Perfect Blue
Genre	Horror fiction , Thriller , Drama , Psychological , Mystery , Seinen
Novel
Authored by	Yoshikazu Takeuchi
Publisher
Publish date
No. of volumes
Movie
Directed by	Satoshi Kon
Studio
Released	1997
Runtime	81 min

Perfect Blue is a feature-length anime film, directed by Satoshi Kon (loosely based on the novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi). The film is a psychological thriller about Mima Kirigoe, a member of a Japanese pop idol group called "CHAM!" who decides to become an actress. Some of her fans are displeased by her career change, particularly the stalker named Me-Mania. As her new career proceeds Mima's world becomes increasingly reminiscent of the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Philip K. Dick; reality and fantasy spiral out of control as Mima discovers that Me-Mania is the least of her troubles. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (480x640, 36 KB) This is a copyrighted poster. ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle or horrify the reader. ... The thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television that includes numerous, often-overlapping sub-genres. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into theatre. ... Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. ... Mystery fiction is a distinct subgenre of detective fiction that entails the occurrence of an unknown event which requires the protagonist to make known (or solve). ... Seinen (Japanese: 青年, not to be confused with seinen (成年; adult)) is a subset of anime or manga that is generally targeted at an 18 - 30 year old male audience, but the audience can be much older with some comics aimed at businessmen well into their 40s. ... Satoshi Kon (今敏 Kon Satoshi, born 12 October 1963 in Kushiro,Hokkaido,Japan) is a highly-regarded director of anime films Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001) and Tokyo Godfathers(2003). ... The main cast of the anime Cowboy Bebop (1998) (L to R: Spike Speigel, Jet Black, Ed Tivrusky, Faye Valentine, and Ein the dog) Anime ) (IPA pronunciation: in Japanese, but typically or in English) is an abbreviation of the English word animation but in Japanese is spelled アニメーション (animēshon, pronounced... Satoshi Kon (今敏 Kon Satoshi, born 12 October 1963 in Kushiro,Hokkaido,Japan) is a highly-regarded director of anime films Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001) and Tokyo Godfathers(2003). ... Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe; title page of 1719 newspaper edition A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ... It has been suggested that Psycho (genre) be merged into this article or section. ... Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was a highly influential director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. ... Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American science fiction writer. ...

Tagline: Excuse me...who are you? (US release)

Tagline: The color of illusion is Perfect Blue. (Japan release)

Tagline: If Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock joined forces, they would have made a picture like this (UK release)

Plot

A pop star Mima Kirigoe from a j-pop group called "CHAM!" (sic) decides to leave the group to become an actress. Her first project is a direct-to-video drama series called "Double Bind". Some of her fans are upset by her change in career and persona, not least the stalker known as "Me-Mania". Shortly after leaving CHAM!, Mima receives an anonymous fax calling her a traitor. J-pop is an abbreviation of Japanese pop. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A persona is a social role, or a character played by an actor. ... Look up Stalker in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Stalker may refer to: A person who follows another obsessively; see stalking. ...

Mima finds a website called "Mima's Room" that has public diary entries which seem to be written by her discussing her life in great detail. She confides in her manager Rumi, a middle-aged woman and former pop idol herself, about the site, and is advised that that's just the cost of fame and to just ignore it.

Meanwhile on the series Double Bind Mima succeeds in her campaign for a larger part; the producers offer her a rape scene set in a strip club. The work traumatizes her so much that she increasingly becomes unable to separate reality from fantasy, her real life from her work in the trenches of show business. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Matters take a dramatic turn when several of those who had forced unsavory work on her are gruesomely murdered. She finds evidence which makes her appear to be the prime suspect, and in addition she can't in fact recall if she had committed any of the killings or not.

It turns out that the diarist of "Mima's Room" is herself totally delusional and very manipulative, and that an intense folie à deux has been in play. The faux diarist, who believes herself to be a Mima who is forever young and graceful, has made a cat's-paw and serial killer of the stalker Me-Mania. Folie à deux (literally a madness shared by two) is a rare psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to another. ... Look up cats-paw in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Mima smashes Me-Mania with a hammer (but fails to kill him) in self-defense when he attempts to rape her, and runs to her only support she has left alive, her manager Rumi - only to find that Rumi is the false diarist, who believes she is the "real" Mima. She manages to incapacitate Rumi in self-defense after a chilling chase through the city despite being wounded herself.

In the anime's denouement Rumi remains permanently delusional and institutionalized, whereas Mima has moved on with her life.

Background

Originally the film was supposed to be a live action direct to video series, but after the Kobe earthquake damaged the production studio, the budget for the film was reduced to an OVA. Katsuhiro Otomo was credited as "Special Supervisor" to help the film sell abroad and as a result film was screened in many film festivals around the world. While touring the world it received a fair amount of acclaim, jump-starting Kon's career as a filmmaker. Damage from the Great Hanshin Earthquake is kept intact at the Earthquake Memorial Park near the Port of Kobe. ... A human ovum An ovum (loosely, egg or egg cell) is a female sex cell or gamete. ... Katsuhiro Otomo Katsuhiro Otomo (大友克洋 Ōtomo Katsuhiro) (born April 14, 1954 in Hasama, Miyagi, Japan) is a Japanese manga artist and anime director. ...

A live action film was later made that is much closer to the novel called Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete (2002) and was directed by Toshiki Sato. Kon and Murai didn't think that the original novel would make a good film and asked if they could change the contents. This change was approved so long as they kept a few of the original concepts from the novel. For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ...

The US remake rights, purchased for $59,000, are owned by Darren Aronofsky who referenced a scene from Perfect Blue shot by shot, within a similar thematic context in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The scene is where Mima/Marion is curled up naked in a bathtub and both characters yell underwater. Thematically the two scenes are similar because both characters in the scenes are mentally distressed over being the subject of sexual exploitation in both films.^{[citation needed]} Darren Aronofsky (born February 12, 1969 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. ... Requiem for a Dream is a 1978 novel by Hubert Selby, Jr. ... This article is about the year 2000. ...

Like much of Kon's later work, the film deals with the blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality in contemporary Japan. Also like his later work Paranoia Agent (2004) (TV), it portrays a negative viewpoint of popular culture. This article or section needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...

Reception

The film was critically well received in the festival circuit, winning awards at the 1997 FantAsia Film Festival in Montréal, and Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal. 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Fantasporto, also known as Fantas, is an international film festival, annually organized in Porto, Portugal. ...

Critical response in the United States upon its theatrical release was mixed, with many critics being baffled at why it was done as an animated film and many others associating the film with common anime stereotypes of gratuitous sex and violence.^{[citation needed]}

Despite its unorthodox nature the film is well known in western anime circles, possibly better known in western fandom than in Japanese fandom.

Madonna incorporated clips from the film into a remix of her song "What It Feels Like for a Girl" as a video interlude during her Drowned World Tour (2001). This article is becoming very long. ... What It Feels Like for a Girl is a song by American singer Madonna from her 2000 album Music. ... The Drowned World Tour was Madonnas first world-tour in eight years, since her 1993 live-extravaganza The Girlie Show Tour. ...

External links

• Perfect Blue at the Internet Movie Database