable beam of light that burst forth at night from the city up to the sky. A series of unsolved killings took place around the same time. All of the characters in the cast were irrevocably affected by that time and experience frequent flashbacks to those events.
Eventually, in the course of the 12 episodes, it becomes clear, at least to this reviewer, that the series is really about the psychic pain of growing up in the Japanese social system. Children are not adequately protected by the adults in their lives and their childhood dreams are inevitably shattered quite early. One fanciful imaginary character, Poom Poom, who seems to have emerged from the psyches of two separate wounded souls, acts as a Pied Piper to all the troubled kids, inviting them to an abandoned amusement park that comes to spectacular life at his command. One riveting scene, arguably the key to the whole series, involves a confrontation at the park between Poom Poom and the indignant Boogiepop herself. The stories behind Poom Poom's creation are particularly heart-wrenching and reflect the kind of everyday trauma that creative, sensitive kids experience quite frequently, not just in Japan, but in almost any large, faceless bureaucratic school system. The live-action film BATTLE ROYALE, a major Japanese hit of 2000, offered a similar message of indictment of Japanese society and its treatment of children, but the longer form "Boogiepop" takes a less visceral, more multifaceted approach, relating the kids' stories one by one and detailing exactly what went wrong and at what point.
"Boogiepop" has been accomplished via the digital animation process that dominates Japanese animation today. While the digital process is often simply a lazy substitute for the greater complexity of hand-drawn artwork, it is used quite creatively here and is well-suited to the particular psychological mood created by the shifting points-of-view and subjective storytelling. This is a far cry from traditional Japanese animation and its stylistic advances should be judged on their own merits.
"Boogiepop Phantom" stands out as an extremely demanding and challenging piece but one that will strike the more serious fan as an anime work of art, employing technical skill, visual imagination and keen insight to illuminate the hidden layers of the human condition.
Based on a popular series of novels by Kadono Kouhei (as yet unavailable in English), the series plays interesting tricks with time, jumping back and forth between past and present incidents in the teens' lives, often presenting certain events from different characters' viewpoints. Five years earlier, strange phenomena occurred in the small Japanese city where the series is set, set off by an inexplicable beam of light that burst forth at night from the city up to the sky. A series of unsolved killings took place around the same time. All of the characters in the cast were irrevocably affected by that time and experience frequent flashbacks to those events.
Eventually, in the course of the 12 episodes, it becomes clear, at least to this reviewer, that the series is really about the psychic pain of growing up in the Japanese social system. Children are not adequately protected by the adults in their lives and their childhood dreams are inevitably shattered quite early. One fanciful imaginary character, Poom Poom, who seems to have emerged from the psyches of two separate wounded souls, acts as a Pied Piper to all the troubled kids, inviting them to an abandoned amusement park that comes to spectacular life at his command. One riveting scene, arguably the key to the whole series, involves a confrontation at the park between Poom Poom and the indignant Boogiepop herself. The stories behind Poom Poom's creation are particularly heart-wrenching and reflect the kind of everyday trauma that creative, sensitive kids experience quite frequently, not just in Japan, but in almost any large, faceless bureaucratic school system. The live-action film BATTLE ROYALE, a major Japanese hit of 2000, offered a similar message of indictment of Japanese society and its treatment of children, but the longer form "Boogiepop" takes a less visceral, more multifaceted approach, relating the kids' stories one by one and detailing exactly what went wrong and at what point.
"Boogiepop" has been accomplished via the digital animation process that dominates Japanese animation today. While the digital process is often simply a lazy substitute for the greater complexity of hand-drawn artwork, it is used quite creatively here and is well-suited to the particular psychological mood created by the shifting points-of-view and subjective storytelling. This is a far cry from traditional Japanese animation and its stylistic advances should be judged on their own merits.
"Boogiepop Phantom" stands out as an extremely demanding and challenging piece but one that will strike the more serious fan as an anime work of art, employing technical skill, visual imagination and keen insight to illuminate the hidden layers of the human condition.