Original language title:

『パーフェクトブルー』

“There is no way illusions can come to life.”

As Halloween once again nears, many choose to get into the season by putting on a horror movie. One of my personal favorites of the genre is an anime film by director Satoshi Kon named “Perfect Blue.” It is a film that touches on the very nature of obsession and how fickle the mind truly is.

The plot follows a young idol named Mima (voiced by Junko Iwao) who is a member of the J-Pop group CHAM. She desires more from her life and leaves the music industry to become an actress, much to the chagrin of her manager Rumi (voiced by Rica Matsumoto, who also voiced Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon Anime). However, during her first day on the set of the popular drama show “Double Bind,” a letter bomb is found within her fanmail and explodes, injuring a member of her talent agency. At the same time, an increasingly manic fan known by his online moniker “Me-Mania” (voiced by Masaaki Ōkura) resents the fact that Mima has changed careers and begins stalking and invading her privacy.

Mima also learns of a new website, called “Mima’s Room,” where someone impersonates her and writes scarily accurate diary entries about her daily life. She also becomes pressured to do more risque and exploitative roles, leading her inner conscience to begin calling her out for not being true to herself. Then, as more of the members of the crew start showing up murdered in increasingly horrible fashion, she worries if that nagging voice in the back of her head has something to do with it as her psyche slowly unravels.

The fact that this was Kon’s feature debut as a filmmaker is simply astounding. Although his career was short, he is considered by many to be one of the greatest anime directors of all time. His later works, including 2006’s “Paprika” and 2001’s “Millennium Actress,” are both emblematic of his mind bending and cerebral style, and I would also recommend you check them out.

This is one of the first films to truly showcase the Internet and all its horrifying potential. As time has gone on, we know all too well how cyber crimes and abuse can happen online and while few people today will receive threats via fax, the problem persists to this day. One other film that reminds me of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Pulse”/“Kairo” from 2001, another Japanese horror movie that deals with the sinister underbelly of the internet, but with a more supernatural flair.

One notable fan of “Perfect Blue” is the director Darren Aronofsky, who bought the rights to directly adapt the bathtub scene in this film for “Requiem for a Dream” (2000). His Academy Award winning 2010 film “Black Swan” has also been directly compared to “Perfect Blue,” with both being about female performers who begin to lose their grip on reality and get stabbed by glass shards. While he claimed that this was simply a coincidence, his previous intentions to make a live action remake shed doubt on this claim. Still, they are both great movies.

“Perfect Blue” also recently returned to theaters earlier this month with a new 4k digital restoration. The previous HD era remaster from 2013 of the film left a bit to be desired for me, as the image was a little too hazy and washed out. After seeing the new restoration, I can confirm that it is the best that this film has ever looked.

For those who are looking to watch one more horror film this October, I would recommend that you give this movie a try. My final rating for “Perfect Blue” is a perfect 10/10.