PERFECT BLUE
MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
OTHER
RELEASE
February 28, 1998
LENGTH
82 min
DESCRIPTION
Rising pop star Mima has quit singing to pursue a career as an actress and model, but her fans aren’t ready to see her go... Encouraged by her managers, Mima takes on a recurring role on a popular TV show, when suddenly her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima’s reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia. As her stalker closes in, in person and online, the threat he poses is more real than even Mima knows, in this iconic psychological thriller that has frequently been hailed as one of the most important animated films of all time.
(Source: Shout! Factory)
Note: The film received an early premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival on August 5, 1997.
CAST
Mima Kirigoe
Junko Iwao
Uchida
Masaaki Ohkura
Rumi Hidaka
Rica Matsumoto
Rei
Shiho Niiyama
Yukiko
Emiko Furukawa
Tejima
Yousuke Akimoto
Tadokoro
Shinpachi Tsuji
Takashi Doi
Akio Suyama
Murano
Masashi Ebara
Takao Shibuya
Yoku Shioya
Sakuragi
Hideyuki Hori
Kodomo
Megumi Tano
Haha
Teiya Ichiryuusai
Kodomo
Emi Motoi
Reporter
Makoto Kitano
Taku
Shinichirou Miki
Kantoku
Kiyoyuki Yanada
AD
Kyousei Tsukui
Yukiko
Emiko Furukawa
Redtron
Kouichi Toochika
Eri
Emi Shinohara
Green
Souichirou Hoshi
Salary Man
Osamu Hosoi
Blue
Kishou Taniyama
Yatazaki
Tooru Furusawa
REVIEWS
requiemsama
93/100An enigma of art and sound, sworn only to those who have suffered vanity.Continue on AniList“Director Satoshi Kon could have wished for a worse film when he made his debut as a director in 1997 with the internationally successful and critically acclaimed Perfect Blue. With its dazzling storytelling technique and strikingly mature subject matter, Perfect Blue finally convinced a lot of people that animation might be more than just a children's medium.” – Interview with Kon from midnighteye.com, 2/11/2002
The life of a celebrity must be tough. I think about the number of child stars that went nuts. I wonder what lead them to destroy their careers, tear themselves to shreds in drugs, and choose to become a mockery in the world which out them in the spotlight.
Look at Lindsay Lohan.
Or Macauley Culkin.Hell, how about dead ones, like Amy Winehouse? Or Whitney Houston?
Even the recent Robin Williams…
After hearing about Williams’ death, while scrolling through my list of completed animes, I found and rewatched Perfect Blue, and finally got a clear look. Surreal elements and fanboying aside, Perfect Blue presents the most believable “biography” of an idol, coldly portraying to us the result of a passion gone too far.
She’s Mima. She’s cute, popular, and the best. Now she wants change. (93/100)
Mima Kirigoe’s career as a pop music idol has flourished, and she now wishes to see herself blossom into the theater as she always dreamed. She struggles like all beginning artists to enter the new genre, when suddenly people around her end up brutally murdered.Naturally it’s not uncommon to blame someone like “Me-Mania,” the random creep that stalks her left and right. Her manager, Rumi, blames Mima for taking on a career path that isn’t designed for her. Then more things go wrong, and soon Mima finds herself unable to tell where her life is headed. What sort of nightmare has descended on her?
For a person whose life is exposed constantly to the public, I imagine nothing is scarier than losing control of it. In Mima’s case, having one of the most disturbed looking anime characters I’ve ever seen (i.e. Me-Mania) leaving her the most disturbing messages, the feeling of control is completely gone. The story grows more and more complicated, as Kon begins to mesh the elements of paranoia into the timeline. Mima’s thoughts begin to intertwine with questionable actions, and the timetable gradually breaks down as she chases her doppelganger. Kon knows that the audience would easily get lost this way, and by the middle of the film we begin to question what we see of Mima.
Towards the end, the nightmare begins to piece together, and we learn that the antagonist isn't just Me-Mania. Though the elements are always there, Kon leaves the package partially open to reveal to us how the true antagonist came to be. Cleverly deceitful, I realized how easily this anime plays a trick on the mind in such a moderate disguise.
