Mousou Dairinin (Paranoia Agent)

The infamous Shounen Bat is terrorizing the residents of Musashino City. Flying around on his rollerblades and beating people down with a golden baseball bat, the assailant seems impossible to catch—much less understand. His first victim, the well-known yet timid character designer Tsukiko Sagi, is suspected of orchestrating the attacks. Believed only by her anthropomorphic pink stuffed animal, Maromi, Tsukiko is just one of Shounen Bat's many victims.

As Shounen Bat continues his relentless assault on the town, detectives Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa begin to investigate the identity of the attacker. However, more and more people fall victim to the notorious golden bat, and news of the assailant begins circulating around the town. Paranoia starts to set in as chilling rumors spread amongst adults and children alike.

Will the two detectives be able to unravel the truth behind Shounen Bat, or will the paranoia get to them first?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

The anime was awarded the Silver Prize in Animation Jury Award and Audience Award at Fantasia International Film Festival 2004 in Montreal, Canada.

Episode Videos

Tominaga, Miina
Japanese

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Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Tanaka, Shinsaku

Assistant Producer

Kon, Satoshi

Director, Storyboard, Original Creator

Mima, Masafumi

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

"Yume no Shima Shinen Kouen/Dream Island Obsessional Park (夢の島思念公園)" by Susumu Hirasawa

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Ending Theme

"Shiroi Oka - Maromi no Theme" by Susumu Hirasawa

Reviews

Apr 19, 2008

Ranivus

Recommended

For those who aren't used to a Satoshi Kon anime, be prepared. They usually start off as a normal type of anime, and then take a serious turn for the surreal. As for Paranoia Agent, it starts off as a normal detective-style anime but then the plot twists and turns worse than a twist-tie on a bag of wonder bread. For those used to Satoshi Kon's work (Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers, etc), none of this is news. Personally I enjoy a good "whodunit" anime since I also love CSI, 24, Prison Break, etc. These kind of shows actually get the viewer to really think how ... its going to unfold next or guess who is the real culprit. Just for general information I watched the whole show on Cartoon Network years ago, but then I rewatched the Japanese version and let me tell you there are ALOT of things they (Cartoon Network) cut in various episodes of the show. They even took out important parts of the show that were very important to making the episode make sense. But after watching the 'uncut' version many things made sense.

Even with that extra knowledge I couldn't help but think that half the episodes had a filler feeling to them. Many times you'll wonder why certain story arcs are being told or how that person is connected to the overall story but it will all make sense in the end (except for episode 09). The character cast is extremely varied, in terms of look and personality. The details show in most of their faces.Whats most noticeable is the older the character is, the more detail their face becomes. The voice acting in the english and japanese dubs are extremely top notch as well. For the serious otakus you'll definitely notice Mamiko Noto's voice or Haruko Momoi, but if you're open minded enough to listen to the english side of the voices you'll notice good voices as well like Carrie Savage or Sam Regal. But the attention to detail don't just stop with character style and voice acting.

Character props and background art is where this show shines the most, from an artists cluttered cubicle to an otaku's room filled with figures. I could have sworn you can actually see a layer of dust on an old bookshelf. Each scene is unique and different and you can tell they put alot of time and effort on all the small details to make this show stand out better than the rest. My only gripe out the artwork is that it is very earth tone and dark. Well not really dark per se but its color scheme is very warm and brownish looking which I didn't like all that much but you will soon overcome the problem the more you watch it.

Another gripe I am not to fond of how Kon draws his characters. Some of them look very normal, ordinary and sometimes cute. But the characters who wear their personality on their sleeves look very drastic. Like abnormaly huge mouths, beady eyes, fishy lips, all very strange to look at. The most that suffers from this type of look are the male figures in the show. I'm not fond of it but im sure most people will enjoy the change of pace from all the cute moe cartoons that plage the anime world.

If you have never seen a Sat-Kon anime, I highly reccomend watching this series simply because it will definitely be a different experience that you should see for yourself. With the outrageous plot twists and holes in some parts, the story does have a few problems overall. Like I said way back in the beggining the story starts out fine then it takes a serious turn for the surreal so take that however you may but I highly recommender this to anyone who doesn't mind a crazy mind trip of "Alice in Wonderland" proportions.

