Perfect Blue

 is a 1997 Japanese animated psychological thriller film directed by Satoshi Kon and written by Sadayuki Murai. It is based on the novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi. The film features the voices of Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shiho Niiyama, Masaaki Okura, Shinpachi Tsuji, and Emiko Furukawa.
The film follows Mima Kirigoe, a member of a Japanese idol group, who retires from music to pursue an acting career. As she becomes a victim of stalking, gruesome murders begin to occur, and Mima starts to lose her grip on reality. 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.
Plot.
Mima Kirigoe, a member of a mildly-successful J-pop group named "CHAM!", decides to leave the group to become a full-time actress. She is joined by her long-time manager and former pop-idol Rumi Hidaka, and her agent Tadokoro. Mima's first job is a minor role in a television detective drama called "Double Bind". Some of her fans are upset by her change in career and persona from a squeaky-clean and innocent teen girl, including a terrifying-looking male stalker who goes by the alias "Me-Mania". Mima receives an anonymous fax calling her a traitor, and even a letter bomb that injures Tadokoro. Following directions from a fan letter, Mima discovers a website called "Mima's Room" containing public diary entries written from her perspective, and which accurately discuss her daily life and thoughts in intimate and exacting detail. Mima confides in Rumi about the site, but is advised to ignore it.
Tadokoro lobbies the producers of "Double Bind", and succeeds in securing Mima a larger part; however, this involves her character being raped in a strip club. Rumi is distressed by the scene and warns Mima that it will irreversibly change her public image, but Mima accepts the role despite her own misgivings. Though it is apparent that Mima tries her best and is treated professionally, the atmosphere and experience of filming the rape scene is traumatic. On the way home, she sees her reflection dressed in her former idol outfit. The reflection says "Of course I didn't want to do it", startling her. Between the ongoing stresses of filming "Double Bind", her lingering regret over leaving "CHAM!", her paranoia of being stalked, and her increasing obsession with "Mima's Room", Mima begins to suffer from psychosis: in particular, struggling to distinguish real life from her work in show business, and having repeated apparently unreal sightings of her former pop-idol self.
Several people who had been involved in the so-called "tarnishing" of Mima's reputation are murdered. Mima finds evidence which makes her appear to be the prime suspect, and her mental instability makes her doubt her own memories and innocence. Mima manages to finish shooting "Double Bind", the final scene of which reveals that her character killed and assumed the identity of her beloved sister due to trauma-induced dissociative identity disorder. After the rest of the filming staff have left the studio, Me-Mania attempts to rape and kill her under emailed instructions from "the real Mima" to "eliminate the impostor", but Mima knocks him unconscious with a hammer in self-defense and flees.
Mima is found backstage by Rumi and taken back to Rumi's home, only to discover that Rumi was the culprit behind "Mima's Room", the serial murders, and the folie à deux that manipulated and scapegoated Me-Mania. But due to his incapability, she killed him (as well as Tadokoro from "tarnishing" Mima any further). Sometime in the past, Rumi developed a second personality who vicariously believed herself to be the "real Mima" (her pure-hearted and forever-young idol persona), using information from Mima's confiding in her as the basis for "Mima's Room". Rumi's "Mima" personality attempts to murder Mima to preserve "her" pristine image forever, and following a chase through the city, Mima incapacitates Rumi in self-defense and saves her from being killed by an oncoming truck.
Some time later, Mima becomes a well-known actress following the critical success of her performance in "Double Bind" and Rumi is sent to a psychiatric hospital with her "Mima" personality dominant. The movie ends with Mima driving off and looking at herself in the rear view mirror saying “No, I’m the real thing.”
Cast.
The following actors in the English adaptation are listed in the credits without specification to their respective roles: James Lyon, Frank Buck, David Lucas, Elliot Reynolds, Kermit Beachwood, Sam Strong, Carol Stanzione, Ty Webb, Billy Regan, Dari Mackenzie, George C. Cole, Syd Fontana, Sven Nosgard, Bob Marx, Devon Michaels, Robert Wicks and Mattie Rando.