Which makes characters like this…revealed. (91/100)
A movie like this could have the worst set of stock characters and still conclude with some artistic authority. Your average, indecisive, teenybopper can closely relate to Mima. She’s cute, and she knows she is. She has a lot of options, yet is not ready to throw in all her cards at a one-dimensional pop music career. Her character amasses so many peculiarities of an emerging artist that I cannot help but insist on high ratings—it's as though I'm witnessing the life and circumstances of a famous persona. In fact, the most unnatural thing about her could be the fact that she has pubic hair (ahem, you do see it at some point.)Because the movie is so entirely focused on Mima, it makes sense to say that all other characters aren’t really developed—or rather “developable.” Rumi sort of sticks to being a stock character for most of the movie, as does Me-Mania play out to be your normal, happy, loving, budding dissociative murderer who spends too much time on Anilist.
Well okay…maybe NOT Anilist, but definitely MoeBoard.
Perfect Blue would not have benefitted, though, had other characters more development. In fact, since the premise of the story is so basic and approachable, Kon's method of delivery would not have been as effective had more been revealed about the people around her. By focusing on Mima and limiting our knowledge, the sensation of being "trapped" and "stalked" made every character a questionable source, giving this movie all the "character" element it would have ever needed to be a success.
Visually compelling, with outstanding artwork. (90/100)
The jiggle factor in this movie stayed well within appropriate levels, although the choices of nudity and a compelling amount of blood ironically yielded artistic maturity. I feel like a newcomer to anime would have a powerful reaction to the style, since it is not the generic style that you see on the internet, or rather the bulletin boards in Tokyo. Instead, it is significantly closer to Disney's style, as the body structure and stereotypical anime “eye size” departs significantly from the usual Japanese. Kon clearly makes a statement of realism in this form, as larger eyes have always been a tactic to appeal more greatly to the emotions in the history of anime.Kon’s direction and arrangement of scenes is a prodigious achievement. He purposefully puts in distracting images to keep the eye pondering what its seeing. There are often moments where he delivers too much information at once—normally with the effect of causing terror—but in this case causing inner panic. Mima’s dreams overlap with reality, and we begin to question which reality is real and which dream is actually a dream. Kon turns Mima’s “disconnect with reality” to become partially the audience’s responsibility, as we ourselves try to keep in pace with what we see. This effect is probably the biggest reason why this movie brilliantly plays out a simple story of obsession so naturally, leaving our minds to complicated questions that wouldn’t even be a thought without this effect.
Masahiro Ikumi—my hero. (94/100)
Literally, 1/3 of the psychological terror of Perfect Blue is the soundtrack. To start, the movie doesn’t exactly have an “opening theme.” It starts with a typical 20th century dance pop song, along with Mima and her cute bunnies doing the para-para like many a J-idol at Budokan. This can be seriously deceiving enough to already mislead us into believe we are watching a cute love story. It turns out that the jazz fusion, electronic style of Ikumi does an even better job with tracks like “Virtual Mima,” wherein a grinding set of oscillating hums resonate through the film, looming over our ears as though someone is watching us from behind. This “stalker” sort of theme masks the nightmare, as the mood often subtly changes between soft jazz and grinding, aurally-terrorizing semitones.That along with excellent seiyuu work completes this scoring. Me-Mania, or “Uchida’s” voice (Masaaki Ohkura) at first sound is so unnatural to the face that this choice alone reminds us of how creepy people can get. The high, whiny tone of Ohkura turns a somewhat hideous face into a hideous “creature,” adding a third dimension of tenorial villainy that would expectedly be a gritty, low tone. This experiment makes Perfect Blue’s stalker as unnatural as the idea of stalking itself; a sin in human form.
If you want to ponder the meaning of life for weeks afterwards, watch this. (98/100)
Serious ponderage. Like the kind you do when you find those nasty socks that hid under your bed for a year and grew moss on them.But really, depending on your company, this isn’t a bad choice of a movie if you’d like to have a discussion afterward. A movie like this guarantees a serious conversation, as the plot element and visual detail will provoke so many different thoughts. Some may detest this movie, as elements of rape and obsession play a key role; I wouldn’t necessary dismiss these people, either, since Kon’s creation will dig well into the psyche and reveal our deepest fears.
