Perfect Blue

Perfect Blue
File:Pblue.jpg
Directed by	Satoshi Kon
Screenplay by	Sadayuki Murai
Produced by	Hiroaki Inoue
Starring	Junko Iwao Rica Matsumoto Shinpachi Tsuji Masaaki Ōkura
Cinematography	Hisao Shirai
Edited by	Harutoshi Ogata
Music by	Masahiro Ikumi
Production company	Madhouse
Distributed by	Rex Entertainment
Release dates	July 1997 (1997-07) (Fantasia Festival) February 28, 1998 (1998-02-28) (Japan)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Budget	¥3,000,000 ($39,000, £24,000)

Perfect Blue (パーフェクトブルー, Pāfekuto Burū) is a 1997 Japanese animated psychological thriller film directed by Satoshi Kon and written by Sadayuki Murai based on the novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi. Junko Iwao voiced Mima Kirigoe, a member of a Japanese pop-idol group called "CHAM!", who decides to pursue her career as an actress. Some of her fans are displeased with her sudden career change, particularly a stalker named Me-Mania, voiced by Masaaki Ōkura. As her new career proceeds, Mima's world becomes increasingly reminiscent of the works of Alfred Hitchcock: reality and fantasy spiral out of control, and Mima discovers that Me-Mania is the least of her troubles.

Plot

Mima Kirigoe, the lead singer of the J-pop group "CHAM!", decides to leave the band to become an actress. Her first project is a direct-to-video crime drama series called Double Bind. Some of her fans are upset by her change in career and persona, including a stalker known as "Me-Mania." Shortly after leaving CHAM!, Mima receives an anonymous fax calling her a traitor. She also finds a website called "Mima's Room", which features public diary entries that seem to be written by her that discuss her life in great detail. She brings the site to the attention of her manager, ex-pop star Rumi Hidaka, but is advised to ignore it.

Meanwhile, on the set of Double Bind, Mima succeeds in getting a larger part. However, the producers decide to cast her as a rape victim in a strip club. Rumi warns Mima that it will ruin her reputation, but Mima accepts the part voluntarily. Though it is apparent that Mima is indecisive, the atmosphere of the scene traumatizes her to the point that she increasingly becomes unable to separate reality from fantasy. She can no longer distinguish real life from her work in show business.

Several people who had been involved in creating the scene are murdered. She finds evidence that makes her appear to be the prime suspect, and her increasing mental instability makes her doubt her own innocence. It turns out that the diarist of "Mima's Room" is delusional and very manipulative, and that an intense folie à deux has been in play. The faux diarist and serial killer, who believes herself to be a Mima who is forever young and graceful, has made a scapegoat of stalker Me-Mania.

Mima knocks Me-Mania unconscious with a hammer in self-defense when he attempts to rape her, and she then runs to her only support she has left alive, her manager Rumi. Later on, back in "Mima's room", Mima tries to call Mr. Tadakoro but he has also been murdered, along with Mr. Me-Mania. When Mima encounters Rumi, however, her manager is wearing a replica of Mima's CHAM! costume and crazily singing Mima's pop songs. Rumi is in fact the false diarist, who believes she is the "real Mima". Rumi is angry that Mima has been ruining the "real Mima's" reputation, and decides to save "Mima's" pristine pop idol image through the same means she has been using all along: murder. Mima manages to incapacitate Rumi in self-defense after a chase through the city despite being wounded herself. Rumi remains permanently delusional and institutionalized. Mima has grown from her experiences and has moved on with her life with newfound independence and confidence.

Production

Originally the film was supposed to be a live action direct to video series, but after the Kobe earthquake of 1995 damaged the production studio, the budget for the film was reduced to an original video animation. Katsuhiro Otomo was credited as "Special Supervisor" to help the film sell abroad and as a result the 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.

Kon and Murai did not 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. A live action film Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete was later made (released in 2002) that is much closer to the novel. This version was directed by Toshiki Satō from a screenplay by Shinji Imaoka and Masahiro Kobayashi.

Like much of Kon's later work, such as Paprika, the film deals with the blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality in contemporary Japan.

