When this 1997 anime appeared on Shudder, I did a double-take.  This movie has appeared on my radar occasionally for many years now, but I wasn’t curious enough to learn more about it.  I realize this is a bias, but Akira is the only anime I have enjoyed.  Yet I found myself intrigued when a film like this appears on what is specifically a horror streaming service.

I’ll cut to the chase for a change: this movie amazed me.  I went in without expectations and so was completely blind-sided.  This is a serious, adult, thriller that could have been done as a live-action film.  Even so, that it is animated gives it the opportunity to have some surreal moments that likely wouldn’t work as well if not in this medium.

Perfect Blue concerns Mima, the star of a successful pop trio who decides to leave to become an actress.  Her first role is in a thriller about detectives trying to apprehend somebody who is killing fashion models. 

There are a number of conflicts here, involving a number of characters.  The public is disappointed by her career change. Particularly alarming is a stalker who has a website claiming to be Mima’s diary.  Mima herself has frequent conversations with an imagined doppelganger that is herself still as a pop star. 

Here’s where things get complicated.  People involved in the production of the movie Mima is in start getting murdered.  Is it the stalker?  Is it Mima?  Is it somebody (or somebodies) else?  There are many possibilities, especially once she starts confusing the film shoot with real life.  Scenes double on top of each other, sometimes repeating but with different dialogue.

This is a very ambitious movie.  It would have been even if it wasn’t anime.  The closest analogy I can think of is some of DePalma’s best thrillers. 

I saw the uncut version of this, which apparently is only a couple of minutes longer than the R version.  In my opinion the full version still warrants only an R, albeit a hard one.  There isn’t much violence, though we do see bodies after-the-fact and those moments are pretty gruesome.  By far, the most disturbing moment is a rape scene in the movie being made by Mima, an assault she imagines is becoming a reality while they are filming it.

As is my style, I want to wrap with a few random observations.  It was odd to see a Japanese movie where the main character doesn’t have a computer or understand the internet.  I always think of the Japanese as being so technologically advanced that I assumed everybody there had the internet before it was even invented.  Instead, she has a fax machine, which I know was always more popular there than in the US, but I still have trouble imagining homes with one.

I highly recommend Perfect Blue.  I don’t think it was necessary for it to be anime, but it uses the medium well.  This is a movie that may be even more relevant today than it was when it was made, as internet influencers have come to dominate the media.  First and foremost, I saw this as a film about how reality and fiction can blur until unrecognizable, and how you are more than, and can be separate from, your public image.

Dir: Satoshi Kon

Starring Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji

Watched on Shudder