The plot of Paranoia Agent switched between various characters in the show being attacked by an unknown assailant on roller blades with a bent baseball bat. For the shows sake, it always falls back on the two detectives assigned to investigate these attacks, and the first character attacked going by the name Sagi Tsukiko. The assailant based on witness accounts comes to be referred to as “Shounen Bat.” Sagi is a famous character designer under a lot of pressure from her company to create another hit character. One day, on her way home from work she starts to crack under the consuming pressure of her given situation all of a sudden gets knocked out from Shounen Bat. From that moment and the next few episodes, multiple different characters go through similar mental breakages in their social situation leading up to their own encounter with Shounen Bat. With each assault more and more strange occurrences happen.
Immediately, this anime resembles comparisons to Perfect Blue. It focuses on the mental state of characters, the setting is realistic, and even appeals to an audience with taste for the psychological genre. However, as soon a real pace gets set, the anime diverts into a nightmare-esc setting and atmosphere. This creates intrigue to the story and anticipation for the next episode.
Unfortunately, what makes Paranoia Agent fall at an incredible speed is the overall presentation to said story. The plot is told from each episode’s main character and their perspective. The audience gets to understand and see the progression of a mental break and the impact it has on the story. However, some of these episodes do not directly affect the plot and the audience does not get any conclusion with some of these characters either. Events are left up to imagination and characters are generally left off in obscure situations. Put it all together and it creates too many questions with an equally confusing story to follow.
What is done well was not Kon’s intent on telling a coherent story like Perfect Blue has, but to provide a conversation on social commentary through an incredibly unique perspective. Each episode seems to have various topic(s) to focus on such as self-victimization, consumerism, and isolation. Also, symbols representing these themes crop up to make each episode unique and interesting no matter if that symbol does not seem to make sense at the time. Examples of this would be the use of the moon to how crows are perceived.
Animation and character design is fairly simplistic and a bit below average for the time. It falls into the line of Boogiepop Phantom without the atmosphere. This is not Satoshi Kon’s best work by far, but still manages to create something so synonymous with why anime fans enjoy his stuff. Despite have many faults and an ending being in the realm of WTF Evangelion, it remains a good choice to watch in the psychological genre. It really is a shame there just was too many questions left unanswered.
