Boogiepop is a series of popular light novels. In 2000, the anime Boogiepop Phantom was released with an original story. Boogiepop wa Warawanai will be adapted from the beginning of the series. Basically, four female students have gone missing, they’re assumed to have run away. Our main protagonists Takeda Keiji is looking for his girlfriend, Miyashita Touka. While waiting for her, he see a man wandering aimlessly through a crowd in tears. They decide to ignore him and simply move out of his way. A mysterious figure in a cape and a top hat like thing. She chastises the crowd for their rudeness and according to Keiji looks just like Touka.

I never saw the original Boogiepop series and I don’t read light novels, so I don’t know how similar this series is to the source material. Basic I found the first episode to be rather boring. It’s almost exclusively conversation. I found this series to be confusing. The story is told sporadically as it quickly switches from scene to scene without much explanation. The most interesting aspect of the episode aren’t focused on. All the scenes appear to occur at sunset for some reason. The animation was that good considering that Madhouse (One Punch Man S1/Cardcaptor Sakura) is responsible.

However, if the purpose of the quick cuts is to confuse the audience then it successful. That said I find this non-linear story to be off putting. Boogiepop and Others is suppose to be a horror series but so far episode 1 doesn’t seem to have much to be scared of. It hard to become connected to the characters, we barely know them. There feels like there is some in depth knowledge that the narrators are trying to impart but fails to do so. The world is suppose to be in danger, but if the characters don’t feel real yet how can we care about the world they inhabit? Regardless, the second episode was released with the first I’ll review that one tomorrow and hopefully Boogiepop wa Warawanai will make sense.