Boogiepop wa Warawanai

“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”

In a nutshell
Boogiepop is mysterious, confusing and very strange; even this would hardly be enough to describe Boogiepop. No matter how much you read or watch it, the question remains the same: what is Boogiepop? Is this the Angel of death? Is this a form of justice, or something else? Depending on a person, everyone will find something to appreciate about Boogiepop.

Story
A lot has been said about the relatively famous anime that aired in 2000, Boogiepop wa Warawanai. Indeed, there are many things to analyze and even more things to appreciate about it. What I mean is that after such a successful anime adaptation, it is almost impossible to make a manga that will not be inferior to the TV series in terms of the plot. Hence, the manga focuses on what happens before the main story; there is also a live action movie adaptation for this manga. But let us return back to the manga. Its main value is the storyline, which focuses on Boogiepop, or rather on their "human" half, their world view; you see a contrast between the death God Boogiepop and the human part of Boogiepop.

Criticism/Some Thoughts
Despite the fact that the manga is short, there are several storylines that rarely intersect. Manga does not bother you at all, because its main aim is not to reveal the psychological portraits of the characters, but to show their interactions. Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that the manga is far from being a horror and it is easy to notice because of the art; it is relatively simple and there is no particular emphasis on the details, but this does not mean that the mangaka was lazy in any way. A number of techniques is very easy to notice, when the manga shows different timelines and focuses on different characters, which is very helpful for the reader to enjoy the manga.

Overall
Of course, the anime watchers will hardly find anything new in the manga. Yet, I would still say that the manga does a somewhat of a better job with the characters than the anime. For those who know nothing about Boogiepop, be ready to do a small research, because there will be a number of things you will need to watch and read and afterwards analyze. But one thing is clear, it is more than worth it.