AndoCommando
95/100Perfect Blue is an absolute masterpiece of a psychological movieContinue on AniList“Excuse me… Who are you?”
Perspective. Works of fiction such as TV and film are all about perspective. Fiction in general is the classification of imaginative stories, these stories having the ability to convey themes to give stories a deeper meaning. But with TV and film, these stories are presented visually, allowing for a whole new experience and perspective on a story. The perspective provides new ways to justify character actions, events and even reality itself, questioning if what is being show is, in fact, real. This is a movie that focuses on the latter specifically. A movie that not only shows someone losing control over what is real and what is not, but also a movie that lets viewers see the journey to madness first-hand. This is Perfect Blue: a movie that is anything but what the title seems.
Perfect Blue is a psychological thriller anime film based on the novel of the same name, made in 1997 by Studio Madhouse and was the directorial debut of Satoshi Kon; the genius mind behind other great animated works such as Paranoia Agent and Millennium Actress. The film follows Mima Kirigoe, a singer for J-pop idol group CHAM! who decides to leave the group after moderate success and financial limitations to pursue a more profitable career as an actress, much to the dismay of her fans and management. She manages to land a role in a crime drama, however at the same time she starts receiving anonymous threats and even finds a blog called ‘Mima’s Room’ that details her life in intimate detail without her knowledge. This is soon followed with a chain of mysterious murders taking place to the people around her, all while she is being stalked by an obsessed fan called “Me-Mania” and her very own pop idol self in the form of a ghost, haunting her and insisting that she return to singing. Throughout the film Mima questions her decisions as an actress and due to her experiences and events, loses her sense of reality. And all of this correlates to create this dark, enthralling mindfuck that will have you on the edge of your seat like no other.
The story of Perfect Blue does take it’s time to get rolling as it has a rather simplistic setup whilst focusing on the inner turmoil Mima is facing. In other words, do not expect it to be epic from the get-go with action-packed scenes throughout. Perfect Blue is not a thriller in that sense. Rather, the thrills come from Mima’s disfigured perception of reality experienced between her personal life and the TV series she stars in, Double Bind. The film plays with this dilemma extremely well, blurring the lines of reality and psychosis to the point where viewers won’t even know what is really happening anymore. Some scenes with Mima in them were nicely acted and well-shot that at first looked real, only for the film to reveal that she was acting the entire time. Yet she is giving more emotion in these takes than any of her fellow actors, because these scenes reflect on her life. Later in the movie, we are given details of what is initially believed to be Mima’s life and mental health issue, then suddenly the camera pans out and the details were revealed to have been in the script read out by one of the actors in the show. There were so many times when I thought I understood what was happening, only for the film to trick me, to the point where you would think to just give up piecing together the puzzle of Perfect Blue until the end. However, the dichotomy between reality and fiction is weaved so well it compels viewers to continue on.
There is no doubt that Perfect Blue is confusing, especially on first watch. But that is no flaw, it was made purposely to allow us to go through the same experiences that Mima does, and it only gets more intense as it goes on. Each scene is somehow more disturbing than the last, keeping everyone watching in suspense as the rather simplistic thriller in the beginning turns into a psychological nightmare towards the end. And as the scenes get more disturbing, so does the editing and overall cinematography. Satoshi Kon was a genius of editing, knowing exactly when to cut to a different scene for the maximum effect. The film transitions used here are as magnificent as you would expect; in several scenes, the narrative and music builds to its peak before suddenly cutting to the next scene. The film is very much made in the style that you would expect from an Alfred Hitchcock, only here it adds to the confusion of fact and fiction. It provokes viewers to think about the limitless outcomes of how the movie could end, but the movie knows this and continuously swerves the story around movie clichés. The movie even goes so far as to place scenes out of chronological order and some scenes cut before characters can finish their sentences. Everything was done to further put the viewer in Mima’s position; you feel and see first-hand what she is going through. With Perfect Blue, Kon was able to showcase his understanding of the human mind and his ability to further heighten these feelings of isolation and fear.
