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Min-Chi Chen COLI-289E 28 December 2021 Perfect Blue Analysis Anime is something that is often looked at as children's shows because of the animation style. However, more people should start realizing that a lot of anime tackle serious topics in a way that makes it easier for people to understand. This week's assignments introduced the film Perfect Blue by Satoshi Kon. This film is known as a thriller mystery movie that needs multiple watches to fully grasp the psychological depth of the events that take place. The protagonist of this movie is Mima Kirigoe, who was known as the ex-member of the Japanese pop group, CHAM!, in order to pursue her dreams of becoming a well-known actress. The decision was first made after her acting talents were being recognized and praised by directors. Her agency comprised of Tadokoro, her agent, and Rumi Hidaki, her manager who also happened to be a former pop idol. In the process of shedding her title as a pop idol, she ends up going through an image change that would in turn influence future events in her life. The film uses the themes of perception, reality vs fiction, and acceptance to tell a chilling story about the dangers of our modern media-saturated society. Animated films made in the west are the majority of the time made for children to learn about things like family bonds and friendships. While some anime will do the same, it was not made just for children. This constant comparison between children's shows in the west and Japanese anime is an inaccurate one. It would be better to compare dramas dealing with heavy topics and Japanese anime as stated in the article Why Anime? by Susan J Napier.

“Many definitions in the West attempt to explain anime by comparison to American animation, specifically Disney. Thus, the Time article attempts to answer the question by suggesting that in comparison to Disney “anime is all kinds of different . . . Anime is kids’ cartoons: Pokemon yes, and Sailor Moon. . . But it’s also post-doomsday fantasies (Akira), schizo-psycho thrill machines (Perfect Blue), sex and samurai sagas—the works.” (Napier 6). A lot of Satoshi Kon’s work tends to deal with complex narratives relating to female characters. Perfect Blue allowed for an insight into the abuse women go through in the entertainment industry not just in Japan, but worldwide. One of the major themes in Perfect Blue is that of reality vs fiction, which is explored through Mima's daydreams and delusions influenced by trauma. Throughout the film, there were multiple instances in which Mima was hallucinating or daydreaming. For instance, there were multiple times where she would see hallucinations of herself dressed up in her pop idol stage outfits. This specific hallucination would constantly tell her that she was no longer Mima and that the hallucination was Mima. There were many times when we could see that Mima was regretting the decisions she had made for the sake of giving her career as an actress a push. One instance was when she started acting on the show and the screenwriter created a rape scene that centered around her. Reluctantly she agreed to do the scene, but only out of the considerations of others. She did not want to make her manager and agent feel as though she was being a bother. With that being said, considering that her past career was being a pop idol in a girl group, this was a big change for her. Her pop idol persona was very innocent and did not have nearly as much promiscuity as this. The most she had to do before was wearing short dresses. Contractual purity was a big part of being a pop idol. Now she had to perform in front of a camera and thousands of people while being nude. This scene could have

been taken metaphorically. During the rape scene, while she isn't actually being raped, it was as though her innocent and pure image was being shed in a way in which she couldn't control. That’s why whenever her hallucinations began, it would tell her that she was no longer Mima. Because the same fans that used to sing along with her while she was on stage are now witnessing her in a very indecent state. The contractual purity of being a pop idol was broken but in a less than adequate way. This scene shows how men often can abuse the power they have over women in the entertainment industry. The screenwriter knew that writing out the rape scene and having Mima as the center of it would probably strike a nerve with her agency. It would not bode well for her overall image even though she was trying to have an image change. Now rather than having a mature adult woman image as she dreamed, she had an immodest, provocative image. She was constantly taken advantage of throughout the film. All of these events led up to the trauma that caused her to question her own identity. Toward the end of the filming for the show, she started to confuse her actual being with that of the character on the show. She had to get some kind of confirmation that she was real to be able to accept her reality. She only got it after Rumi was hospitalized and even after that it was never established if she got the help she needed. The abrupt ending of Mima saying “No, I am real!” made it seem like she just pushed past it without actually confronting the fact that she lost herself in the midst of all the drama. It's as though she just repressed all her emotions and experiences into her unconscious mind. The need for mental health awareness is very prevalent in the entertainment industry. It’s especially needed for women as we are already seen as too emotional and sensitive. As a society, we often tend to forget that celebrities, while being famous, are still regular human beings like the rest of us. Many will become adoring fans of these celebrities and even worship them. As we saw, some even go as far as to stalk them in their everyday lives. These

fans will create their own fantasy of these celebrities and refuse to see outside of that. When Mima announced at her last concert that she would be dropping out of the group to become an actress, many of her fans were against it. This led to her being stalked and impersonated. Stalkers and paparazzi are something we constantly hear about on the news or through social media. It’s not often that we fully delve into the situation and understand how nerve-wracking it all really is. After Mima’s retirement, Rumi slowly started to reveal her true self. She slowly convinced herself that Mima was a fake and that she herself was the real Mima. Went as far as wearing her stage outfits, impersonating her online, and even making an exact replica of Mima’s apartment. It caused her to end up in a mental hospital after trying to kill Mima. She was diagnosed with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). She was so haunted by the idea that she wasn’t a famous pop idol, her brain let her believe that she was Mima. Even after everything went down, she would “wake up” very rarely. During the chase, the only reason why Mima ended up making it out alive was that Rumi lost her wig causing her to see her for herself and not Mima. In an attempt to retrieve the wig, Rumi got stabbed in her stomach and walked into the road. When compared to Rumi, Me-Mania, another superfan, seems like a textbook obsessive stalker. His appearance is considered unsightly, with his creepy smiles and almost blacked-out eyes. He has a room filled to the brim with pictures of Mima and stalks the website which he believed was Mima herself talking. He even went as far as carrying out the murders for the online Mima persona. He absolutely worshipped Mima while she was a pop idol. The sudden change of image was too much for him to handle as he had already made a fantasy in his head where Mima would forever be his innocent pop idol. Speaking of superfans, an example of a real-life case that holds somewhat of a resemblance to the story of Perfect Blue is the murder case of Selena

