Two years ago, I wrote these sentences to start my notes:
Awesome psychological thriller anime by the legendary director. Highly recommended, available for free (with ads) on Funimation.
All that I remember now:
That was a fucking crazy show.
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Paranoia Agent hit my key checkboxes at the time.
- Genera fiction: Detective, Fantasy, Slice of Life, Horror. A collage with everything.
- Auteur: Narrative told in a quirky way with an open ended resolution.
- Weird: A crazy story that toys with artistic effects and taps my favorite gimmick — busting the fourth wall.
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If you haven’t seen anything by Satoshi Kon before, here is a 1 minute short to whet your appetite.
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Since this was the last piece of Satoshi Kon’s catalog, I should rank his major. It happens to follow the path of heartwarming at the top to darkness at the bottom. But Perfect Blue is still better than almost any other anime film you could watch, it’s a classic like Jin-Roh and competes with the best in Ghibli’s catalog. All are highly recommended.
- Tokyo Godfathers
- Millennium Actress
- Paranoia Agent
- Paprika
- Perfect Blue
Here is an hour long retrospective of his catalog.
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Paranoia Agent is a wacky piece, but after watching a couple reviews of the series on YouTube, I agree that it falls in in line with the rest of Satoshi Kon’s catalog.
It’s a mind bending animation that explores the intersection of delusion and media. Kon explores the idea that our brains and our realities exist on different planes which are mediated by mass media. As one review said, it’s an “animated fever dream”.
However, I heard two critiques that are worth countering.
Someone wondered on a podcast if Satoshi Kon lost control along the way. I agree that Kon plays a high wire act where everything spins all over the place. Midway through the series you’re praying that it all comes back together. But he never lost command of the story. The trajectory could have ended badly but he pulled it off.
Also another reviewer thought that a couple of the tangents felt like filler. At a macro level, any narrative could be boiled down to a simple sentence, but the reviewer didn’t mention which episodes could be cut. Since nothing felt like filler to me, I’d say that the show hit its 13 episode length perfectly. This was an expansive, twisted universe that didn’t overstay its welcome.
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Here is the my ranking of the anime series I had watched:
- Mindbending favorites: Space Dandy, Paranoia Agent
- Fun Classics: Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Hilda
- Almost Classic: Arcane, Cyberpunk Edgerunners
- Decent with weaknesses: Kids on the Slope, Kipo and the Wonderbeasts, Terror in Resonance
- WTF, but still worth watching: Neo Genesis Evangelion
- Flawed with a few great moments: Carole and Tuesday
- Honorable Mention (no storyline): Love Death + Robots
Will I watch rewatch Paranoia Agent anytime soon? I doubt it. I moved on after spending a couple of days scrolling through YouTube commentaries. It takes a lot for me to commit to longform media — my protestant work ethic doesn’t allow me to do regularly indulge in such unproductive activities, even if I already know I’ll love it.
If I were to rewatch anything on that list, it would be Space Dandy. That show hits all the wild stuff with a comedic edge, which my wimpy self prefers over the light horror of Paranoia Agent.
Ultimately, both Paranoia Agent and Space Dandy are great works that routinely surprised me. More often than not, I’d end an episode with my jaw agape, OMG what did I just see?! That wuz fucking Brilliant!?!!
What more can you ask for at 22 minutes a pop?
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If all this didn’t do it for you, then at least check out the opening and ending credits that was played for each of the shows, with music by the incomparable Susumu Hirasawa (who also composed the excellent Paprika soundtrack)