Boogiepop and Others Episode 16 Review: Overdrive: The King of Distortion 3

Finally, an episode where we get to see Boogiepop talk about itself a little bit and fight a kaiju. What more can you really ask for? Miyashita’s date was ruined once more.

Japanese Original Episode Title: オーバードライブ歪曲王 3

Plot

Back to Niitoki and Boogiepop, Niitoki tells her to destroy the King of Distortion but Boogiepop replies that she does not see him as a threat, yet. Niitoki then has a flashback where Suema is analyzing her what it means to have a dissociative identity and split personalities, which makes her realize that this might have something to do with King of Distortion’s existence. Boogiepop leaves Niitoki and the illusion of Saotome makes his appearance in front of her once more. The rest of the people that are inside the building continue to experience illusions with someone from their past as a result of their lingering hearts. The building starts having some intense shockwave vibrations caused by Zooragi, and Habara starts suspecting that Teratsuki Kyouichirou is behind all this after all. Meanwhile, Makoto is attack by Zooragi, which is apparently a vision of what his father looked like and Boogiepop comes to save him. After fighting him for a while, Boogiepop wounds him and manages to prevail but Zooragi destroys the building.

Episode Highlights

‘If it was this simple I wouldn’t have appeared in the first place’: Well that’s the meaning of the whole show, isn’t it? Boogiepop is not just an overpowered entity that kicks ass whenever they want. They are called to action whenever there is a threat and have no idea about it or how to deal with it, which makes the whole thing extremely intriguing. They have no gender and according to this episode, their emotions are basically none of our business. The other thing that is also very interesting about Boogiepop is the fact that, if you really think about it, cannot do anything by itself. It borrows the body of a human in order to exist and in most cases needs their assistance into finding evidence about the threat. It doesn’t even categorize everyone instantly as its enemy and just waits in the background for the real danger to appear and eliminate it. Nevertheless, the smug face, smart comments, and subtle humor when Boogiepop speaks is just top notch.

Buddies in jealousy: Niitoki is going to have some serious psychological problems when she gets out of high school. Despite the fact that she saw her classmates being killed by weird alien entities and talks to Boogiepop from time to time, she actually hangs out with the alter personality of her crush’s girlfriend. I mean it’s a miracle that she is still sane at this point, or IS SHE? Boogiepop doesn’t help either… Mentioning that it is jealous of Miyoshita as well and would like to spend more time with Takeda, who is the only one that ever called it its friend, opens paths for some really creepy stories that we will hopefully not get to witness. Can you imagine Boogiepop fighting Miyashita to win over her body? How creepy is that?

I’m still in the middle of my experiment: Speaking of creepy, what the hell was that mannequin scene. Yes, Kentarou, trust me, I have no bad intentions here. I am just in the process of doing my experiment. And on that note, I think that no one is actually awake in the tower. Everything is still part of the illusion caused by the King of Distortion.

Themes & Trivia

Probatio diabolica: It’s Latin for ‘devil’s proof’ or ‘diabolical proof’ and basically means the legal requirement to achieve an impossible proof. It is the logical dilemma that while evidence will prove the existence of something, the lack of evidence fails to disprove it. In essence, the opposing statement’s lack of proof makes the statement true in some sense. This connects with the idea that, while substantial evidence may prove the devil’s existence, there is no evidence that denies the devil’s existence; therefore, one cannot deny the devil’s existence.

Comments

‘Everything you think, shines.’ I really don’t get what the King of Distortion is trying to do. At the beginning I thought that he was messing up with everyone’s mind to let Zooragi come to life and pass into the real world while destroying everything in its path, but it seems to be much more complicated than that. If it is actually part of everyone’s subconscious, what is it trying to achieve by making people experience these things? Even Boogiepop doesn’t know how to deal with it, which is rather upsetting…

This is going to be a huge ordeal.

Boogiepop seems rather unsure of whether she can defeat the King of Distortion and that makes me worry a little bit. I mean if Boogiepop can’t defeat him, who will? Is Takeda going to come in like the Don Juan of this story and make everything right again? Is this going to turn into a romantic tale?

NEXT TIME: Overdrive: The King of Distortion 4