Title: Boogiepop and Others
Author(s): Kouhei Kadono
Illustrator: Kouji Ogata
Translator: Andrew Cunnigham
Genre: Supernatural, Young Adult, Horror, Sci-Fi
Publisher/Year: Seven Seas/2006
Related:
--Boogiepop at Dawn (novel), (movie), (anime)
--Boogiepop the Ultimate Guide

Summary: There is an urban legend that children tell one another about a shinigami that can release people from the pain they may be suffering. This "Angel of Death" has a name--Boogiepop. And the legends are true. Boogiepop is real.

Review: The Summary doesn't do it justice, but to reveal too much is to give away some important plot developments. Which is why this review may be a little sparse on the details.

Boogiepop as a series is kind of hard to categorize. Its not that Boogiepop is a separate entity--and thus its own identifiable being--but that Boogiepop exists only as a fragment of another. In this book its Miyashita Touka, an average 1st year HS student with little by way of 'extraordinary' talents. Its made unclear in the anime (at least the English Dub) whether Boogiepop is real or not. He is--its not a mental breakdown of Miyashita's due to trauma (as the English Dub suggests).

Boogiepop is also not magic, or a ghost, or an alien. Boogiepop just is. Throughout this book we see as lives intersect, crash into and separate from each other. Some of the events are repeated, but from the varied viewpoints of the participants so that its given a different spin. For instance a group date as viewed by Keiji is just that--a happy little group date that his underclassmen are having. Later, we see the group date through the eyes of one of the underclassmen--and hear his thoughts in regards to the people he's with, the reasons he's with them and Keiji whom they encounter.

The book can feel disjointed, since some of the storylines extend beyond others by quite a bit of time (some are short, existing only to clarify one or two moments of time, while others extend to 'before', 'during' and 'after' the incident) so you'll jump around in time a lot, and have the sense of de ja vu at times as well. The translation is really well done, so you have a feel of the tone that the original Japanese author was striving for, but for the western audience it might feel too foreign to the casual reader. At its core, the Boogiepop books and movie and anime are about human nature. What makes us human, what defines us and what can be called a human by those definitions.

The book moves slowly more often then not, bogging down in the minutiae of a day to day life of a school student, but frequently what is such a small thing to one narrator is a big deal to a later one. This doesn't make the book go by quicker, but it gives better insight. The action is very frenetic, wham-bam-thank you ma'am sort, but again we get it from several different viewpoints.

Unfortunately the book is out of print, but should be pretty easy to obtain a cheap used copy of. The style is probably something that will take most people a little while to get into and even then, if your attention wanders easily, or you want something with less character centric-ness, this isn't a book for you. Rent the movie (which I will be reviewing later on).

Note about the Boogiepop Series in general: At the moment America only has 4 out of 15 of the novels, both mangas, none of the short stories or side novel series, the movie and the anime (Boogiepop Phantom). Boogiepop and Others (both the movie and the novel) details the event that instigates the odd incidents seen in the anime, namely the weird light, and runs concurrently at points with the anime events. Boogiepop at Dawn (a novel) is a prequel to the series in general--explaining when Miyashita began acting oddly, and some more background information on Kirima Nagi. The publication order however has Boogiepop and Others before Boogiepop at Dawn.

Why is this a Haunted Youth? Not only does Boogiepop inhabit that of a teenage girl, but the whole 'Phantom' legend, as well as a lot of the spooky happenings thanks to Manticore makes this a right creepy read if you're not careful.