Perfect Blue

Satoshi Kon was certainly an interesting individual, this is easily witnessed in any of the interviews he participated in, or in any of the numerous philosophical quotes he spewed out. I legitimately would have loved to meet the man, have a nice leisurely chat about various topics, I wish I got the chance to analyze such a unique person's brain and thought patterns, unfortunately he passed away too soon, so my dream will be unfulfilled. The reader of this review might be wondering as to the relevance of this entire introduction in regards to my review of "Perfect Blue", quite simply, I am stating that ... I respect this man's intellectual gift and talent, while I never actually liked really any of his catalog, I would be lying if I said that his concepts weren't intriguing on paper. However, at the same time, I would be also lying if I claimed that I thought any of his films, especially "Perfect Blue" are actual good pieces of media. As much as Mr.Kon was a bright mind taken far too soon, he wasn't exactly a great director, getting by purely on his ideas, as opposed to actual solid directing, plot construction and general cohesion. Sadly, in my eyes, "Perfect Blue" is nothing more than a fantastic premise muddled in poor cohesion, superficial messages, and pretentious screenplay.

Considering the film was so heavily promoted on the concept of what is real and what isn't, it is hard to gauge what events are actually occuring, or if quite frankly none of it is real. However, I will get to that later, I want to focus on the one clear message the film does have, which is the criticism that it presents towards the superficial pop idol/Japanese media in general. "Perfect Blue" clearly shows the unhealthy infatuation that goes into Japanese pop culture, many Japanese throw away any semblance of normal social life in order to feverishly follow media trends, people involved in media, such as pop idols and actors or fictional Anime characters. They live lives that are missing social interaction and affection, they have a void in their hearts, a void of love and a feeling of being wanted. They are shunned by society due to a variety of different reasons, as a result they turn to more desperate measures to sustain themselves. One instance as the film clearly depicts, is a man that can only be described as hideous, a man who obviously has a struggling or even non-existent social presence, finds salvation in the main character Mina, or to be more accurate, the pop idol facade Mina portrays. Living life full of hardship, causes people to search elsewhere, for that perfect love, that ideal person who will not judge them for who they are, for this man, its the pop idol Mina, her songs uplift his spirit, she is beautiful, kind and meek. Everything that a lonely man would desire, the issue of course, is that Mina is just a character, a character put out by Japanese companies to make money, a superficial facade, in reality Mina is just another person with flaws like any other. This message is explored throughout the film, however I disagree with the way that Satoshi Kon handled it, I feel the character dynamics were far too simplistic to fully demonstrate the complexity of this social issue/phenomenon. The man who is infatuated with Mina, is portrayed as being hideously ugly, monster-like, which I feel was intentional, since Satoshi Kon had a constant theme of having any unlikable/undesirable characters look utterly putrid. I am pretty sure this was done to visually symbolize the horror that is the unhealthy infatuation this man represents, but at the same time it undermines that entire group. Portraying them all as disgusting psychopaths with no empathy, which is far from the case.

The film while supposed to be this deep look into an unhealthy part of Japanese sub culture comes off as nothing more than a biased, one-sided examination. To me it would far more powerful and intense for the viewer, if that character was normal-looking and seemed innocent. Allowing the viewer to drop their guard, making for the eventual scares to have more of an impact as the viewer will not expect it, however with him looking the way he does, the film becomes predictable that this character is not a character, but just a creepy monster representing a biased view of a ostracized part of the population in Japan. The reason it bothers me so much, is because it doesn't give insight to why people fall into this type of behavior and what could be done about it, the creepy monster is only presented as a psychopath with no redeeming qualities, nothing more than a cartoon villain, it would have much more emotional weight to the audience if we learned about why he became that way, and how Mina turned into his savior, a martyr of sorts. Instead, all we get is a demonizing portrayal of a vulnerable group of people, who while of course some of them will be dangerous and go too far in their obsessions, (just like "regular people") quite a number of them are just harmless people who need to be showed support and care, not be dragged through the mud in a biased piece of media.

