TrashIsMyWaifu said: Boogiepop Ep 1&2
The episodes were stylish, but really that was it.
The way it's presented is killing it because it's too fast. We have interesting characters but too little time.
The way it overlaps is nice but if when it happens so fast I can't help but feel that it's too forced.
Ep 1
What I liked about this episode was the fast pace. It may seem hypocritical but in the first episode of a mystery you want fast and confusing so that you won't forget it.
Unpopular opinion but the relationship between Boogiepop and Keiji was interesting. It was confusing at first but if you look at it closely there's a passage of time which is integrated into the second episode.
The dialogue in this episode is confusing however but it only happens if you watched it once and without context of the next episode which for a first episode of a mystery is great because it makes me think about the story, it makes me invested in what I'm watching...
Ep 2
The investment is gone.
I'm not saying that this was a bad episode but Jesus was it unsatisfying.
You know how you can tell that there is a really interesting story in this show and how you liked having to think for that story... welll we decided to plainly show it to you hope you like it!
If you wander how they take away the brainpower that you used they basically do it through the girl-who-found-Echoes death.
Through dialogue in the first episode you know girl-who-found-Echoes is gone althoigh you think that she was just another victim but we are basically robbed , an exageration, of working out she wasn't through the plot needing to plot so we just glance over her death and move on to more interesting stories...
I'm not saying that this is a bad episode, in fact I like the three characters they fleshed out; Manticore, Manticores-owner and Blue-haired-dectective but, and this is a big one, this episode has a flaw... it has the same illness that B:The Beginning has... it isn't mainstream material.
Let me explain my research. The first episode was a roller coaster, fast and fun, but it was a mind fuck. The second episode was a shitier, not shit but worse, roller coaster fast... but predictable. Why? Because the main demographic, that they need to make a profit on can't handle a mind fuck like the first episode.
I'm not saying that if you don't get the first episode you're stupid, I didn't get it either, I'm saying that the people producing this need people to get it.
If Manticore wasn't introduced so early then the show would be confusing and it may put some people off and that isn't good for a show like this because Madhouse can't merchandise it as it isn't the most merchandise-producing setting, apart from Boogiepop I'd buy her any day, so they have to make sure people love this show more than anything else in the season so they have to create intrigue at the cost of good story direction.
Both episodes are guilty of this so I'll give examples of what I'm talking about.
Ep 1- The cuts to Manticore, I'm very sure it's her|him but I'm happy to be wrong, dead.
In Ep 1 when I first saw the cuts I first thought 《Another girl has been killed but she's strung up and only two people are know to use strings = Boogiepop and Girl-in-OP, who I can tell which person that is》but then Boogiepop said she didn't do shit... now that was were my investment reached peek but... they introduced Manticore officially and Echoes as Manticores hunter. If they hadn't killed Echoes-owner I would have thought that First-year was the reason why but by killing off Echoes-owner that was all I needed to know that the two aliens were going to fight and if Echoes lost then Nagi was going to do it.
Ep 2 - The relationship between Manticores-owner and Blue-haired-dectective.
God was it interesting when Manticores-owner just grimaced at Nagi for no reason, it still isn't really explained properly as that was a very emotional response for a manipulative charecter, but I hate the fact that that scene was useless. Why? Because the whole reason for that scene, I know it's two seconds but it pulled me out of the show for its complete lack of subtlety, was to show a friction or conflict... a conflict that we see fleshed out in the same damn episode and with more subtle nuances as when Nagi narrowed her eyes we can tell she's onto them and they are going to have their own little story just about them but! The madman who decided that he needed to physically grimace at her in that start of the episode pulled me out of the story when you rewatch it...
Conclusion
And that's the problem with the show so far... it doesn't have any rewatch value when a problem is explained in quick succession to the problem being set.
I can understand there being somethings that you have to rewatch after finishing the season but if a mystery is explained so quickly, an episode later, then that's bad pacing.
But it's not that I hate the show in fact I would probably say that there are more positives; the OP, Direction, Background music, tone and a mystery that can be intriguing but the negatives; the pacing, the lackluster ED and the obviousness, in my shitty opinion, are way too glaring to miss.
So that's why I think this deserves a 8/10
Madhouse are rushing it . 2 epiosdes in and it's already covered almost the whole first vol with like 10% cuts or more |