As you can see, Perfect Blue is primarily concerned with the psychological breakdown of Mima as a result of her transition from a pop idol to an actress, but through this the film strive to find out who Mima is. Numerous times the film shows Mima as a timid person that does not have a strong sense of who she is, preferring to rely on those around her to define her identity. Even if the beginning the film defines her through the perspective of her fans, and from there it is her management that controls her image for their own wishes, going so far as to put her in a rape scene in order to get more eyes on the TV show. While the rape scene is staged, Mima is still traumatized by the experience. The film provides an authentic commentary on the exploitation of woman in the entertainment industry, especially in Japan’s case as Mima’s development shows change internally and externally, from the innocence pop idol perceived by fans of her former self to where she feels as though she needs to be sexually exploited if she is ever going to be able to advance her career, causing further damage to her psyche. These kinds of actions make you think that the price of fame may not be worth the cost of identity.
Perfect Blue also tackles the issue of technology and how easy it is to create, maintain and lose control of one’s own public avatar. Before insanity takes over in full force, Mima finds an internet diary of sorts dedicated to detailing her experiences, feelings and life in general to even the most minute detail without Mima’s knowledge. While finding it humorous at first, her emotions quickly turn to fear as she figures out that she is being stalked, endangering her former sense of seclusion. She is never seen as a hero in the film, rather she is seen more realistically as a victim of lost privacy. Mima’s case becomes worse as the films goes on, with the site publishing false statements under the guise of Mima despite not reflecting her true feelings. Bear in mind that this film started production in 1994/1995, a time where stalking and the internet itself were barely understood, making the film prophetic in its use of the internet. Privacy is an increasing issue in society today, making the dilemmas faced in this film more relatable and realistic, and along with the unclear distinction of what she perceives to be real, makes this tale that much more terrifying.
While Perfect Blue is a complex film, it does have an artistic side to it. There are several scenes throughout that while own their own look stunning, but with context signify Mima’s fall from grace and descent into madness. Some of these scenes were so well done that they have been recreated in live-action films like Requiem of a Dream and Black Swan. Despite the film’s title, the colour red is very symbolic as it represents Mima’s madness growing. As the movie goes on, red becomes more and more prominent, from brief items to completely encompassing Mima in some scenes, mirroring what happens in the narrative. Yet the colour never feels out of place in the film; if anything, it heightens the suspenseful nature that the film has. In contrast, white is used with the ghost of Mima’s mind, indicating the former innocence she once possessed in her pop idol career, back when she would have been considered too pure to go through with what is now expected of her as an actress. Reflections are also used prominently to not only foreshadow issues such as stalking and sexualisation, but as an effective way to explore the duality Mima faces throughout the film, further highlighting the identity crisis she faces. The brilliant imagery in Perfect Blue holds within it incredible thematic depth, hidden details and more, all while telling a confusing yet compelling story with seemingly unlimited replay value.
The only glaring weak point that Perfect Blue has is in the sound, specifically the English dub. The cast and acting are both fine albeit some pronunciation issues here and there, but the script for the English version is weaker than its Japanese counterpart and it is apparent. Voice actors for the English dub were recorded one at a time and the depth of voice is off in some scenes, but overall it’s still a fine dub. The Japanese acting however the excellent all around, adding to the creepy and unsettling vibe the show already gives off. The soundtrack is varied, ranging from generic J-pop idol songs to the eerie themes that fit the tense atmosphere. There are even themes that change tone halfway through (for example, a J-pop tune that gets purposely distorted) in order to fit scenes that transition to Mima’s hallucinations, keeping the film unpredictable at every moment. It is complex, melancholic, surreal and beautiful all at the same time.
Perfect Blue is an absolute masterpiece of a psychological movie that feels more real than what we wish to see. Satoshi Kon uses hallucinations, imagery and even a doppelganger within this multi-layered narrative to draw the audience into Mima’s world; a place where her identity and sense of reality is broken more and more as time goes on. The ending of the film revolves around how Mima answers the iconic question from the beginning of this review: "Excuse me... Who are you?". In that sense, Perfect Blue can be considered Mima’s coming of age story, where she began as a character defined by others, and over the course of the film loses everyone around her until she is all alone. In these kinds of moments, the only option left for Mima is to find herself. Nobody can help her through this; she is ultimately the only one who can truly find a place where she knows she belongs. And in the end, she does, but not in a way you would expect. The last scene shows Mima in a car underneath clear blue skies. She looks into the rear-view mirror; looking directly at the audience and smiles, then in cryptic fashion declares:
“No, I’m the real thing”.