Now comes the part of the film that basically plays out like a mediocre high school art class, where the teacher would put up on the projector a simplistic, worthless piece of art with a very broad theme and topic. Afterwards, she would ask you, what themes and potential interpretations do you see in the work, "Perfect Blue" is pretty much that in a nutshell. The concept of value and meaning in work is nothing but a subjective farce, any piece of work can be interpreted by an individual to have numerous meanings or cultural significance, society has built up so many different cultural values and symbols that practically any piece of work can be made to seem to be filled to the brim with symbolism, when in reality it is nothing more than symbolism by accident, being confirmed by individuals with their own cultural experiences, values and symbology, essentially putting value into work that was not there to begin with. The essence of arrogance and self-righteous that humanity constantly displays, the need to feel that we are above the other simple life-forms on this planet, when in reality we are nothing but bumbling self-conscious fools. "Perfect Blue" is exactly that, with no concrete structure or proper evidence to showcase if anything being presented on screen has actual meaning or purpose. Instead, the film plays out as a number of scenes put together in order to confuse the viewer, to question what is real or not, making it seem that the film is vast and deep in nature, when in reality the viewer has no chance to put this puzzle together, because there is no puzzle, I would go as far to say that Satoshi Kon himself doesn't know what the plot actually is, because this movie is not about Mina, its not about making a solid film, its about putting in as much symbolism and philosophical ramblings into various scenes, this is simply Mr.Kon's video entry showcasing the inner workings of his thoughts and the various complicated philosophical and ideological issues he was struggling with, too bad this is not an essay, presentation or a non-fictional work discussing these things, this is supposed to be a Animated film, with a plot, a sense of structure and character, "Perfect Blue" has none of that, because none of that mattered in its production, as gifted as Mr.Kon was, he focused too much on inputting his own personal ideas into his work as opposed to just simply making a piece of media that was fundamentally sound.

The reason I am so harsh on this film, is because Satoshi Kon had talent, problem was it was misdirected, the lavish praise he received from news outlets and fans didn't help matters, not allowing him to realize the muddled mess he created, reflecting on it and improving on his actual direction. Numerous theories about the actual plot of the film are plentiful on the internet, the issue with all the theories is none of them are solid, each one has gaping plot holes or illogical character behavior. For instance, if everything that happened to Mina was true, the fact that the police did not get involved is a total farce, and utterly laughable, she is connected to every murder victim, yet the studio never shuts down due to the tragedies and the police aren't immediately ringing at her doorbell asking questions is absurd. It also showcases missed opportunities for the film to actually be scary, after another murder, Mina finds in her closet bloody articles of clothing, immediately after the media are knocking at her door. What would have been actually scary is if that was the police, it would make sense and be a natural progression in terms of intensity, she discovers evidence that could convict her of a crime, the moment she finds it the police are at the door, the audience would be on the edge of their seat, anticipating how Mina will handle the upcoming critical situation. But no, that doesn't happen, instead the media barge into her home, with no police presence anywhere, and the scene lasts only 5 seconds, a pointless throw-away scene with no sense of thrill.

Now one might be asking, well what if she was simply mentally ill, and most of the film was just illusions by a person suffering from some sort of severe mental disorder. Again, the film does not have enough sufficient evidence to conclude any theory one way or the other, of course by now we realize it was meant to be this way, but I just find that notion to be a cope out for poor writing and cohesion. Going back to the example of interpretation, since as the viewer we are given nonsensical sequences one after the other, almost any interpretation is valid, really only being limited by one person's imagination and creativity. In fact, I pose a theory, the entire film is actually a movie within a movie. Some people might gawk at that notion and find it absurd, but is it really?, just like the concept of adding value to a piece of work when in reality there is none. The film is so open-ended with no sense of cohesion, any theory can be viewed as acceptable in order to explain what occurs in "Perfect Blue". This is exactly why, I don't find this film "deep", its lazy storytelling and directing, instead of creating a movie with a clear plot and structure, adding in meaning, symbolism, ideology and any other dissections of social behavior. Instead, what we are given is a film with poor structure, disguised as being purposely deceiving, in order for the audience to question what is happening, in reality what that is, is making the audience do all the work, coming up with theories, meanings and values that are not there to begin with. Putting value into a piece of work that doesn't have any value, that is "Perfect Blue" described in one statement, it is a lazy piece of work, that has garnered praise for not what it did, but for what other people who are desperate to be viewed as intellectually gifted perceived it to be.

As for the rest of the technical aspects of the film, Madhouse did a pretty mediocre job animating, their a much better looking Animated full-length features around this era. Key frames look okay, and any shots with little movement maintain decent quality, however the moment alot of movement is present, art quality drops to laughable levels. The music is fine if uninspired, reason being is I found the soundtrack to be very similar to the game series "Clock Tower", which coincidentally was released only a few years prior. In conclusion, I respect Satoshi Kon as a person, I don't think he was a good director, he had good ideas that unfortunately became a muddled mess with no direction. "Perfect Blue" is sadly no different, a overrated Anime film that while intriguing at times, falls flat on its face.

