Boogiepop never cries

February 2, 2004 | 2 Comments

I've been wanting to make some kind of a generic outline of this anime's basic plots. Mostly because I really like this series and also because I'm about to obtain a R2 DVD of the Boogiepop Phantom live action film (DVD obtained, 11 Nov). If you are interested in reading this and haven't seen the series, please be aware that this entry will be full of spoilers because this is an attempt to recall the entire Boogiepop events in chronological order instead of in fragmented style like in the series. And I think if you haven't seen the series, you will find the fragmented nature of the series to be far more interesting than if it was told in linear style like what I'm about to do.

Boogiepop Phantom anime mostly focuses its story on the fates of the students who got affected by the 'Pillar of Light' incident that happened one night at a rooftop of Shinyo Academy. Having said that, their story are mostly one-offs and normally is concluded at the end of an episode. What do bind these stories together, however, are the presence of Boogiepop, Boogiepop Phantom, Nagi Kirima, Echoes, Saotome, Manako, and Snake Eye. These are the characters that form the basic plots of Boogiepop Phantom as well as the source of confusion for most people. Because of this, instead of focusing on those students, I'll instead focuses on these assorted arrays of unusual characters. I think if you understand what's going on with these main characters, you can easily grasp the rest of the plot quite easily.

Anyway, here we go: There's an evolved being who has an infinite knowledge and power than most humans (the show unfortunately never did explain as to how this being came into existence to begin with). A mysterious organisation called 'Towa', however, doesn't like this because they fear that this being can cause humans to evolve faster than they should. In order to prevent such possibility, the organisation captured this evolved being and experimented on him to ensure that he cannot say anything to other humans other than mimicking their speech. They decided to call the guy "Echoes" since now the poor guy cannot say anything except when he attempts to mime other people's speech. From the same experimentation, Towa also managed to produce some sort of serum which is capable of turning otherwise normal human beings into a 'composite human', a specific term they used to described these evolved beings.

At the same time, a high school student called Nagi Kirima is hospitalised at the Prefecture Hospital because the doctors think that she has an unusually fast growth for a normal human being. It was feared that she'd become a monster if this continues. The series doesn't really tell us how Nagi developed this kind of symptom but it did hinted on the possibility that Nagi's father, Dr.Kirima, was involved with the Towa organisation. So if you want, you can connect the dots. Anyway, thus far there doesn't seem to be a normal medicine that can cure her. While she's in the hospital, she gets to meet a guy who claims to be a detective. His name is Shinpei Kuroda. Unbeknowns to Nagi, Kuroda is actually another composite human created by the Towa organisation and is presumably there to watch over Nagi's 'development'.

What the organisation didn't expect, however, is for Nagi and Kuroda to develop feelings for one another. Kuroda ends up stealing a serum from Towa in order to cure Nagi with it. However, while he was secretly injecting Nagi with the serum while she was asleep late at night, he heard someone approaching Nagi's room. Kuroda became panic and decided to flee the room, accidentally leaving a half full serum and syringe underneath Nagi's hospital bed. We find out that the person who was approaching Nagi's room turns out to be a female Doctor called Kisugi. While Doctor Kisugi didn't see Kuroda in the room, she ends up spotting the half empty serum and syringe and realises that someone had injected Nagi with parts of the serum. Meanwhile, as Kuroda runs outside the hospital, he's intercepted by an assassin from the Towa organisation, who's ordered to kill him.

After a brief struggling, Kuroda is killed by the assasin. However, before he died, a little girl called Toka Miyashita, who's also hospitalised at the same place due to a case of 'possesion by a wolf spirit' (I think it was more of a stress of seeing her parents seperated), found Kuroda. Toka ended up taking Kuroda's overcoat and from this point on assumes the identity of Boogiepop whenever it's necessary. Now, please note that there are two Boogiepop here. The first one is just a Boogiepop, the alter ego of Toka Miyashita. The other is something else entirely which I will discuss later. Anyway, not long after the incident, there's been a serial killing happening in the city. People have been mysteriously found dead in the city where their bodies often end up being ripped open, suggesting it's some kind of an animal attack. Note that during this time, a mother of a certain student in one of the episodes became a victim of this attack.

It turns out that the serial killing has been committed by the now mutated Doctor Kisugi from the Prefecture hospital. It can be assumed quite easily that when she found the syringe and the half empty serum inside Nagi's room, and after witnessing Nagi's physical improvement later on, she puts the two and two together and became curious about the serum. The problem is, she decided to test the serum by injecting herself with it. To make matters worse, she has also injected a couple of her patients with the same serum. Some of the patients are the kids who'll later evolve and create minor problems in their own individual episodes within the series. One of the patients, however, will end up becoming the catalyst for the rest of the series' events and stories. That patient is a young pregnant mother called Mayumi Kisaragi.

During her pregnancy, Mayumi was given some injection by Dr. Kisugi in order to alleviate the pain of her pregnancy. But the truth is, it's not a medicine that Dr.Kisugi injected on the poor mother. Several months later, Mayumi gave birth to a baby girl called Manaka. Unfortunately, the pain from the birth process (which I assume is partly excerbated due to the serum injection) caused her to forget her most recent memory. From then on, she can only remember what happened prior to the birth of her daughter. In other words, she can't remember present situations even if she encounters them again and again. For example, if you tell her your name a couple of seconds ago, she'll practically forget about the fact that you've just tell her your name not long after that. Anyway, due to the fact that her mother has to be hospitalised, baby Manaka is forced to live with her strict, religious grandmother.

