Reviewing Anime
Boogiepop wa Warawanai episodes 9 and 10 wrap up the Imaginator arc and kick off the new story. However, as has become fairly customary we're left with more questions than answers and some fairly thin babble to try to close out one mystery. While there is a sense of forward momentum that was sadly lacking in the beginning, the overall experience of watching Boogiepop is still a pretty ordinary one.
Boogiepop wa Warawania Episode 5 review: While saying this is getting better is a positive, the problem is that even better there's still plenty of room for improvement. Shallow characterisation is making it difficult to care about any of the events unfolding and not caring is certainly death for a mystery.
Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 4 Review: And we are straight into another mystery that's somehow tied to the previous one (lot of babble about endings being beginnings, got it, moving on). There's some intriguing ideas here but the languid pace and general lack of excitement is really making it hard to engage.
When a writer chooses to tell a story out of sequence there really should be some kind of reason other than there was an absence of any other narrative hook. Despite the desperate attempt to grab the audience through narrative devices, Boogiepop has fallen pretty flat with its first arc.
Boogiepop Wa Warawanai Episode 2 Review - So you wanted to know about those disappearing girls?
It is hard to judge an anime, any anime, on its first episode alone but honestly the best description I can think of for this first episode is 'sedate'. We meander about watching a few interactions between characters, some rumours and whispers, and hear about missing girls and monsters, and then it is all over and Boogiepop leaves.