I don't recommend this too anyone except if you like phycological horror and are ok with touchy subjects. I was actually really scared after watching this movie and couldn't sleep because I watched it at night years ago. I think the story itself is ok. From what I know is that it's very similar to a real thing that happened to an idol. At least with the stalker part. The animation is really good and was actually the main reason I watched it. It was just to study the animation and colors from the film. If you're wanting to watch just to study, please look ... at screenshots. I kinda regret watching just for the purpose of studying.

While I know a majority of the people enjoyed watching this and I acknowledge that in the end I don't find this genre particularly to my taste, I think an opposing review might be helpful.

I highly disliked this film.

It was around the beginning of my middling anime watching experience. I have watched a range of others before it - Sailormoon, Rurouni Kenshin, X-1999, Eva, Magic Knight Rayearth, etc. - and at the time I thought this would have been interesting change of pace, considering the rave reviews it got, online and off. However, when I watched it, it did not please me.

Okay, first ... things first. The art is very good for its time and realistic. I don't particularly enjoy this particular style but I do acknowledge it is done with skill and suit the subject matter. However, some scenes became all the more sickening, in a mental way, and made the film feel harsher to me as a viewer because of the style used. The music was alright, I took no pleasure in it but it added to the mood and was suspenseful when it was supposed to be and gripping when it needed it. The story was decent, except that it was highly convoluted and the subject matters it took on were difficult and did not allow me to enjoy any element of it.

The characters, to me, were not accessible and hard to sympathize with. Or you sympathize but it's just painful. Their actions and the actions of the general ppl in the story were constantly brutal, usually with blatant sexual violence, but it was fairly one-sided, leaving me with no room to describe the experience with "enjoy" or "like". I also did not like how loneliness became shameful and criminal, and seemed to be a theme that had no other dimension... maybe delusional... but nothing that just is. Everyone get lonely, I don't understand how EVERYONE becomes warped by this isolation. It's like the movie is crying out that isolation, from society and others, will always lead to the path of deviants. At least, this is the impression I get from it since the clearest recall I have of this all lead to some form of eventual criminal deeds. The story was also convoluted enough and the characters were shown in such a way that I only felt I was taking bad things from it because it only had bad things to give. I can see the darkness in society but it was almost like the world was devoid of any goodness and decency, or at least, it is so overshadowed by falsehood and madness that it can't be counted on to be real. When I think on this anime I only vividly remember the terrible sexual violence, the humiliation and fear of the main character and the villains. These are not things I want to take away from anything I watch but these are the ONLY things I feel I took away from this film, at least they overshadowed all else.

The main character only resounds with me at the ending act, but fails to connect me to her throughout the movie as a shining light and more as a constant victim that struggled... somewhere that doesn't feel like triumph and isn't exactly defeat. I don't enjoy watching an entire movie about someone who is defined by the entire show as a victim, and while some people may feel she overcame her obstacles, I did not feel that way at the end of it.

Was it a well done anime? Visually, yes. But did I enjoy it in any way, no. I can only think on this anime and say I really hated watching it. I don't mean it bored me, I mean I disliked the characters and were genuinely disgusted at points in the story, I did not enjoy the story in any way, and in the end, it just leaves a bad impression in my mind as a whole.

I would not watch or recommend this anime. It is a singular opinion, but I did not feel that the marriage of crime to surrealism in this case worked for me in anyway. And well I can stomach violence and human folly, this one was the entirely wrong mixture for me to like or even feel tolerably toward.

I gave it a 3, on the merit that it was well made but having seen it and processed it, I did not in any way enjoy the story it had to tell or the way it was told.

(Contains spoilers)

Perfect Blue is just another psychological slash horror/thriller anime. But for me, it was a messed-up movie.