Quintanilla-Pérez. While the story is not a 100% match, these events do occur in real life and need more attention and recognition. Satoshi Kon liked to use a lot of symbolism in his artwork, both obvious and elusive. At the start of the film, while CHAM! was performing at their final concert as a trio, Me-Mania was holding up his hand while staring at Mima. It looked like she was dancing in the palm of his hand. This symbolized how he was not just a fan that idolized her, but rather he wanted to own her. In his mind, she was his and his only. Another more obvious moment of symbolism was when the filming of her show was finally over and Mima was brought back to reality by the sounds of clapping and cheering. The screen became brighter as if to mask the underlying trauma going through Mima’s mind. It can be seen that the surrounding characters cheering her on had somewhat hollow faces. The eyes and mouths were just black holes. This could have just been a coincidence, but it could also signify that Mima was still stuck in her identity crisis. She didn’t seem to know still whether or not she was actually real. The people around her just seemed like dolls. A more general symbolization in the film was that at the start, Mima’s apartment was very tidy and neat. However, the farther into the movie we went, the more sanity Mima would lose and her room became more of a mess. The state of her room was a clear indication of where she was mentally. During the scene of Mima supposedly killing the photographer that took nude photos of her, there was a constant change between her and a Japanese face mask (Onna-men) during the stabbing. This mask symbolized that Mima felt as though she was wearing a mask as she was losing her sense of identity. I also believe that the person who was killing the photographer was actually Rumi with her Mima persona. The mask could’ve also represented how Rumi was replacing her own existence with that of Mima. There were moments similar to this in the movie where it was confusing to tell whether or not it was actually Mima or, what we

thought at the time, Mima’s hallucinations due to mental breakdowns. These moments also show how Satoshi Kon blurs the line between reality and fantasy in his work. During his Perfect Blue, once you pay attention to the scene transitions, you will notice that there aren’t many transitions to begin with. The majority of the transitions are just a cut to the next scene and are immediate. This can also be found in his movie Paprika. In one of his interviews regarding Perfect Blue, he stated that the reason behind this was that he hated how slow the traditional scene changes were. With these abrupt changes in scenes, the audience will never be fully sure as to whether the scene on screen is an illusion or an actual event that is occurring. He manages to leave it up to the audience to make that decision. Using this logic can change the perception of the characters which shows how different narratives would give people different impressions allowing for an infinite number of perspectives. The true perspective of the characters will never be known. Lastly, Kon’s art style is done so that the audience to persuaded into thinking differently than what the movie is actually implying. What I mean by that is the expressions and character designs are able to trick the audience. For example, in the movie we find out at the very end that the real “villain” of the story was Rumi; This idea of a villain is not as straightforward as I stated, but for the sake of simplicity. Kon would have fooled the audience with Rumi’s character design. There were very few times where you would question Rumi’s intentions. Rumi had a character design that generally seems kind and caring toward Mima. She would often come by Mima’s apartment to check up on her and have meals with her. No one would have suspected that she would ever do any harm toward Mima. However, the character design of Me-Mania made it very obvious to viewers that he was a bad guy and that he was the one that was behind all the bad things that were happening around Mima. With this, the attention to Rumi’s character was lessened and so it was harder to realize, even with some very obvious signs, that she was actually

the mastermind behind all the horrible things that had happened. One clue that was given in the movie was when Mima came across the website “Mima’s Room”, a website where someone would impersonate her and give daily updates. Any normal person would think to let authorities or anyone trusted know of the strange activities going on on that website, especially when the updates started getting extremely personal and specific. However, Rumi just tried to make it seem as though the website was nothing to worry about and that Mima should stop checking up on it to protect herself. It seemed very out of character for Rumi considering how adamant she was about protecting Mima when talking about her career plans and constantly asking Mima about her feelings. Her obsession with Mima only continued to grow and become more apparent as the film continued. In conclusion, anime is comparable to that of western reality shows dealing with important topics. A majority of Satoshi Kon’s work consists of films that speak upon these topics. Perfect Blue is one of his most popular films that speak of the abuse women in the industry entertainment typically go through. He does so using themes of perception, reality vs fiction, and acceptance of reality, his unique art styles, and cinematic techniques.

Work cited: “Contractual Purity.” TV Tropes, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContractualPurity. Josephy-Hernández, Daniel E. “Reflections on the Translation of Gender in Perfect Blue, an Anime Film by Kon Satoshi.” MonTI. Monografías De Traducción e Interpretación, no. 4, 2019, pp. 308–342., https://doi.org/10.6035/monti.2019.ne4.11. Watch Perfect Blue | Prime Video - Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Blue-Junko-Iwao/dp/B07NNP4R4H. Napier, Susan J. “Why Anime?” Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke, 2001, pp. 3–14., https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299408_1....