Book Review: Boogiepop and Others (Light Novel 1) (Boogiepop (Light Novel))

I decided to see what all the fuss was about when Boogiepop swept the Japanese archipelago, knowing only that it had won the grand prize in a game novel contest. I scrolled through the first volume of the Boogiepop series on my tiny PDA screen, hoping to build up some basic knowledge so I could watch the anime of the same name.

The novel "Boogiepop and Others" is the first book in the Boogiepop series. I remember reading somewhere that there were nearly 12 books in the series as of fall 2004, but I don't remember the details.

There are several main characters in this novel. To put it mildly, every character in this novel is a main character. The novel deals with a single event, but it is told from the perspective of several characters, one after the other. One character has no idea what happened to another unless there is a special event. This is also true for the reader of a novel. In the first part of the story, the events are experienced, summarized, and judged from the point of view of person A. In the next part, the same events are experienced, summarized, and judged again from the point of view of person B. This is a jigsaw puzzle. Through this process, you get to understand the whole story, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. As you read, the parts that you didn't understand gradually make sense, and this brings a joy that is hard to find in other novels these days. It's like playing a game with a book.

The boogie-pop craze, which has been sweeping the country with a few enthusiasts, was briefly touched upon in this book. The Boogiepop series is a strictly commercial entertainment novel. This must have been possible because the author, Kouhei Katono, is a new generation writer in his 20s. It's an idea and plot that anyone could have thought of at least once, but I salute him for bringing it to life in such an entertaining way.