When I first heard about this I thought it will be awesome and an opportunity for me to have another gore anime to watch. But to my disappointment, I didn't enjoy it. The storyline is confusing. Hell, I thought Mima was the one who had psychosis (split character/hallucination). The Me-Mania guy as well. What was the point of his character? Was it to be a puppet of Rumi who wanted to be a real Mima? As I watched from the first half, Rumi was an idol whose career ... flopped, as well as her group. The me-mania guy was the one doing the killing, obsessed with the faux Mima (who was apparently Rumi). As for Rumi, she has a split personality. I'm guessing she had it when she was extremely jealous of Mima for her successful debut. And when Mima's handler Tadokara? (lmao I forgot his name) told Rumi that he has to sign up Mima as an actress she got really crazy. This is just a whole messed-up movie.

The storyline was confusing as hell. Especially on the climax part, I mean what were the hallucinations for? Was it in her head? Or was it Rumi with the wig who was taunting her? If it was how come, nobody saw what she was up to? If she wanted to really be an idol and why didn't she say NO to the tadokara guy?

The aesthetic or the animation of the movie was good. The soundtrack was good too. However, I was so disappointed. I did not enjoy. I don't get why many people like this movie. Overall, this is a 4/10.

The only other negative review on here is written by someone who clearly hates horror or dark things in the vein of this movie, so I figure in counter to the good reviews AND that review, I will write this.

Is this movie for you?
Do you see a lot of horror/psychological drama? This is a very obvious plotted movie, easy to guess everything. Worse yet the first half is more drama than horror, played with an obvious mental breakdown. It may have been unique in its day (though I don't believe so), but more likely a lot of Moe and Shounen or Magical Girl fans have ... just never seen anything like this, and most people didn't expect this from anime at the time.

Why I dislike it? (Spoilers)
The plot is pretty obvious. That's say that I DROPPED the movie halfway through, about 2 anime episodes worth of movie, and then read ahead in a plot description to find I had correctly guessed everything that would happen. I paged ahead in the movie to see that it does get a bit more graphic, but the first half is painful to sit through. It's like a lifetime movie production, or some cheap paperback you pick up at a yard sale. Every element has been done 1000 times since, they've been done in the same movie, I'm pretty sure they were done before hand also based on movies I've seen from the 80s.

The art style is ok, however there are a few errors here or there. It's worth noting all the bad people are ugly, all the good people are pretty. I liked the costume designs. I did not enjoy the sound track though.

The characters are hardest to sympathize with. I appreciated that her manager, the male one, was doing his best for her. However the main character herself is a dolt. At literally the exact same year she was learning to use her computer, me and a class of 20 other 2nd graders were learning to do the exact same. But it's not just that. She takes all the worst advice from everyone, has almost no ability to see what's going on "Haha, this person really knows me!", even when things are literally blowing up she doesn't have the presence of mind to get help. So yes, she's stupid. It doesn't mean I want her to get murdered, but it doesn't make her an interesting character to watch.

Interesting characters have always been the creative, bright ones who find ways through their situations in interesting ways. Sherlock Holmes to L, Or at least have tenacity. She's whiny, cowardly, makes bad decisions, doesn't seem to manage relationships well. I realize it must be hard to write a horror story (if this is indeed even intended to be one) where the character is not a ditz, but this takes it possibly too far.

Summary:
A psychological movie that combines realism and surrealism to 'disturb' the audience and deals with certain themes related to people involved in idol and acting industry like doubting career choice and what one really wants, insanity, idol worship and actresses having to indulge in lewd activities despite their discomfort.
Its about a young idol who decides to switch her career from a pop star to an actress, but isn't sure if thats what she really wants especially after she has to taint her pure reputation by getting involved in sex scenes and nude photography. She is also being stalked by a creepy fan who loathes ... the idea of losing his favorite idol and will cross any line to get her back on the track.
It has a bleak, faded and realistic atmosphere and slightly slow pacing which suits the movie. It involves many scenes based on simple situations (lacking complex character dynamics and variety of events) both realistic as well as surreal ones (while still retaining realism in some aspects) which involve the main character hallucinating and interacting with a version of herself that is true to herself and losing the grip of reality. Most of the scenes try really hard to come across as creepy but are often cliché. The movie subverts the expectations it developed in its audience, blurs the line between reality and delusion and requires rewatching certain scenes to grasp everything entirely.

The main appeal of this movies lies in its realism, disturbing or creepy nature, its surreal nature, its plot-twists, its atmosphere and its themes. Most of these aspects of the film however, were pretty underwhelming. If anyone were to like this movie for being thrilling, it would be hard to believe because it utterly fails in that regard. Its scenes that are meant to stimulate strong emotions feel cliché, lack intensity and are based on very simple events.

