I finished watching Boogiepop Phantom … sometime during the summer. I got the series for Christmas … 2005, was it? Started watching spring 2006, might have watched an episode or two last summer, watched some more episodes this spring, and finished the series a week or two ago.
In the beginning the series confused me. It seemed to me it was just trying to make it seem all intricate and convoluted and it wasn’t really going anywhere. Like it was trying to be deep, but really it was just … pointless.
When the last DVD ended, I again thought, ‘What?’ It made no sense to me! I thought, well maybe I missed something, maybe watching the series in lumps over the course of a year wasn’t a good way to watch it (duh, I wouldn’t watch Serial Experiments Lain that way, unless I wanted to break my brain), maybe I should rewatch it.
There were some notes from … someone (director? producer?) involved with the English translation that were included on the last DVD, which I read initially … then skimmed. This guy (I assume the person is a male, I don’t think the name was female, but what do I know?) was just gushing over the series … how else can I put it? He thought it was the best series in recent years, he said there was so much depth to it, that some people wouldn’t get it, that people would have to look at it again, that it’s probably best seen on a weekly basis on tv.
So I thought, okay, I guess I did miss something, I guess I should rewatch the series before I dismiss it.
But, having just read the Wikipedia Boogiepop Phantom article, what I thought was the whole plotline in the series ended up being exactly what was outlined on Wikipedia! Well okay, the timeline was a lot more jumbled than I’d realized. But basically, yeah, the series really was all about what was in the series. I didn’t miss anything. Except for the backstory that was written in a book, which was lightly touched on in the series but not enough to actually say, yeah this is what happened.
The Wikipedia article says, “[the series] has also received criticism for not addressing certain areas of the back-story,[18]leaving the viewer ‘with more questions than answers’.” You got that right! >_< But I think I want to read the book now. :) Then I’ll have to rewatch the series. XD; Yeah. Just add that on to the two series I started but never finished (Escaflowne, got halfway through, and Fushigi Yuugi, stopped two tapes from the end of the first box set) and should really rewatch.