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EP. REVIEW: Boogiepop and Others


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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:22 am Reply with quote
Finally caught up on the show and it was good, if a bit philosophically dense at points (and I definitely struggled to tell all the girls apart.)

As a mental health peer with an interest in trauma, and as someone with a good friend who was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder due to severe childhood trauma, I am really frustrated with this series' attempt to explain it's fictional concepts by co-opting a misunderstood, but very real, psychiatric condition that is caused by severe developmental trauma.

Clinicians who have studied and worked with people who struggle with the disorder have evolved their understanding of the condition beyond what used to be known as "multiple personality disorder" and its awful depiction in soap operas and horror movies. It is only controversial today in the way all psychiatric diagnoses are controversial, because the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) is based on psychiatric research consensus and many diagnoses are challenged and have been reworked and/or rearranged over the years (Asperger's syndrome being folded into the larger Autism Spectrum would be a recent example).

Dr. Richard Loewenstein, the director of the Trauma Disorder's Program at Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore, MD wrote an article differentiating the current understanding of DID and the experiences of people diagnosed with it from the fictional depiction of it in M. Night Shyamalan's movie Split. Needless to say, Boogiepop's conception of DID developing as a way for teens and adults to compartmentalize guilt is far off the mark, too. https://www.sheppardpratt.org/news-views/story/scariest-part-split-isnt-twist-ending/
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1idd0kun



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 62
PostPosted: Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:16 am Reply with quote
Agent355 wrote:
As a mental health peer with an interest in trauma, and as someone with a good friend who was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder due to severe childhood trauma, I am really frustrated with this series' attempt to explain it's fictional concepts by co-opting a misunderstood, but very real, psychiatric condition that is caused by severe developmental trauma.


The show doesn't really do that though. DID is only mentioned once in the context of Kei trying to understand if the Boogiepop/Touka dynamic is DID. What she gets from Suema is the opinion that DID doesn't truly exists. Now, what you have to understand is that Suema is not an specialist. She's just a high-school girl with an interest in psychology, and the show never tries to make it seem like Suema's take is more than her personal opinion.

DID is never mentioned again in the show, and while the King of Distortion could be interpreted as an alternate personality of Tanaka Shirou, the "king" has a supernatural origin. Shirou is an evolved human and the "king" is his super power. The fact the "king" manifests as an alternate personality might be related to Shirou's guilt and regret, but even then it can't be truly called DID and the show doesn't try to do so.
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eyeresist



Joined: 02 Apr 2007
Posts: 995
Location: a 320x240 resolution igloo (Sydney)
PostPosted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:28 am Reply with quote
Posting late, sorry. I haven't seen this yet (only found out about it yesterday!) but I've ordered the DVD from Malaysia (to Australia). Apparently it has an English dub?

I saw the original TV show years ago and absolutely loved it. It didn't matter that I hadn't read the books. In fact it prompted me to read the first couple of books and see the movie. The books were okay, but I guess not enough to keep me reading the series. I liked the movie a lot, even though it was obviously low budget; I really liked the actors. Unfortunately there has never been a reissue; just the old 4:3 letterboxed NTSC version.

I definitely recommend people watch the earlier TV series if they like the new one. It's easier to follow if you binge it. You can skip ep 6, which is the weakest one. You can listen to the American dub producer commentaries if you want, but bear in mind that what they say is very much their own theory, not the official interpretation.
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