Story and its themes:
The primary theme is about how having to give up one one's passion due to various reasons can badly influence a person's mental health It involves a young girl who decides to switch her career from a pop star to an actress but has to sell her sexual appeal through stuff like doing dirty scenes or nude photography which drives her to insanity in a subtle manner.
The other theme is about how some mentally ill, creepy, obsessive fans would go to any lengths to preserve the image of the idols they worship.
Some people might complain that the movie tries to incorporate too many themes for its own good and turns out to be a mess but its themes are highly related to each other and only feel like a mess because of some coincidences the story requires to move its plot and how it intentionally tries to confuse or mislead the audience.
Another problem with the story or the themes is that even though the movie is somewhat confusing but it still involves extremely simple events or scenes to convey them.
It did manage to show somewhat intense scenes about the theme of having to do dirty sex work in the acting industry even if the actress is uncomfortable about doing so.
The scenes that are supposed to show the mental state of the main character mostly involve the MC zoning out, the MC seeing an illusion of herself in her idol star dress who is true to her desires ,talking to herself sometimes through her mirror's reflection and sometimes from outside the mirror (hallucinations). There isn't anything that great about seeing a character zone out if you can't feel their pain or relate to them or like them, which wouldn't be the case here since the MC is portrayed as a very simple and naive character without much complexity or interesting personality traits. The scenes involving hallucinations are only there to create false sense of thrill and instead create cliché representation of a person's psychology.
Coming to the theme of creepy obsessive stalker, there aren't many scenes involving complex events related to this theme. Just some gore involving characters about which the audience isn't supposed to care about, some scenes emphasizing on how the stalker keeps staring at the MC and keeps track of her and acts slightly creepy. These things would be extremely disturbing in real life but while watching a movie, extra effort need to be put if you want to recreate realistic emotions to the events that play out which this movie fails to do. Heck, the stalker is made to look so hideous just so that the audience would feel disturbed but again its not enough. There was only one major scene involving an interesting situation or event involving the stalker, which was (I hope this doesn't come across as spoiler since its predictable considering the theme), the stalker trying to assault the MC but that too was cliché.
Maybe if the movie had more complex and interesting events related to its themes that actually feel intense or thrilling (like in death note or Fight Club), the movie would've been much better even if it required some more plot conveniences. The events and characters are too simple.
To make up for this simplicity the movie tries to confuse and mislead. An example of how it does that are scenes when it cutts off to the part where MC wakes up on her bed after something bizarre happens, so that the line between dream and reality blurs. A simple way to keep track of whether something happened or not is to think about the consequences. No consequences mean it did not happen. Speaking of consequences, there should've been horde of police or investigators at the front door of the MC asking questions related to criminal activities that she got herself involved in, adversly affecting her acting career. Another thing which might've caused some confusion is the fact that the condition of the role the MC is playing as an actress in a movie is similar to her real life conditions which might confuse some. The rest of it are just some cheap and misleading tricks to create confusion.

The disturbing part:
There is very little human warmth in this movie. Whatever there is, is very formal and is for the sake of character study. It involves gore and the female MC having to sell her sexual appeal for the sake of her career. There are (almost) rape scenes shown in a disturbing and realistic manner which can make some audience uncomfortable. The MC also gets creepy hallucinations because of her problems making the movie surreal. The creepy, hideous looking stalker who is obssesed with the MC, also adds to the disturbing nature of the movie. There are some other factor as well, adding to this aspect but I didn't find any of it intense enough. There is a scene in which the MC spots the creepy MC near the place where the film shooting is occurring but the moment she turns away and then looks for him again, he vanishes like Batman which is a really cliché scene. While I don't get disturbed by fiction but I can still feel the intensity of its supposedly disturbing or creepy scenes like in surreal fiction like Fight Club or Berserk or realistic fiction like Schindler's list.

