Boogiepop Never Laughs Archives

Pop Goes The Fear Ghoul?

Posted on March 21, 2019March 19, 2019 by Karandi

Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 12 Review

I’m going to keep this super brief. This episode we meet the murderer guy and it turns out he killed Nagi’s dad because he was digging into the death of a middle-schooler who may have evolved or whatever. Jump ahead and the murderer guy is now investigating the fear ghoul because the victims are mounting and he runs into Nagi who is also investigating.

It’s all a little bit contrived and at the same time kind of gratifying given it brings things together in a way they really haven’t come together before. Still, there’s not much else to say about the episode.

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Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 13 Review

Then we get episode 13 which is the end of this arc. I’d like to say we learned something profound, but mostly things come to a natural conclusion. Natural in only a way that Boogiepop can do natural meaning there’s some mental gymnastics involved in making sense of anything but at least we get to watch Nagi fighting again. So far that has been the highlight of the series.

Actually, watching the initial connection between Boogiepop and Nagi forming was kind of fun in general. It kind of puts stuff that has happened in the other stories into a little more context, even if the whole ‘Echoes planet being destroyed’ part was still very weird and didn’t really fit with anything else that was going on in the story.

I’m actually still not sure in general why we needed aliens in this story. Though it would probably help if I paid a little more attention but I can’t help but find my focus drifting during each episode. The slow pace and monotone nature of the dialogue certainly doesn’t help.

But, that arc is done and there’s still episodes out so I’ll probably review another two next week to try to catch up with this one.

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Karandi James

Things Finally Seem To Be Popping Along

Posted on February 21, 2019February 16, 2019 by Karandi

Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 8 Review

After episodes of very little happening, this episode seemed to be in a rush to pack in a lot. That said, we don’t seem all that much further along but at least while watching there was a sense of forward movement.

And that is very important because while the characters were no more interesting and the visuals are still what they have been, because it felt like the plot was at least propelled in some general direction it kept me focused on this episode in a way I haven’t really been with this series previously. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a heap I don’t get, but I was really getting drawn into the events of this episode at least.

That doesn’t mean it was all smooth sailing. I mean, we had the conversation between the mopey girl who people ask who would be a killer in the class (still haven’t managed to remember her name) and Jin, the art guy Imaginator, where she’s staring out a window and he’s sitting at a table behind her. Looking at the frame all I could think was it was a soap-take because nobody has a conversation like that.

Character motives remain murky and the destination of all of this is still unclear but it kind of seems like things have come together for this arc at least. It’s incredibly messy story telling, and not the good kind of messy, and realistically I think they would have really benefited from thinking through how each of these characters should be presented because for me they are all still more or less sub-in-and-out-able as I barely remember any one of these characters as more than their back story that we are told or one personality trait that other characters point out. It kind of makes it hard to be overly invested.

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GHOULBOY [LIMITED EDITION]

The Interesting Premise That Just Keeps Putting Me To Sleep

Posted on February 17, 2019February 16, 2019 by Karandi

Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 7 Review

Well, conceptually this remains interesting and the execution remains incredibly dull. I actually did fall asleep during this episode and had to go back and watch again. As much as I’d love to know what is going on, I just find each and every character here completely flat.

Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 7 Spooky E

In this fourth part of the story VS Imaginator we continue to follow various characters doing various things without really knowing why. We get back story on a relationship between two people who have already well and truly moved on from that point given one is the Imaginator and the other gets brain zapped almost immediately after. It all just has me nodding off and really wondering how they manage to make the interesting concepts here so incredibly boring to watch.

Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 7 — I know they are going for a style here, but this is just ugly to look at.

I do put a lot of the problem down to the visuals. That isn’t the only issue, but when the anime looks very ordinary at best, and frequently ugly, it just can’t visually distract form the unmoving characters and the slow pacing of the plot. With the characters also not being all that interesting (sure they might look interesting on paper but they all just kind of feel the same as they go through the motions of the plot) there’s just not a lot left to save this one.

I’ll definitely finish the series. It has managed to make me want to know what is going on. But that’s about the only thing it has really succeeded at and while it isn’t bad to watch, when I am not so tired that I’m dozing off regardless, it also isn’t something I’m overly keen on. I know I won’t rewatch it no matter how good the ending is because I just don’t have any interest in watching these characters again.