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Jul 27, 2011

Proxy11

Mixed Feelings

These are my Reviews if they're helpful great, if not, that's great too. I am NOT adept at writing/typing this is merely a contribution to the site. I assume the reader has finished the show.

Story

Paranoia Agent wants to confuse the hell out of you, unfortunately it's way more simple then it would have you believe. It confuses you and uses outrageous metaphors to deliver the most simple messages. Over and over each episode is delivering the same message in a new way, but it never delivers the plot. Which is basically people mentally breaking from minor life issues and blaming it all on a .. ... was about to spoil, I mean really it's not that difficult. I believe they forgot to tie in the weak story until the last two episodes resulting in a borderline filler middle and a rushed ending. If only they kept the continuity of the first four episodes my score would be higher because those four had potential! Went and gone off the deep end.

Animation

At first glance it looks great but don't look deeper. As the series progresses the animation and quality of the artwork suffer. This is inexcusable for a 13 episode series. Even though I agree with raising the quality of animation for important sequences only, Paranoia Agent takes a really weird route. Intended or not I wasn't impressed and felt more like they were cutting corners. Towards the end episodes were with cardboard characters.. I fail to see this as creative. If anything the diversity of character designs was the best part.

Sound

When the show decides to be serious it does well to give the viewer a creepy feeling, much thanks to the music. However these moments are so short and grow further apart. It sets the mood for certain situations fulfilling it's purpose but isn't showcased enough. Why? Moments to do so disappear the more Paranoia Agent moves forward. What could have been exceptional is above average when it tries. The opening theme made me feel like I was having a mental breakdown wishing someone would hit me with a bat. The ending theme was pretty damn catchy, but when it's in my head two days later it pisses me off, where's a bat? my problems are too much.

Characters

All the characters had problems in life that weighed on them mentally and would progressively affect their behavior. However in most cases the problem did not make sense of the actions causing them to feel forced and just downright fake. Character development is their to a small degree, a couple I even enjoyed watching. The rest were either cast off too soon or uninteresting from the start, leaving me indifferent to whatever happens to them. New episode, new mental breakdown, some exaggerated reason and BAM! Is that a spoiler? I did think one of the detectives was hilarious even though it's not my kind of comedy. It's not all lost!

Final Thought

Paranoia Agent tries to lighten the story with comedy aimed at a younger "Shounen" audience while attempting to maintain it's thought provoking premise. It's been done successfully before but not this time. I'm not sure what exactly it wants to be. Humor was overdone in a attempt to hide how mediocre the show really is. Based off the ratings and reviews it's done that well. I feel like Kira was writing this story epically eating potato chips when he realized their was only one chip in the bag to begin with :D Let is resonate. Anyway my low score should imply I didn't understand the series right? No, I understood all of it and my score remains the same.

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Mar 30, 2009

JHawx

Not Recommended

Paranoia agent is a series that keeps going steadily for 1 direction... worse.
After 6-7 episodes, the story is left behind and taken to a stories wich has nothing to do with the main story itself... It really looks like they had a good idea, big budget and then they messed up, didnt catch any story idea and just told, eh, fuck it.

Ok, so the artwork is great, the story starts decent but then flops totally, not being able to catch up, it just gets worse and worse every ep.

After all, the characters backgrounds are slim as pancake, depth is nonexistent, only good is sounds, but ...

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Poll: Mousou Dairinin Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) katsup - Apr 3, 2008	215 replies	by mbarseru »» Mar 21, 4:16 AM
Poll: Mousou Dairinin Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Arashi89 - Aug 7, 2009	68 replies	by LithiumHead9 »» Mar 6, 1:01 AM
Poll: Mousou Dairinin Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Arashi89 - Aug 7, 2009	89 replies	by LithiumHead9 »» Feb 22, 2:57 AM
Poll: Mousou Dairinin Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) LibreKoi - May 24, 2009	63 replies	by lkj509 »» Feb 7, 2:41 AM
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Mousou Dairinin

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Characters & Voice Actors

Shounen Bat

Sagi, Tsukiko

Ikari, Keiichi

Maniwa, Mitsuhiro

Maromi

Chono, Harumi

Old Man

Ikari, Misae

Taira, Yuichi

Kamome

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