Monday, June 09, 2003

Boogiepop Phantom 4

Still with me?... this episode is called My Fair Lady (so be warned, spoilers ahead). One of the more disturbing episodes of the series so far as it focuses on a boy who attempts to force his fantasies on a girl. Timeline for this episode is pretty much one month prior to the rest of the timeline (it starts a bit before the mass dissapearance and the column of light at Shinyo Academy).

Scene 001 - Hijiridani High School - Some classmates are talking about a drug / essence called "Sin-amon" which is supposed to relax you and get your nerves up. One girl thinks she's managed to score a tiny bit of Sin-amon, but Uehara Sunami (Senior, Class 2) takes a whiff of the bottle and pronounces that it's not Sin-amon. Instead, it's a little bit of Type-S, which is supposed to be really hard to get a hold of. Meanwhile, a boy overhears them (Suganuma Yoji, Senior Class 2) while he's putting his books in his bag to head home. Yoji works part time at a resturant near the station and he's a very quiet and introspective boy.

Scene 002 - Suganuma House - Here we find out just what Yoji is looking forward to when he's constantly telling himself that he has a date. He's adicted to a computer date game.

The next day, he interviews a girl (Sato Rie), who claims to go to Shinyo High School (except the real school name is Shinyo Academy). Since she's apparently still in Junior High, technically she can't work at the resturant, but he decides to get her the job and "take care of her". On the way home, he meets up with the classmate who knows her drugs who gets him to try Type-S so that he'll be more outgoing.

Most of the next scenes deal with him partaking of the Type-S, making the girl in the computer game look more like Rie, and trying to get Rie to dress/act more like the girl in the computer game. He uses the fact that he knows that she's still in Junior High against her, threatening to tell the owner of the resturant.

One of the side scenes lets us know that Nagi has been suspended from school (again?) and she's been hanging around the resturant / station area. Her classmates wonder what she's up to.

As Yoji goes to get a re-supply of the Type-S drug from the gal who's been selling it, we see her get murdered by the man-eater and a girl who looks like Nagi feeds on her corpse. We learn that the man-eaters are trying to raise an army of slaves, and Type-S is one of their experiments at obtaining slaves.

Yoji finally goes too far at work and gets fired.for harrasing Rie. Then, during the incident from a month ago with the column of light his computer gets fried (so this sets the time scale for this whole episode as a month prior - in fact, the girl that Hisashi saw get murdered in a vision was the drug dealer - I think! - because that takes place back around that time). Naturally, this drives Yoji over the edge.

Scene 003 - One month later - Back to the current timeline then, apparently Yoji hasn't been doing too well since then because he's out wandering the streets as Misuzu and Panaru (vision) walk by. We see him being restrained by a few officers, who are apparently arresting him for disturbing the peace.

posted by Wuphon's at 1:05 AM