The psychological and surreal part:
Since the characters are delusional and the MC hallucinates a lot, she imagines a version of herself who is true to her heart lot.
It has lots of those cliché scenes in which a person's subconsciousness talk to them through their mirror's reflection. Anime is guilty of not being subtle enough and this movie is no exception in certain aspects. I say this particularly because of those mirror scenes. Black Swan is very similar to this movie yet it keeps the hallucination scenes to a minimum and involves very small but intense interactions between the MC and her hallucinatory self.
There are scenes in this movie in which the MC runs from and after her hallucinatory image. After the twist is revealed, you'll realise that there is a great difference between the the nature of the said image in the two scenes. Some will say that the former is some kind of foreshadowing but its really no big deal if you think about it since it doesn't take a lot to come up with foreshadowing in one and a half hour movie. That scene, frankly speaking, sucks. Its not thrilling, not beautiful, not deep. It tries to be those things but fails and is simply meaningless. It only manages to confuse the audience slightly as it cutts of to the MC waking up on her bed. As for the latter, I can't say much without spoiling but it requires two characters to have mutually consolidating mental diseases which is highly unlikely but an entertainment piece of fiction usually requires such improbable stuff to happen. That chase scene is shown from a mentally ill person's POV who hallucinates a lot but also in a manner that doesn't make sense as if she is only seeing stuff that would make the scene look more surreal for the audience. She should've seen her hallucinatory self running directly after her like a person would logically speaking but was seeing her flying and jumping as she chased her. Another weird thing is that no one tried to stop the MC since during the chase they should be seeing the real PoV but lets assume that no one saw her even though its unlikely and dismiss it as a minor issue. Neither of the two chase scenes are particularly beautiful or intense.
Surreal scenes must look good, have some meaning and feel intense but the budget of this movie is too low and the surreal scenes aren't up to the mark.
All these scenes which attempt to show the psychology of the MC like whenever the MC is zoning off, talking to her hallucination, running because of it, throwing away her stuff in anger, they feel cheap, clichés and lack any kind of intensity.

The Plot-twist:
The plot twist is heavily foreshadowed. It is good. It requires some plot convenience or coincidences but nothing too unbelievable. The reveal isn't mind-blowing like in Fight Club or The sixth sense but its still decent nonetheless. Once the twist is revealed, the viewer will be able to understand the movie much better on rewatching since it would be possible to finally determine what the characters actually want and whether something is really happening or is all made up by a crazy mind. There would still be some ambiguity though. There are also scenes which remind me of Alfred Hitchcock in which in the movie the MC is playing a part, a psychiatrist explains the mental state of some ill person whose circumstances are in some ways similar to that of the MC of the movie. The movie managed to be slightly clever in this regard.

The atmosphere:
I highly recommend to watch this movie in dark. While the atmosphere is bleak and slightly stylised, the animation budget is slightly low. It is fluid but colors are faded and it doesn't look good enough although some people might consider it to be a part of its style. Still surreal scenes that lack thrill, have simple meaning must atleast look beautiful and mesmerizing which they did not.

Based on my review it may seem like this movie is really bad its really just average and has some good qualities.

I'm a big Kon fan, i love Milennium Actress and Paprika.
But this just does not hold a candle in comparison and here is why:

Story 5/10
The story itself is a pretty basic concept. A pop idol wants to further her career and she ends up with mental issues to put it mildly. Its nothing revolutionary, and it doesn't have to be, but it fell flat. There weren't many possible ways this would end so it was predictable throughout the whole movie, within the first 20 minutes with no prior knowledge apart from reading the summary i had guessed 2 possible endings and one of them came ... true, the journey itself was done quite well actually so i can see where the praise is coming from, but i expected more. Because of the execution it still deserves a 5.

Art 1/10
Sprite issues, visible pen lines, it makes me belief that this movie had some funding issues, the overall art is done intentionally in an unaesthetic manor to add to the disturbment of the viewer.

Sound 1/10
Although the ost fits thematically well it's incredibly monotonous.
The voice acting is fairly average.

Character 1/10
The characters are bland, while interesting psychological elements are explored there are no interesting backstories that explain the characters drive towards her goals. Her decision making is also incredibly lacking which made it incredibly hard to watch.

Enjoyment 1/10

A mediocre story with no revolutionary concept, although the visual excecution was well done and the skript was written decently, its just not enough to justify the score of the movie. The setting, characters and dialogue are all a part of overall writing as well and they just didn't hold up compared to the execution of the movie. Overall there could have been much better ways to fulfill the intentions this movie had.
It had much more potential, its quite overrated to be honest.
The whole Movie's only selling point is its execution. If you take that away you would have a pure mess. Confusing the viewer with hallucinations and making him question reality is great. But if the movie solely relies on that to make it good calling it a masterpiece is very farfetched.

I'm mostly disappointed because Satoshi Kon later on went to create wonderful masterpieces like Paprika and Millenium Actress. But i guess he learned from his mistakes.

Overall 1/10