Meanwhile, "Dr.Death" Kisugi is finally terminated by both Boogiepop (Toka in her getups) and Nagi Kirima. The last thing that we see of Kisugi from the anime is of her head being decapitated by the Boogiepop after Kisugi was caught red-handed killing a student who often go to her for check ups. Time, however, doesn't allow the Boogiepop to rest for long. Presumably not long after or during the terror that Dr.Kisugi unleashed within the city, Towa accidentally lost one of its composite human creations called 'The Manticore'. 'The Manticore', similar to the mutated Dr.Kisugi feeds on other human beings to maintain its existence. Realising their blunder, Towa released Echoes in the hope that the benevolent being can lead them to The Manticore.

Echoes, presumably feeling responsible for its 'breathen', attempts to track and kill Manticore but his inability to communicate with others make it impossible for him to achieve the task. While being frustated one day, he encountered The Boogiepop who told him not to give up his hope and presumably promised to help him in this matter. Now, from this point forward, the majority of the events are only hinted at in the anime but apparently is covered in depth in the live action movie called Boogiepop and Others. But the basic gist is that the Manticore soon claimed its first victim, a high school student by the name of Minako Yurihawa. After this incident, the Manticore assumes the identity of the girl and causes mayhem and deaths in the Shinyo Academy.

The Manticore soon finds a friend in the form of a cold and cruel student called Masami Saotome. Together, they plot the demise of other students while leaving the rest addicted to some kind of a drug that Saotome and Yurihawa produced (in the anime it's called 'Type-S', but apparently it's called 'SLAVE' in the live action). Their fun, however, ends one day in that eventful 'Pillar of Light' incident. The Manticore is terminated by the Boogiepop (aka Toka) who whips its neck with her lassoo from the top of the school's rooftop (see Boogiepop and Others movie for a detailed account of this incident). During its near-death, the memory of the Manticore/Minako seems to have split into two where one of them attempted to form a ghostly apparition of Minako's face.

However, due to the fact that the only other things that it can remember are the cloak and the hat of the Boogiepop who killed it, this part of Manticore memory ended up taking the persona of Boogiepop. However, out of respect of the original Boogiepop, it decides to call itself, Boogiepop Phantom. Meanwhile the other part of the Manticore seems to remember the face of Saotome who got blown into bits when Echoes turns itself into one giant Pillar of Light that night in order to kill the Manticore. From this point forward, this part of the Manticore assumes the identity of Saotome and continues to be a phantom Manticore that feeds on humans. This is an ironic twist of fate since, as mentioned before, the other part of the Manticore became the very thing that Manticore itself hate: the Boogiepop, albeit its phantom apparition.

Elsewhere and probably almost at the same time, the grandmother of Manaka (the girl who was born from the mother who got injected by the serum) was dying. Unfortunately, Granny thinks that her granddaughter is a satan's spawn (because Manaka is capable of seeing the past by conjuring them in the form of Golden Butterflies) and thinks that she shouldn't leave such devil to the unfortunate world. Because of this, Manaka's grandma decided to kill her granddaughter by choking Manaka while she was in the toilet. Manaka is dead, followed by her granny. However, not long after her death, the 'Pillar of Light' incident that was mentioned above happened and one of its light particles shined upon Manaka, reawakened her dead body.

Manaka was not the only kid who got affected by this 'Pillar of Light' incident. Those who have seen the anime will know that the rest of the series deal with a group of students whose lives have been unpleasantly altered thanks to the incident. To make matters worse for this kids, the Towa organisation sends another assasin called 'Snake Eye' to hunt down these evolved children. In order to make his job easier, Snake Eye killed its first victim, a policeman called Morita and assumes his identity. In this form, Snake Eye managed to kill a couple of evolved children although Snake Eye itself was ultimately ended up being killed by one of the children who possesses an ability to destroy bodies.

The story then continues with Manaka creating mayhem in the city by shifting the present and the past upside down as we see in the anime. At the same time, Nagi gets the visitation of a male writer called Kishida Ichiro who seems to be a dead ringer of the supposedly already dead Shinpei Kuroda. It turns out later on that Kishida is just phantom/a creation of someone's memory which managed to manifest itself into the real world mostly due to Manaka's ability to mix the present memory with the past memory. And as long as, the 'Rainbow effect' that is inadvertently created by Manaka hovers over the entire city, Phantom Kuroda, Boogiepop Phantom, Manticore, as well as the rest of past memories will remain in existence and will become a reality.

At the end of the day, it took Boogiepop Phantom to get rid of the Rainbow effect from the city by putting all of the 'evolved children' under eternal sleep until the world is ready for them. The Boogiepop herself (Toka Miyashita) has to destroy the last remaining essence of the Manticore which somehow managed to merge with Phantom Kuroda and become a real person even after the Rainbow effects have gone. Anyway, I hope this helps a little bit. I'll probably edit this in the future and add some pictures as I go along to help illustrate my explanations. But I'll have to see the series again in order to find the corresponding scenes, so that'll have to wait for a while. For now, I hope you can find some use for this mini guide.

© memento 2003