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REVIEW: Paranoia Agent

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What is the most important thing to remember about Paranoia Agent is that it is a mystery story where the answers to the mysteries are not as important as the questions they raise. Minus: Anthology format makes for inconsistent storytelling

There's the caveat, isn't it? It's almost like calling it an anthology series is a backhanded way to ignore what happened to the show: Satoshi Kon got bored with his own premise.... otherwise it's an "anthology" series where 9 episodes are part of the same story.

I don't hate the series but I also wouldn't rate Paranoia Agent as high as any of Kon's movies, you know, works with plots, characters and actual endings that work start to finish.

And then there's that ending. I just love a review that comes out and says "Ignore the ending, it's a great series if you ignore the ending" without coming out and say there's a problem with an ending.

Paranoia Agent is an experimental anime with some really great moments but ultimately lives or dies on how much crap the viewer is willing to take. The ultimate fate of Lil Slugger... is that one of the things that doesn't matter?... was fine but the ultimate fate of Tokyo on the other hand and WHY is a little more obtuse.

I actually really love the ending, ambiguity and all! The "inconsistency" I mentioned has to do with some of the more isolated stories that aren't all as good as the series' best episodes. I don't think there's a straight up bad story in the bunch, though.