ReBuggy
98/100There's a reason they don't call it 9/10 Blue.Continue on AniListPerfect Blue is the Directorial film debut of the late Satoshi Kon, and the film that rightfully put him on the map. It is a psychological thriller about idol-turned-actress Mima Kirigoe (also known as "Mimarin"), following her descent into paranoia as the stress of an image change and a series of stalkings and murders slowly cause her to become disconnected from reality.
The film shows its strengths as early as the opening moments, where it juxtaposes scenes of Mima performing with the idol group CHAM and scenes of Mima living life as an ordinary girl, switching between the two with match cuts. It's able to immediately establish two things Kon has been known for: his top-notch editing style and his focus on blurring the line between perception versus reality. In Perfect Blue, the "perception versus reality" takes the form of the person versus the persona, the actor versus the character, the world versus the stage.
The plot of Perfect Blue kicks off when Mima quits CHAM to pursue opportunities in acting, quickly taking on a strong supporting role in the television crime drama Double Bind. However, the Double Bind role sees her playing a darker, more sexually involved character, and Mima's fans from her idol days aren't happy with her change from the more pure and innocent role she played as a pop idol. Among these disgruntled fans is a stalker known only by his screen name, "Me-Mania." Mima starts to become troubled as she encounters him more and more frequently, and when threats and murders start to plague the people around Mima who are forcing her into more explicit roles, Mima begins breaking down, seeing a ghostly reflection of her self dressed in her CHAM stage outfit who taunts her and claims to be the "real Mima." What follows is a wild ride of not knowing what the hell is actually happening and what's all just "part of the play," so to speak. This is where the story really begins to pick up, but unfortunately, describing it in more detail is both difficult due to the structure of the film, and would also completely spoil the experience. I ask that you just trust me on this and subject yourself to Satoshi Kon's Wild Ride.
Perfect Blue's strength really shines in the visuals and editing. There is, of course, the aforementioned match cuts in the opening, showing that even pop idols live fairly normal lives. There's the constant reflection motifs, which emphasize that perceived identities, despite how much importance we place on them, are mere imitations of the true self. There's the constant abrupt cuts that disorient the audience (and Mima) and force them to question how much of what they just saw was real and how much was imagined. And then there's the fact that it's filled with just flat-out good visuals. In fact, Perfect Blue is so strong on this front that several western films have paid it direct homage, such as Black Swan lifting several themes and crafting similar visuals, or Requiem for a Dream flat-out recreating the bathtub scream scene. This extends from the opening scene (as has already been mentioned), to the final line, where (light spoiler) Mima waves off two background character's speculation that she's merely a lookalike with the phrase "No, I'm real." However, we see this declaration framed in a rearview mirror, implying that the "reality" that Mima speaks of may still be somewhat subjective.
Perfect Blue is overall just very well-crafted. It's one of those films that you can watch again and again and gain something new from each time, which in my opinion, is the mark of a great film. However, I understand that there are a few flaws, and while, in my opinion, they're excusable and arguably necessary, I can see how others may disagree. First of all, it pulls no punches in the depiction of otaku and idol fans in particular. In a film filled with subtlety, these idol fans, Me-Mania in particular, come across as gross caricatures or plot devices rather than actual characters. The other major issue people may have with the film is that it cheats. When the film begins to mess with the audience's perception of what's happening, it is not above outright lying or changing facts to cause viewers to question what's real. While this does reflect Mima's deteriorating mental state, it can feel a bit unfair, and on repeated viewings it's easy to look at certain scenes and say "okay, well this is just outright trying to mislead me." I can't give it a perfect score out of 100 because of that, but since all media is inherently subjective, I think this is the closest I can possibly get.
Despite those minor flaws, I still think that Perfect Blue is a film that's about as, well, "perfect" as you can get. If you're even remotely interested in postmodern works that lean on the fourth wall, themes that delve into identity, or just the thriller genre in general, Perfect Blue is a film I think you'll absolutely love. I give the film the highest of recommendations. 5 Stars.
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SCORE
- (4.25/5)
TRAILER
MORE INFO
Ended inFebruary 28, 1998
Main Studio MADHOUSE
Trending Level 6
Favorited by 12,581 Users