An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Majority Report – Psycho-Pass (Season 1) Spoiler Review

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – in the not-to-distant future, the government has implemented some new system that has largely eliminated crime, but –

I’m just going to assume most readers would have stopped me by then. As near-future science fiction stories go, the “safe” dystopia is about as classical as they come. Usually, there’s some horrible dark underbelly that’s actually the focus of the story and is the reason for the veneer of peace that people in the setting usually accept. It can be just starting or it can be moderately established, but the general tenor is the same: humanity (at least the portion of it the story is concerned with) traded liberty for security. Generally, we’re supposed to believe that it’s somewhere between a bad deal and an overwhelmingly horrific one.

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Cyber Extinction – Texhnolyze Spoiler Review

Ah, Texhnolyze – a show brought to you by some of the creative forces involved in the legendary Serial Experiments Lain. It has a style somewhat between that of Lain and that of Ergo Proxy, with far less dialogue than either and a tone that’s a fraction as merry. When it comes to early 2000’s philosophically-minded cyberpunk head trips, Texhnolyze is certainly… um… well it’s certainly one of them, and possibly the one that goes the most all-in with its unique elements. That’s for better or for worse, mind you.

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Boogiepop Returns (Except it’s the first time. And not related to the novel of that name. Except where the novel of that name is being adapted.) – Boogiepop and Others (2019) Spoiler Review

Pardon the long title, but this franchise is… difficult at the best of times. Granted, we’re going to be largely looking at those best of times here and making sense of them, but it still has an edge of the inscrutable.

While Boogiepop Phantom created a new story to act as a sequel to the original novel, Boogiepop and Others (also called “Boogiepop Never Laughs” as a direct translation of the Japanese title, but “and Others” is the official western title) is a direct adaptation of the books. Specifically, books 1 (Boogiepop and Others/Boogiepop Never Laughs), books 2&3 (Boogiepop Returns: VS Imaginator parts 1 & 2), book 6 (Boogiepop at Dawn) and book 5 (Boogiepop Overdrive: The King of Distortion). Yeah, in the straightforward version they skip 4 and swap the positions of 5 and 6. I’d say to brace yourselves, but after Phantom last week, a simple arc structure that doesn’t seem out of order to anime viewers is a joy.

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