Sunday, June 08, 2003

Boogiepop Phantom 2

Light in Darkness (spoilers ahead)

Scene 001 - Old City Redevelopment Area - Episode opens with a young man running from Boogiepop (with that smile, I'd say she enjoys the hunt). The young lad's name is Jonouchi Hisashi who attends Hijiridani HIgh School (same as Moto and Yasuko), except he's a Senior (Class 1) and he's wondering why this is happening to him.

Scene 002 - Elementary School - Flashback to elementary school where we see Hisashi beating up on a 6th grader (says he has always wanted to be a hero).

Flashback to the present, where Hirsashi finds a white icky-looking bug - which, shockingly enough, he consumes with passion.

Scene 003 - Prefectural Hospital - As his parents are congratulating Hiisashi on being able to go to a new school (I'm guessing when he's about to enter Junior High), he has some sort of strange attack (grasps his right forearm in pain) and his parents rush him to the prefectural hospital (prefecture is an area of government, so you could easily just say the local hospital). We find out that he has a malignant bone tumor and will need years of therapy.

Scene 004 - Junior High School Spring - Hisashi is still going to the local hospital for treatment every day. While waiting for his appointment, we see Kuroda Shinpei and Kirima Nagi in the waiting area as well. While Nagi addresses Shinpei as Detective, Shinpei addresses Nagi as "Detective" (e.g. she's either not a full-fledged detective, or a detective wanna-be). We see that Nagi is a patient here at the hospital.

Scene 005 - Junior High School Fall - Hisashi is doing much better, but regrets that he'll not be able to become a professional athlete. His doctor admonishes him that there are other goals in life other then physical prowess and then says that he's so weak while his mother is so strong. She then says that's okay, because cowards live longer and that it's when people are full of fear that Death comes. In fact, Death prefers when strong people become afraid because it makes their souls taste better, while a coward's soul always tastes awful. The doctor then offers Hisashi a special medicine if he wants it.

Flash back to the present and we learn that while the medicine put him in bed for a week, it really didn't have any effect. (We also find out that that was 5 years prior to the current timeline.) But a month ago, Hisashi suddenly gained the ability to see psychic bugs that have attached themselves to people. (He sees a spider on his father, who is grieving for his wife as well as other bugs on a few people along a street as he walks.)

Scene 006 - Hijiridani High School - Hisashi confronts a girl who cheated on a test (he guesses because he could see a bug attached to her). He pulls the bug off of her, and she feels better, although she doesn't understand what he did. After she walks away, he then eats the bug and finds it to be sweet. We then see him consuming other bugs from other people in a series of vingettes until we get to the scene in the nurse's office where he meets up with Moto. (The scene from episode 1.)

He feels that he's helping these people by removing the knots in their heart. Finally, he removes the one from his father. But as a result, his father can no longer remember his deceased wife. Finally, a cop catches him eating a bug and finds his actions suspicious enough to inquire. (We'll see this cop again later.)

As Hisashi stumbles through the streets in a daze (because he's become addicted to eating bad memories), we see the girl who was reaching towards the sky in episode 1. She greets Hisashi by releasing a butterfly made of white light which shows Hisashi a scene from another time (in the same alley?) where we see a girl that has been murdered and another boy (looks like Saotome) is crouched over the body. This freaks Hisashi out and he runs away from the young girl.

Again, we see him stumbling down the street, but now the cop from before is watching him (or followed him?), so when he sees another woman with a bug, he starts to ask but then breaks off contact. He later manages to score another meal, but as he's consuming the memories, Boogiepop shows up (she forms up out of white light as well) and begins to hunt him (she don't look happy).

Just as Hisashi is finally cornered and is wondering why Death wants to eat him because cowards taste awful, Nagi shows up (in her motorcycle outfit). She's able to see Boogiepop, but says that it isn't Boogiepop, but Manticore (which the apparent Boogiepop denies). Nagi tells Hisashi to run as Nagi moves towards the Manticore/Boogiepop. However, Manticore/Boogiepop manages to lose Nagi and catches up with Hisashi. Hisashi asks, "are you going to eat me", to which Manticore/Boogiepop says that she's not here to eat him, but to show him the way to somewhere else. Hisashi is visited with a vision of all of his childhood friends within white light laughing and encouraging him to hurry up. He then dissapears and classmates are heard commenting that it's been a while since anyone vanished.

posted by Wuphon's at 11:03 PM