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 adaptation of the novel, ", was later made and released in 2002. This version was directed by Toshiki Satō from a screenplay by Shinji Imaoka and Masahiro Kobayashi.
Themes and analysis.
Susan Napier uses her experience to analyze the film, stating that "Perfect Blue" announces its preoccupation with perception, identity, voyeurism, and performance – especially in relation to the female – right from its opening sequence. The perception of reality cannot be trusted, with the visual set up only to not be reality, especially as the psychodrama heights towards the climax." Napier also sees themes related to pop idols and their performances as impacting the gaze and the issue of their roles. Mima's madness results from her own subjectivity and attacks on her identity. The ties to Alfred Hitchcock's work is broken with the murder of her male controllers. "Otaku" described the film as "critique of the consumer society of contemporary Japan."
Release.
"Perfect Blue" premiered on August 5, 1997, at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Canada, and had its general release in Japan on February 28, 1998.
The film was also released on UMD by Anchor Bay Entertainment on December 6, 2005. It featured the film in widescreen, leaving the film kept within black bars on the PSP's 16:9 screen. This release also contains no special features and only the English audio track. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD in Region B by Anime Limited in 2013. In the U.S., "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 on the SBS Television Network on April 12, 2008, and previously sometime in mid 2007 in a similar timeslot.
The film had a theatrical re-release in the United States by GKIDS on September 6 and 10, 2018, with both English dubbed and subtitled screenings. GKIDS and Shout! Factory released the film on Blu-ray Disc in North America on March 26, 2019.
Reception.
The film was well received critically 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 also positive. , the film had an 80% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 44 reviews, with an average score of 7.19/10. The consensus stated, ""Perfect Blue" is overstylized, but its core mystery is always compelling, as are the visual theatrics." "Time" included the film on its Top 5 Anime film list, "Total Film" ranked "Perfect Blue" twenty-fifth on their list of greatest animated films, and /Film named it the scariest animated film ever. It also made the list for "Entertainment Weekly"s best movies never seen from 1991–2011.
Dennis Harvey of "Variety" wrote that while the film "ultimately disappoints with its just-middling tension and underdeveloped scenario, it still holds attention by trying something different for the genre". Hoai-Tran Bui of "/Film" called "Perfect Blue" "deeply violent, both physically and emotionally", writing that "this is a film that will leave you with profound psychological scars, and the feeling that you want to take a long, long shower". Bob Graham of the "San Francisco Chronicle" noted the film's ability to "take the thriller, media fascination, psychological insight and pop culture and stand them all on their heads" via its "knowing, adult view of what seems to be a young-teenage paradise." Writing for Anime News Network, reviewer Tim Henderson described the film as "a dark, sophisticated psychological thriller" with its effect of "over-obsession funneled through early Internet culture" and produces a "reminder of how much celebrity fandom has evolved in only a decade". Reviewing the 2019 GKIDS Blu-Ray release, Neil Lumbard of Blu-Ray.com heralded "Perfect Blue" as "one of the greatest anime films of all time" and "a must-see masterpiece that helped to pave the way for more complex anime films to follow," while Chris Beveridge of "The Fandom Post" noted "this is not a film one can watch often overall, nor should you, but when you settle into it you put everything else away, turn down the lights, and savor an excellent piece of filmmaking."
Legacy.
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 in 2001.
American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky acknowledged the similarities in his 2010 film "Black Swan", but denied that "Black Swan" was inspired by "Perfect Blue"; his previous film "Requiem for a Dream" features a remake of a scene from "Perfect Blue". A re-issued blog entry mentioned Aronofsky's film "Requiem for a Dream" as being among Kon's list of films he viewed for 2010. In addition, Kon blogged about his meeting with Aronofsky in 2001.
Other media.
Seven Seas Entertainment has licensed the English-language publication rights for the original "Perfect Blue" stories "Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis" and "Perfect Blue: Awaken from a Dream" for release in 2017 and 2018, respectively.