Cast

• Junko Iwao (Bridget Hoffman (as Ruby Marlowe) in the English adaption) as Mima Kirigoe, the main protagonist of the film. She is a pop idol who plans on converting into acting. However, when she is terrorized by a dissatisfied stalker, she becomes increasingly unsound mentally and emotionally.
• Rica Matsumoto (Wendee Lee in the English adaption) as Rumi, Mima's manager. A former idol singer, she is now only a mere shell of her former self. She is opposed to Mima's crossover into acting.
• Shinpachi Tsuji as Tadokoro, Mima's office manager. Unlike Rumi, Tadokoro views Mima's crossover into acting in a positive manner, though he can often be overbearing and pushy.
• Masaaki Ōkura (R. Martin Klein (as Bob Marx) in the English adaption) as Uchida, a stalker known in the film by the alias of Me-Mania.
• Yōsuke Akimoto as Tejima
• Yoku Shioya as Takao Shibuya, the screenwriter of Double Bind.
• Hideyuki Hori as Sakuragi
• Emi Shinohara as Eri Ochiai, an actress who plays a psychiatrist in Double Bind
• Masashi Ebara as Murano, a pornographer who arouses the ire of Uchida by taking pictures of Mima.
• Kiyoyuki Yanada as the director of Double Bind.
• Tōru Furusawa as Yatazaki
• Emiko Furukawa and Shiho Niiyama as Yukiko and Rei, Mima's co-singers in the idol group "CHAM".
• Akio Suyama as Tadashi Doi, a delinquent who disturbs a live CHAM show at the beginning of the film. He is Uchida's first victim, as revealed in a newspaper clipping posted on an elevator.

The actors in the English adaption are listed in the credits without specification to their respective roles. The cast includes Barry Stigler (as Gil Starberry), Lia Sargent, Steve Bulen, Jamieson Price (as James Lyon), Frank Buck, Steven Blum (as David Lucas), Jimmy Theodore, Elliot Reynolds, Kirk Thornton (as Sparky Thornton), Bambi Darro, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (as Melissa Williamson), Michael Lindsay (as Dylan Tully), Matt K. Miller (as Kermit Beachwood), Sam Strong, Carol Stanzione, Ty Webb, Bill Timoney (as Billy Regan), Dari Mackenzie, Paul St. Peter (as George C. Cole), Syd Fontana, Sven Nosgard, Michael Devon McCarty (as Devon Michaels), Bob Buchholz (as Robert Wicks) and Mattie Rando.

Reception

The film was critically well received in the festival circuit, winning awards at the 1997 Fantasia Festival in Montréal, and Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal.

Critical response in the United States upon its theatrical release was mixed. Some critics did not understand why Perfect Blue was done as an animated film, while others associated it with common anime stereotypes of gratuitous sex and violence. A quote attributed to Roger Corman describes it as a combination of Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney.

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).

Time Magazine included the film on its top 5 anime DVD list, and Terry Gilliam, of whom Kon was a fan included it in his list of the top fifty animated films.

Perfect Blue ranked #25 on Total Film's all-time animated films.

It also made the list for Entertainment Weekly's best movies never seen from 1991-2011.

Influence

In 2010 Darren Aronofsky acknowledged there being similarities between Perfect Blue and his film Black Swan (only as a director), but said that it was not an influence. Kon blogged about meeting Aronofsky in 2001. A recently re-issued blog entry mentioned Aronofsky's film Requiem for a Dream as being among Kon's list of movies he viewed for that year.

Home video

UMD

For the Region 1 UMD video release of Perfect Blue, Manga Entertainment featured the movie in cinema widescreen, leaving the movie kept within black bars on the PSP's 16:9 screen. This release also contains no special features and a single audio track (English).

Television

In the USA, Perfect Blue aired on the Encore cable television network and was featured by the Sci Fi Channel on December 10, 2007 as part of its Ani-Monday block. In Australia, Perfect Blue aired by the SBS Television Network on April 12, 2008 and previously sometime in mid 2007 in a similar timeslot.

See also

• Japanese films of 1997

External links

• "Perfect Blue"
• Perfect Blue (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Perfect Blue at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Animerica review