Title: Boogiepop at Dawn
Author(s): Kouhei Kadono
Illustrator: Kouji Ogata
Translator: Andrew Cunnigham
Genre: Supernatural, Young Adult, Horror, Sci-Fi
Publisher/Year: Seven Seas/2008
Related:
--Boogiepop and Others (novel), (movie), (anime)
--Boogiepop the Ultimate Guide

Summary: When a rash of disappearances involving female students breaks out at Shinyo Academy, the police and faculty assume the girls have run away. But Nagi Kirima knows better. Something mysterious and foul is afoot. Is it Boogiepop or something more sinister...?

Review: Even though the events in this novel pre-date those in Boogiepop and Others, they're told from a flashback standpoint and in such a way as it expects you to understand where its all leading to. The significance to Kirima meeting Kuroda Shinpei for instance or Niitoki Kei's involvement with Boogiepop.

This is an easier book to read then Others, the pacing is a little more familiar to English readers and the existentialism is dialed back a notch. I wouldn't say this is an easier book to understand, it does muddy the waters even further for some characters even while shedding light on certain other ones.

The book is again broken up into sections, each one building upon the one before it. This is a book mainly about Kirima Nagi's beginnings as a 'super-hero' and Miyashita Touka's beginnings as Boogiepop.

The only problem there is for Dawn is that some of the references and innuendos won't bare understandable fruit for a couple more novels--except at this point in time the English Publisher (Seven Seas) hasn't reached that point nor does there seem to be any forward motion in that area. Actually the news is rather dismal as Light Novels in general tend not to sell well in America.