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53 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing Set for an Amazing Show, March 17, 2002
This review is from: Boogiepop Phantom - Boxed Set (Evolutions 1-4) (DVD)
Do you believe in urban legends? Did you ever feel like someone was following you, or something big was going on around you and you couldn't figure out what it is? If so, this is really the show for you. This show is not for small children. It is a horror show and features some very grotesque scenes of violence. Of course, all of the violence is used appropriately. If there ever was a show that proved that all "cartoons" are not just for children, this is the one. Boogiepop Phantom is an anime based on a series of novels in Japan. The story is told in a fractured way, each of the 12 episodes features a character and how the events that have happened have affected them. This can be good and bad. The way the story is told forces you to focus on one character at a time and keeps your attention. However soon you will start noticing characters from previous episodes interacting with the ones in later episodes, and you'll start to notice some very evident things going on. Boogiepop Phantom (the character) makes appearances in most of the episodes, but her motives are never given until the end of the series. One of the most interesting things about this show is that most of the events happening during the series are taking place after a battle between a student and the Manticore. This battle is only shown in flashback for a few seconds twice. You never really see the whole thing, just flashes of it (and you have to pause your DVD to really see what's going on). There have been many comparisons between this show and Serial Experiments: Lain, but they are two seperate entities. Both shows are very in-depth and require the viewer to think about things in a different perspective, but really that's all there is between them. Lain tells the story of one girl who is learning who she is (more or less), and Boogiepop Phantom is telling more of a traditional story (if you can call it that). As for technical aspects, this DVD set is nearly flawless. Each disc has a beautiful video transfer, and there were no video problems that I could see. The audio is given as English 5.1, Japanese 5.1 and a dubbing director's commentary. The English 5.1 channel soundtrack is the best one I've ever heard. Sound effects, voices and music all make use of the 5 speakers and it's haunting how good this set sounds. For instance, each next episode preview features random lines of dialogue from the coming episode. The both 5.1 soundtracks have the a different voice coming out of each speaker, layering over one another until you don't know where to turn because there are voices all around you. The English dub of this show is very good, and I think it captures the original Japanese track very well. All in all, this is an amazing DVD set, and an amazing series. It deserves all 5 stars that I have given it, and more.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So Now That You've Seen Lain..., May 19, 2002
This review is from: Boogiepop Phantom - Boxed Set (Evolutions 1-4) (DVD)
Obviously the first thing that comes to mind when watching this series is Serial Experiments: Lain. Once you've made one great dark eerie series about [messing] with the heads of the people watching the show, you want to do it again, right? Boogiepop follows a different format than Lain in the way the plot unfolds. You certainly don't need to watch most of the episodes in order. Each episode of BP is sort of self-contained. Each follows one specific character, and at the end of the episode, unlike the reluctant-to-give-information style of Lain, you have a wrap-up of the story that occurred in that episode. The next episode doesn't have much to do with the one you just saw. They all tie together in the end, but not as strongly as Lain. This also makes for a bit of an anticlimactic ending at the end of the series. The final episodes end in a similar way to the other episodes; The final scenes are not intensely dramatic. SE:Lain definetly had a more interesting ending. Despite having whole episodes devoted to each, the characters seemed a bit flat to me. They were developed, but they didn't seem to have much emotion. Although that could just be a side effect of the dark, stern nature of the show. But it makes up for it in creativity. The episode about the guy obsessed with hentai games was definetly my favorite. Then the woman with daily amnesia, that freaky girl with the butterflies, the self-fashioned superheroine Nagi, the enigmatic monsters Snake Eyes and Manticore, and the mysterious Boogiepop herself. You could say Lain's plot was "a little" like something else; BP is definetly a show all its own. Despite a few flaws, I have to give Boogiepop 5 stars. BP is all about suspense, about giving you the hints about what's going on but not quite telling you. I love that moment when it suddenly dawns on you, "That's who that guy in episode 3 was!" There's little second guessing in this series. Something interesting is happening, but you cannot explain it. CANNOT. Until it is explained to you. And even then, you may not understand, which gives the show even more meaning when you get to sit around and talk about what it meant with the others who saw it with you. There are so few good shows that really make you think; Boogiepop does it. Maybe not as well as Lain, IMHO, but... apples and oranges. Watch them both. Then watch your brain ooze out of your head in a pudding form.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Boogiepop wa warawanai; a masterpiece, October 27, 2001
This review is from: Boogiepop Phantom - Boxed Set (Evolutions 1-4) (DVD)
If you didn't like 'Serial Experiments Lain', I asume you'd back off reading I will compare these two. However, Boogiepop Phantom ("Boogiepop wa warawanai" in it's original japanese release) is so much more and in many ways also very different. The likeness to Lain inherits from the choice of subject which is pretty mature (even though Lain wasn't based on written short stories like BP) and the *tone* and feel of the series. Boogiepop makes you think. You _will_ watch the first four episodes over and over again. You simply have to till you get the connections between them. In short, all 12 eps take place at the same time, but you as the viewer take part of these events as seen from different angles. The subject is pretty 'adult' in ways and there are strong and uncomfortable scenes that can be pretty shocking. Even so, they are never out of place and the story would not benefit from their removal or alteration. The music and 'sound' of this series is a chapter of it's own. Since basically all dialogue is put through different filters, the sound setting adds a lot to the tension and suspense in each scene. The music there is (it's very much integrated in this 'sound setting') is basically drum'n bass and the opening/ending themes are great. I cannot recommend this series enough. Once you pick it up you will understand why, and I REALLY recommend you view the first four eps before deciding your opinion about this show. For the reader's reference I'd like to point out that I have based my review on the Japanese DVD-release.
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