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F.S.S. DESIGNS 6 XROSS JAMMER

Beware The Dull and Languid Pacing

Posted on February 7, 2019February 6, 2019 by Karandi

Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 6 Review

So stuff keeps happening and this arc is at least easy enough to follow but what that makes really clear is that these character are not interesting and the pace is painfully slow. If you enjoy standing on roofs or at gates watching characters talk this one might grab you but otherwise there’s a lot of waiting for uninteresting characters to do fairly ordinary things and meanwhile there’s a mystery that remains more or less in the background never getting the focus it deserves.

To say that this story still hasn’t grabbed me six episodes in would be an understatement. While the first arc can look at its disjointed narrative structure as a reason things didn’t click, this second arc can’t really hide behind that because while we are perspective jumping here the plot itself is relatively easy to follow. What isn’t working is that none of these characters have made any kind of impact and they all stand around talking a lot.

And this isn’t normal conversation or ever quirky and interesting conversation. They discuss book quotes, hypothetical situations, philosophy, but rarely does anyone have a conversation that actually just gets to a point or moves directly from point a to b. Again, this is a stylistic choice and some anime have managed to make unnatural and stilted dialogue work just fine for them, but here it just bores me so much watching these barely moving characters speaking in flat tones at one another.

The only thing this anime has going for it is the basic mystery of what is going on with Boogiepop and these other supernatural elements. It isn’t much at this point, but it is keeping me from dropping this.

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CHOGOKIN ONE PIECE: GOING MERRY -ONE PIECE ANIME 20TH ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL EDITION-

Boogiepop Begins To Reveal Its Secrets

Posted on January 6, 2019January 12, 2019 by Karandi

Boogiepop wa Warawania Episode 2 Review

I said in my episode 1 review that delaying reveals can payoff if you keep the audience interested enough, and Boogiepop seems to want to keep us relatively interested. While more mysteries come into being in episode 2 with discussion now of shady government organisations and aliens we get a different perspective on some of the events that intersected with episode 1 to fill in some of the details and it creates an intriguing mix of information and questions.

None of that has really helped this along visually and the pacing within episode 2 is still pretty languid. This anime is in no rush to reveal, show its hand, or even move on to the next scene as it lingers over conversations and cups of tea. That isn’t to say nothing is happening, it is just taking its time and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a mystery.

While I’m still not 100% sold on this one, the premise is interesting enough, some of the characters this week started to actually have some character (actually I’m not sure why this couldn’t have been episode one with a few minor additions), and the story seems to be taking shape. Hopefully another episode or two and I’ll be caught up in this one.

There’s been quite a bit of chatter about the original anime which apparently aired back in 2000. Maybe at some point I’ll look for it but for now I’m pretty happy to see how this one goes.

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Boogiepop Phantom Big Key Chain Suema Kazuko

Leaving the Audience On The Outside in Boogiepop

Posted on January 5, 2019January 12, 2019 by Karandi

Boogiepop Wa Warawanai Episode 1 Review

I am aware that this anime has some history and that some people will be fairly familiar with the subject matter here. I’m not one of them. I’d never heard of this one until the promotional materials for the Winter season started floating around and even then I only kind of paid it a vague kind of attention. As such, I went in fairly cold though the tags of psychological and mystery seemed like it might be something I’d really enjoy.

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. We don’t really know how or why it resolved other than it did and it seems like things aren’t actually resolved at all.

There’s a strategy at play here and anyone new to the material will be wondering now just where this is going. There’s certainly lots of intriguing questions about the mystery, about Boogiepop, and even just about the ‘normal’ characters we’ve encountered.

Boogiepop wa Warawanai Episode 1 Boogiepop

The question is whether or not this episode succeeded in being interesting enough to make the audience care about pursuing those questions. Realistically, that’s borderline for me. The opening song was pretty average to dull (though it might grow on me), the animation and character designs are also pretty average. So far none of the characters have particularly grabbed my interest, not even the cloak and hat wearing Boogiepop and I don’t think I can recall a single other character name.

I’m going to give this one a bit more time because it does feel like this might go somewhere and it’s listed genres are ones I usually enjoy. Still, if there isn’t a noticeable pick up in the next couple of episodes or something that really hooks me I’ll probably leave this one.