Sunday, June 08, 2003

Boogiepop Phantom 1

Spoiler alert ahead - Episode title is Portraits from Memory

Watching episode one again, since I haven't watched it in so long. There is a Director's Soundtrack (the english director that made the dubbed version), but the background audio is also english... and as a general rule, I dislike the english dialogue actors in most anime. So I'm probably not gonna listen through that althought it might be useful for figuring out some other bits and pieces. Not gonna re-list the characters from my last entry, but more list the scenes in this episode and where they fit on the timeline.

Scene 001 - Shinyo Academy - Time is 1 month prior to the main timeline (as far as I can figure). Basically, this is the event that everyone talks about where a bunch of people vanished (I think Saotome was one of them). There's some screaming, some glass breaking, some blood splattering on the wall, and a vertical column of white light that briefly knocks out the power.

Scene 002 - Hijiridani High School - Present timeline, girls talking about all of the people who were taken a month ago, also tossing out the words Death and Boogiepop (not sure if the two are considered to be one and the same). We're introduced to the main character for this episode, Tonomura Moto (Sophmore, Class 2) who is a (slightly?) neurotic obsessive compulsive (focused on hand washing). Suzuki Yasuko is Moto's best friend and drags her out to a Kareoke bar that night along with another classmate to go on a triple date. The boys end up asking about Masami Saotome, a boy that Yasuko dated in junior high but doesn't want her current boyfriend (Satoshi) to find out about, so Yasuko dissembles when asked but Moto mumbles that Saotome was probably killed by Boogiepop during the events of the previous month. (Speculation on her part, but Saotome did dissapear at the same time.)

Scene 003 - Junior High School Summer - Flashback time as Moto tells the story of the relationship between Yasuko and Saotome and herself. Yasuko used to be quiet and reserved like Moto, but while Yasuko came out of her shell in Junior High, Moto retreated inward. Eventually, Yasuko broke up with Saotome and Moto discovers that she is falling in love with Saotome.

Scene 004 - The Present - Back to the present, the group is walking back home from the Kareoke club, but Moto isn't feeling well and lags behind as they pass through an alley. As she stumbles, she looks into a side alley and sees white light come together and form the shape of Saotome. She screams and the scene cuts to her waking up in her own bed the next morning. (Again we see her OCD in effect as she compulsively cleans the door handle that her father touched as well as making the back of her hand bleed.)

After the commercial break, we get some introspection by Moto that "we all die anyway so why bother", and in the background is (a girl, can't place who she is atm) reaching towards the sky.

Yasuko now relates a rumor to Moto that Saotome once professed love to Kirima Nagi while he was at Shinyo Academy.

Moto goes to the nurses office, but the nurse isn't in and she meets a boy who says "there's a bug attached to your heart". (More on him in a later episode.) Needless to say, Moto refuses to let him touch her, but she admits that she knows that there is something dragging on her.

Scene 005 - Shinyo Academy - Current timeline still. Moto goes to Shinyo Academy to visit the last known place where Saotome was seen. As she tries to walk away from the gate after looking, she's greeted by some girls from Shinyo Academy and ends up asking whether Nagi is around. However, Nagi left after 5th period. So Moto continues to wander the streets and finally ends up in the alley from the day before where she saw Saotome's image.

While there, she catches a glimpse of the white light running along an electrical wire above and begins to chase it through the streets and alleys until she catches up with it in yet another dark alley. Saotome's shape appears, and we find out that it's not Saotome because it doesn't know who Moto is. In the meantime, we see a girl in Shinyo Academy dress with a heavy bag over her shoulder pushing through a bustling crowd. Moto doesn't care that it's not Saotome (It doesn't really matter... it's okay if you kill me), so the monster prepares to feed upon Moto.

Just as the man-eater is about to feed, Boogiepop shows up and kills it and then chastises Moto. "Forget about Saotome, I killed him" she says. Moto ends the episode pretty much where she started, still disliking her self.

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 9:59 PM