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REVIEW: Paprika

Considering it's probably the most-bashed title ever released in the United States,except may be (though unlikely) Naruto,

It might be an exception for someone who knows the name of Satoshi Kon, but entertainment is not meant to be enjoyed because the creator is named William Shakespeare or some other famous person with a certain style.

Quite frankly, I'm willing to trust the word of a guy who's seen over 500+ anime series and movies...even though some of his "masterpieces" may be questionable.

Quite frankly, I'm willing to trust the word of a guy who's seen over 500+ anime series and movies...even though some of his "masterpieces" may be questionable.

I hope everyone here enjoys it as much as I did, but I fully expect this to be another Evangelion, where half of anime fandom calls it the second coming and the other half hates it with the firey passion of a Narutard flaming a dub job.

The point of the entire second act of Perfect Blue was confusion -- spoiler[Mima didn't know what was real and what was all in her head, and neither did we, and in the end it's revealed that it wasn't even the real Mima's head]. I always thought that was a little bit unfair, so while I like Perfect Blue quite a bit, I don't consider it to be on the same level as Kon's other work.

I enjoy this movie on an entirely different level than Kon's other work, and while it didn't shatter my conceptions of anime as a storytelling medium like Millennium Actress did (think about that narrative structure, and try to picture it working in ANY other artform... and then try to think of the last time a new narrative structure was INVENTED),

I appreciated it's heart, its humor and its very real characters.

I hope the original Paprika novel gets translated eventually, maybe by some of the companies experimenting with light novels these days.

Re: the character designs, I find judging character designs to be the most subjective part of reviewing an anime, since it's almost an issue of pure style. Even the ugliest designs may be in service to the story, and if so, that's hard to fault. I didn't mention it at all in my review, but I can't imagine the movie looking any other way.

Maybe this is just me, but I found GITS:SAC character designs very bothersome, and in some ways, detracted my enjoyment of the show. I watched the GITS movie though, and saw a complete difference. I find that when the designers modeled the characters for the show, they came up with a too realistic approach, while the movie looked more "anime". I'm not saying the characters have to look a certain way, but you sometimes get the feeling they're trying too hard.

halochief_90 wrote:

Maybe this is just me, but I found GITS:SAC character designs very bothersome, and in some ways, detracted my enjoyment of the show. I watched the GITS movie though, and saw a complete difference. I find that when the designers modeled the characters for the show, they came up with a too realistic approach, while the movie looked more "anime". I'm not saying the characters have to look a certain way, but you sometimes get the feeling they're trying too hard.

Wow, it certainly is subjective, because I feel the exact opposite about the GITS movie and show designs. I always felt like the movie designs were more realistic and that the major looked rather mannish, and I didn't like that as much having been a fan of the original manga. (Because let's face it, Shirow's style in no way can be called realistic). But I felt the SAC designs were closer to the manga, which had more cartoony faces in the first place.

Overall (sub) : A+
Story : A+
Animation : A+
Art : A+
Music : A+

+ Amazing animation and music. Mind-torching storytelling.
- Will absolutely be too weird for some people.

Rated: Teenagers (May contain bloody violence, bad language, nudity)

If only that were really the case. At least the Narutards don't complain that "you don't get it" when you trash their show.

That's pretty much why I didn't like Tokyo Godfathers. Kon claimed it was different from his previous work, but it was just as psychological and melodramatic as Perfect Blue, and wasn't really given the chance to be funny.

I haven't seen Paranoia Agent, but does anyone else think that his characters overact? Like.. I've never seen an animated character overact before, but I feel like they do in his movies and to me it lends an awkwardness. Strange stuff.

Doubt it. Unless Paprika has angsty teens, only the arthouse fans will watch it.

Kon's a tough sell in Japan and the U.S. Even when Perfect Blue got released here, the hype went to Kite, possibly because the violence was more gratuitous than PB, but also because it was done in slow motion to make you think you were watching something deep.

At least the Evangelion fans will only try to "make you understand."

Aw, com'on. I believe Kon's stuff has been increasingly popular since the release of Paranoia Agent.

GITS has become more popular since SAC, and Innocence still flopped. Kon's just not mainstream enough in the business, unfortunately, which is ironic, because his brethren in the industry, Koji Morimoto, is probably more artsy than him, but seems to get better gigs.

I haven't seen Paranoia Agent, but does anyone else think that his characters overact? Like.. I've never seen an animated character overact before, but I feel like they do in his movies and to me it lends an awkwardness. Strange stuff.

If I may ask something, how does the theme of confusion play out in Paprika compare to Perfect Blue? While I understood the necessity for confusion in Perfect Blue I wasn't particularly enamored by it, so I'm quite worried.

I'm still waiting for the original Perfect Blue novel to get a translation. It sounds like it's right up Vertical's alley.

Morimoto (and I'm a big fan of him as well) has never gotten to direct anything longer than 50 minutes. I can hardly call that better gigs.

I don't know why everybody thinks Perfect Blue bombed, far from it. It did very well for Manga, probably as good as or better than Kite did for MB. (And I love Kite, so no sour grapes from me either way.)

I'm not saying Perfect Blue didn't do well for Manga-though X and GITS have been bigger hits for them-but it didn't get the same hype as Kite. It's almost as if MB wanted word-of-mouth to be spread about that deleted underage sex scene, so it would boost sales for the OVA. Because before that, it was just a couple of Evatologists who were into it, and then everyone was suddenly praising it. And Perfect Blue couldn't compete, because aside from a few violent scenes, it
was mostly a psychological thriller, not sexploitation.

No, I was actually running ANN at that point, and I'm the one that made the call to MB to get info on the edits when the story broke.

They were REALLY tight-lipped, and it really seemed like they were genuinely hoping nobody would notice.

Don't mistake internet anime forum buzz for actual sales success.

While Kite may have gotten a lot of attention, Perfect Blue was much more successful in crossing over into the mainstream market, which is where the real sales potential is. That was even more true back in '98 when that came out here.

Perfect Blue had a pretty decent one, and just having even a money-losing theatrical run usually translates to MUCH more in home video sales.

Retail buyers that normally just gloss over anime pay a lot more attention when there's movie critic quotes, and tend to buy a lot deeper.So the end result is something like Perfect Blue will end up in a lot of stores that other anime would never appear in.