The first show of the year 2000 to embody much of the decade’s anime. Late night, low ratings and based on a light novel.
People like this a lot, but I never got around to watching it. Had I seen it in 2000, I suspect I’d have loved it. However my tastes have veered from the cerebral to the aesthetically visceral in the last 10 years, and I’m not really inclined to catch up here. Director Takashi Watanabe hasn’t really worked on much that set my world on fire, though I have liked Seishi Minakami’s scripts on Satoshi Kon projects, so it might be worth checking out those episodes.
There was a boom in interest in urban legends in Japan in the mid-nineties (similar to the X-Files/UFO boom) best illustrated by the Hanako-san films about the ghost that supposedly haunts school toilets. This is an extension of that craze, with Boogiepop the character thought of as an urban legend by other characters in the story. As the decade progresses interest seems to fade in urban legends and turns more to traditional folklore and magical realism (though part of that seems Harry Potter driven too, rather than just a natural progression).