The series starts off with a mysterious attack by an unidentified baseball wielding perpetrator on a young graphic designer. With this the mystery begins, the perpetrator is labelled 'Li'll Slugger' by the media and then a series of other attacks happen across Tokyo. The next is a young middle school pupil, then a corrupt cop. We shift time scales and narratives even realms of consciousness to eventually a final showdown to the root cause of Li'll Slugger's reign. Many unexpected twists happen along the way, each episode is dedicated to a different character.
This amazing series by the late great Satashi Kon has all the hall marks of his best work: satire, artistry, pathos and strong character development. The satire in this series is jet black and aimed squarely on Japan, in many ways this series can be read as an artistic poke at modern Japan's cult of weird. Everything is lampooned in this series from kawaii cartoon characters to ritual suicide. It seems that Kon has drawn up a list of many of the weirdest facets of Japanese culture (at least to the eyes of a western audience) and enthused them into this script under the guise of a crime thriller.
With all the narrative changes and the strong emphasis on shifting characters, the actual final showdown is a bit of an anti-climax. However it is clear that this series is not intended to be viewed as a completed narrative piece. The series is more about segments with the main thread holding the series together being a focus on modern Japan's counter culture fetish, by the final episode most of what Kon has set out to lampoon has already been achieved, with the finale merely offering a sense of closure rather than revelation.
In my opinion this is Japanese animation at is best, Satashi Kon was a genius, he understood that anime can be challenging, political and in some respects a greater medium than movies. It is fair to say that all of his works attempted to bridge this gulf between anime and art, and never is this more evident then in Paranoia Agent. Of all the great Japanese animators Kon was the most creative, cinematic and consistent. Despite the fact that Kon has only a hand full of full features to his name, his impact on modern cinema has been far reaching. Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan are two examples of Hollywood directors who hold Kon in high regard, both directly referencing the work of Kon in their own; Perfect Blue for Aronofsky and Paprika for Nolan. It is no coincidence that both men are two of the most creative and imaginative minds working in movies at the moment.
Paranoia Agent is a fine example of Satashi Kon's genius and offered a glimpse at what Kon could have achieved if his life wasn't cruelly cut short. Paranoia Agent is a rare treat and one to be savoured.
19 out of 21 found this helpful