Things Finally Seem To Be Popping Along

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]

• Episode 1: Leaving the Audience on the Outside in Boogiepop
• Episode 2: Boogiepop Begins To Reveals Its Secrets
• Episode 3: Disorderly and Dull, Perhaps the Worst Things for a Story To Be
• Episode 4: The Sprouting of a New Imaginator in Boogiepop
• Episode 5: Weak Introductions To Characters We’ll Never Know
• Episode 6: Beward the Dull and Languid Pacing
• Episode 7: The Interesting Premise That Just Keeps Putting Me To Sleep
• Episode 8: Things Finally Seem to be Popping Along
• Episodes 9 and 10: The End of the Imaginator and The Start of a New Arc
• Episode 11: An Enemy of the World
• Episode 12 and 13: Pop Goes the Fear Ghoul?
• Images from: Boogipop wa Warawanai (2019). Dir. S Natsume. Madhouse. 2019.