Boogiepop and Others Episode 17 Review: Overdrive: The King of Distortion 4

That was by far the creepiest and most unsettling episode of Boogiepop wa Warawanai. I have been getting some creepy vibes from Shirou from a while back, but I never expected it to escalate to this level. That face at the end will haunt me forever.

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

Plot

Habara and Shirou wake up Sakiko who was sleeping on top of a trapdoor and they ask her if she saw the King of Distortion, but she seems kind of evasive. Later on, when they decide to go down the trapdoor, she locks it and leaves them in a room filled with white mannequins. On the outside, Takeda sees the building turning red and an announcement of Teratsuki informs them that there is no way to enter and that the air ducts have been sealed. He then sees an illusion of Miyashita who leads him on the inside of the building. Meanwhile, Niitoki tells Saotome that she knows the reason of his appearance and Sakiko encounters Boogiepop where she is asked to be killed because of her awful behavior to her friend, but Boogiepop makes her realize that it’s actually her own kindness that caused her illusions. Habara and Shirou emerge from the basement and find a room that appears to be the building’s control panel, which activates a video of Teratsuki Kyouichirou who says that he is a synthetic human that was created by Towa Organization to control the economy to their pleasing, but became a threat to them, so he built the temple, and whoever finds the recording can also be a threat to Towa. He then reveals that the key to unlocking the building is ‘Stairway to Heaven’, just before he is killed by Eugene which shocks Habara. Shirou seems weirdly untouched by the situation.

Episode Highlights

Boogiepop’s wise words: Boogiepop’s wisdom never disappoints. ‘In order to have the right to ask to be killed, you have to actually live first.‘ The right words were used in the right time and that’s why Sakiko busted into tears. She was made to realize that everything she was blaming herself for was actually caused by her and that her personality is not as bad as she is claiming to be. Her subconscious took the form of her favorite friend in order to make her understand otherwise and Boogiepop was just the one that made her truly appreciate it by saying that she was ‘distorting’ her own kindness in a way.

Teratsuki is looking for possible enemies for Towa: So we finally get to understand the purpose of the Moon Temple and the whole reasoning behind Teratsuki and his plans. He is a synthetic human that started getting too powerful and Towa wanted to kill him. That’s why he did all this to ‘recruit’ new enemies that could make things bad for them.

Is the King of Distortion not the real enemy? After that scene I honestly don’t know what to think anymore. Shirou looked very creepy since the beginning of the episode but during the end… Damn that whole scene will give me nightmares for sure. And it’s not just him, Teratsuki is super freaky as well, and let’s not even get to Eugene, whose name sounds just right for a psycho killer. On that note, I strongly believe that Shirou is Eugene or vice versa and he just used Shirou’s appearance to find out the real reason why this building was created. Or he was just trying to find Teratsuki and now that he killed him he will turn back to his ‘real’ form. Habara, my boy, watch your back.

Themes & Trivia

Stairway to Heaven: I have mentioned it before that in the Boogiepop series there are a lot of musical references so here are a few fun facts about ‘Stairway to Heaven’. The name King of Distortion actually stems from a translation of the Piper from the song ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zeppelin. The King’s goal to ‘turn all suffering into gold’ likewise comes from the song ‘Stairway to Heaven’, specifically to the lyric ‘There’s a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven’.

Comments

The directing was very interesting during the whole Teratsuki screen scene. I mean every time we see Teratsuki in person there are a lot of still frames and confusing shots, which make everything about him even more unsettling, but in this episode there were a lot of weird things happening that I don’t know if they were intentional or not. First of all when Habara and Shirou enter the room they look like faceless dummy dolls that walk very mechanically. Is this supposed to be an arty thing or was that not the final cut for the scene? And one more thing: When Eugene kills Teratsuki there is a frame of Habara in the room watching the screen by himself… Is this another hint that Shirou is not who we think he is?

Change pain into gold.

I can’t wait to see the conclusion of this story arc. If they manage to make it even creepier in the last episode, I will be the happiest Boogiepop wa Warawanai fan ever.

NEXT TIME: Overdrive: The King of Distortion 5