Reviews

Nov 20, 2015
I’ve recently finished to watch both Neon Genesis Evangelion and the related film, the End of Evangelion. It seemed impossible to find something more mind blowing than that, but I was wrong.

This review won’t contain spoliers.


Story 9/10

Perfect Blue talk about a pop-idol called Mima Kirigoe, that is forced by her managers to leave the pop world, that she loved, to become an actress, considered a more economically convenient work. At the beginning she feels free without all the commitments that she had while she was a singer, but after a while something changes and the reality of her as an actress starts to mix with the illusion of her as a pop-idol. And a strange stalker is following her...

Even if the story at the beginning might seem clear and linear, while the anime progresses you start to lose the perception of what is true and what is an illusion. Satoshi Kon, the director, manages to involve the watcher in the anime, putting yourself in the shoes of the protagonist and its paranoia. Everything is made even more confusing by the fact that Mima is acting in a film and usually it’s hard to distinguish the reality from the film and from Mima’s illusions too.


Art & Animation 8/10

The art is weird, facial proportions are distorted in nearly all characters except for Mima and a few others. The animation isn’t the best I’ve seen, but since this is an anime from 1998 it isn't really a concern. The staff probably wanted to use the exterior aspect of the characters to externalize how they really are inside: for example, Me-Mania, the fanatic stalker, has a grotesque face that will probably give me nightmares if I continue to think about it.

Colors are mainly dull, the general atmosphere is gloomy and surreal. The art style fits very well the story and the themes discussed, drawings and animation manage to give you the sense of alienation typical of this dementia genre.


Sound 7/10

I don’t remember any particular music except the ending one, that is particularly enjoyable, but that’s probably because you can’t in any possible way focus on the OST while you are watching and trying to understand an anime like this. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the japanese version of Perfect Blue, so I had to watch the english dubbed version, that isn’t as good as I expected. I hope to find it one day in the original language to watch it again.


Characters 8/10

Mima is the center of all the story and the anime is a study of every aspect of her psychology. The story goes really deep in character’s development of not only the protagonist, but also of Me-Mania and Rumi Hidaka, that are a sort of co-protagonists rather than supporting. As I’ve already said in the Art paragraph, the external appearence is also a determinant factor in the analysis of the characters, so you can really have a 360 degrees view about them.


Enjoyment 8/10

If you want to understand Perfect Blue, you can’t lose any single word of it, and even this isn’t enough. I confess that after the last scene I immediately went to search for an explanation. What I found was a list of many interpretations, each one different from the others. After reading two/three of them I only had even more confusion in my head, that’s why I’ll probably watch it again and search for some details that I’ve probably missed.

Perfect Blue manages to catch you since the beginning, when everything becomes strange and you feel that you can only continue to try to understand something. The questions made by Mima are the same you make to yourself, while everything revolves around you and her. She doesn’t understand? Well, you don’t understand too. That’s why I enjoyed this anime a lot, it managed to arise that type of interest that mainly only thriller genre normally does.

Should you watch it? Yes, if the old style doesn’t concern you and you aren’t scared about having your mind blowed, watch it. Just keep in mind that the rating is R+, there are indeed some pretty violent and disturbing parts.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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