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Paranoia Agent - How Does It Hold Up?




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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2359
PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2022 5:44 pm Reply with quote
Rewatching Kon's filmography in the wake of the recent retrospective, it's fascinating how he spent his career talking our relationship between reality and unreality. Whether it was Mima's back and forth about which was the "real" her using the idol industry as a backdrop, using Chiyoko's career as a metaphor for her entire life and showing the history of the Japanese film industry, or Paprika talking about stuff like dreams and how dreams at times seem to blur into their own reality. (Tokyo Godfathers is the oddball since it was just him doing a goofy comedy after some seriously dramatic films).

And despite his accomplishments as a film director, I find that Paranoia Agent is his masterpiece because he got a whole series to talk about how people can create their own unreality by retreating and blaming others which in turn spirals into its own problem that can even engulf those around them. He gets to show the effects of school bullying, abusive work places, incompetent police investigations, older generations not understanding current society and the difficulties of accepting when you're out of place in the world. He takes so many different angles but still wrapped them around a core theme.

Anyway, Paranoia Agent is a must-watch for anime geeks no matter your experience with it.
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Covnam



Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3853
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 1:37 pm Reply with quote
I remember enjoying it at the time, but the opening is what has stuck with me the longest lol
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2344
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:46 pm Reply with quote
I find it amusing that Saruta was voiced by Hiroyuki Yoshino, who later went on to voice Tarou in Shirobako.
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nobahn
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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 5159
PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:57 pm Reply with quote
I did watch it once back in the day. I don't remember it well; what I do remember is that my reaction was the same as when I read J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye as a teenager ─ namely, that I did not understand what it was trying to say.
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