Sometimes, it must have felt to Western audiences that anime was all about fantasy situations. Where were the real stories? Then twenty years ago, a film came out that answered this question. There was no fantasy elements in it. This felt like a real story. Which would be perfect if it wasn’t a horror story. Perfect Blue was an anime movie that showed how serious the genre could be taken, as well as give many people nightmares.
Me-Mania
Mima Kirigoe believes that her job as a singer is at an end. She decides that she wants to be taken seriously as an actress and accepts a role in a gritty police drama. this does not sit well with her fan base, particularly one deranged fan. A mysterious website appears, with diary entries supposedly written by Mima. Things start to ramp up as people start dying around Mima. Has the fan taken things to a new level? Or has the stress caused Mima to become something violent?
The premise is very believable (pick the young child actor who wants to shed their kid image of your choice) but what makes Blue work is that things don’t mean what we think they do. Scenes shift from nightmares to reality and eventually you start questioning everything. The solution is handled quite nicely and the audience can believe what they see, even as they are holding their breath. Someone described it as David Lynch in anime form. I agree up to a point. Sometimes, Lynch put in things just to mess with people. Everything in Blue has a purpose.
Mima’s Room
I overheard a conversation between two anime fans which broke down to “Am I not an anime fan if I don’t like X anime.” The other person responded that it was OK if he didn’t like it, as “long as you respect how impotent it was to anime in general.” This is a perfect response to say about Blue. You might not like horror, it took me three times to get through this one, but it was important to anime. This was movie that could have been live action, but anime made it work. It did not talk down to the audience. It was an adult story, asking questions about some things did not have any right answers.
Blue is perfect for those long nights coming up in a month. It actually just came back to theaters for a two night engagement. This is a movie that is actually better in your house. With all the lights off and a bowl of popcorn in your lap. The sound you heard upstairs was just the house settling down. You aren’t scared, right? You know you’re brave. That is, if you are who you think you are…