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No other anime filmmaker saw the world as Satoshi Kon saw it, and that's why the medium is poorer for his passing.

Completely agreed

Awesome, awesome, awesome, AWE----------SU---------------UM!!!!!!
....job, Toole. Shocked

Being that Paprika was my firsts Kon exp. I could NOT get many of the things that you so eloquently stated.
I mean, I got the whole story, but those side-stories and spickets of info were just.... invisible to me!

Your article makes me want to re-watch the movie again. That's the highest compliment I can give to you. Take it or leave it!

All I have to watch left of Kon is T. Godfather and P. Blue. And, I hope they're as wonderful and cherishing as you equally wonderful people of ANN portray them!

"bows" Thank You Very Much! Very Happy

I just very recently saw this movie, and this retrospective articulates better than I could what I absolutely loved about it, and a few other things besides. Great job, man.

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Perhaps my favorite scene in Paprika is related to this story arc, and comparatively speaking, it's visually quite reserved. As Paprika, Chiba has discovered that Konakawa was once impassioned about movies (he spends much of the story denying this fact), and is grilling him on some cinematic terminology. He therefore explains not just the 180-degree rule (in a very amusing way, which involves imaginary dotted lines springing to life), but pan focus. Pan focus is the term used when every single element in the frame is kept in razor sharp focus - not a single detail is blurred or missed. In response to this, Paprika wonders if people dream in pan focus.

This might be my favorite too. Smile

Beautiful simply beautiful, being a massive fan of Mike Toole, I was hoping that his article would be the best and it was, it combined half retrospective, with half memorial without making me think that Mike was trying to sell Satoshi Kon's work to hard.

I've yet to see this movie, but I've loved all of Kon's work I've seen and I'm anxiously awaiting my chance to see it later this month (I'm getting this movie and an import of the English version of the novel it was based on that was released in the UK as part of my birthday present). this article makes me want to watch it more, hopefully with a bit more understanding than I'd otherwise have, hope his last project has enough done (even if only in the form of notes and story planning) to allow it to be finished, and feel even more saddened at his loss. he managed to do something with his works that could really suck you in and get your mind running. you could tell there were layers and it was a challenge to understand it as much as possible. he could have done so much more and since Paranoia Agent I've been hoping to see another TV series by him (so much can be done with a series as it allows more time to develop characters, events, and themes).

I'll probably wind up doing a Satoshi Kon marathon at the end of the month to both celebrate my birthday and as a memorial to his work. I've got several friends who would join in who may not have seen much of his work.

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As I watched this scene unfold, I was utterly confused. The words from the character's mouth were vivid, lyrical, and absolutely nonsensical.

Personally, I thought that was one of the best parts. Very Beatnik-esque.

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and the heroine is severe-looking and only marginally pretty.

She's fine. Not hot, but not frumpy, either.

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He therefore explains not just the 180-degree rule (in a very amusing way, which involves imaginary dotted lines springing to life), but pan focus

Yeah, that scene is a tribute to Kurosawa.

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It is my hope that Kon's staff and friends at MADHOUSE will remember these last words from Paprika, and the world will see The Dream Machine soon.

I can wait as long as necessary, if they can finish it up in a way which respects Kon's vision.

Paprika is the only film of Kon's that I've seen, though I intend to rectify that. A couple years ago, I somehow stumbled upon this trailer for the movie. I don't remember how, but I do remember being absolutely floored by it. From the opening jingle, I had a feeling I was looking at something truly special. When the trailer ended, I couldn't get that movie to the top of my Netflix queue fast enough. The stunning imagery and ecclectic music would NOT get themselves out of my brain.

When the movie arrived a few days later, I watched it immediately and I LOVED it - even though I found it somewhat difficult to understand at points. It instantly became one of my favorite movies of all time. I share it with as many people as I can.

I bought the DVD used from Netflix as soon as I had seen it, and when I purchased a Blu-Ray player, it was the first film I bought for the format. Gorgeous, brilliant film in nearly every way. Satoshi Kon's genius will be missed.

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and the heroine is severe-looking and only marginally pretty. This heroine, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, can become beautiful - but only in dreams.

I don't buy that at all. It's like saying the girl from 'She's All That' (anyone remember this flick at all?) wasn't totally pretty due to her glasses and ponytail.

Aside from that, this was a finely written finish to ANN's Satoshi Kon tribute. While they were few, the guy made some great films. After watching Paranoia Agent, I was surprised to find that Paprika was much more followable and less confusing in comparison. And I'm curious and anticipative to see the final product of the big man's half-finished last film.

Paprika is the only one of Satoshi Kon's works that I can honestly say I enjoyed. Besides this, I've only seen 2 of his other things: Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent (I didn't like either of them, and was greatly disappointed after reading such amazing reviews for both)

But, these articles have convinced me to check out Millenium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers at some point. Hopefully I'll enjoy them better than Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent

A nicely written article overall, although one part kind of annoyed me:

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His story is not science fiction but rather speculative fiction, that curious literary subset that searches for the unreal in the reality around us

That's a very good description, but the problem is that Spec-fic is an all-encompassing term for various genres (that most would consider fit that description), one of which is Sci-fi (along with fantasy, horror, etc.). It just annoyed me a bit, is all.

This is one of a handful of anime movies I managed to catch in theaters, since I don't live in any of the "big" markets where these movies premiere. It came to the art house theater at my university and I was there the first day. I'm not sure whether anyone else in the theater was as totally enraptured with it as I was (I saw a lot of confused expressions), but I'm glad I could see it on a big screen.

That said... the ending to Paprika is still one of the strangest I've ever seen, which is saying something when you've watched as much anime as me. I've seen the movie twice and I still don't quite understand why the dreams were able to completely manifest themselves in physical form at the end. Mind you, I'd seen Paranoia Agent and wasn't surprised to see it happen, but Paranoia Agent had an almost supernatural feel to it. Up to that point Paprika had been so rooted in believable science fiction (what you call speculative fiction) that I found myself wracking my brain to try to come up with a logical "why." From the bafflement of the rest of the audience, they were probably thinking the same thing, only without a knowledge of Kon's filmography to help them.

I intend to re-watch this as part of my personal retrospective once I finish Paranoia Agent, and I know that Paprika includes a commentary; is that an actual track or an extra short? I hope that listening to it might answer some of my questions.

Added:
Do we know how far along Yume-miru Kikai was before his death? Even if no animation had begun, if Kon had storyboarded it already it could be made closely to match his work. I don't know who I'd pick to oversee the project, though; I can't think of any current anime director who could yet inherit his mantle.

Definitely a great ending to an amazing series of articles. I whole-heartedly thank everyone who worked on these articles for helping create a memorial of Kon-sensei's work. *bows* ありがとうございます。

doubleO7 wrote:

(I didn't like either of them, and was greatly disappointed after reading such amazing reviews for both)

It's a Satoshi Kon retrospective; did you seriously expect them to write articles saying they sucked? Confused

The day Hayao Miyazaki days (and may it not be any time soon!) they're not going to pick someone who hated, say, Howl's Movie Castle, to write an article on that movie. They'll pick someone who liked it. Why? Because when you're doing something in honor of someone, you generally don't spit on their freshly dug grave by dissing their work. At most you might say "this is the weakest of the bunch" but then talk about its positives for the rest of the article. That's how these things are done.

pachy_boy wrote:

I don't buy that at all. It's like saying the girl from 'She's All That' (anyone remember this flick at all?) wasn't totally pretty due to her glasses and ponytail.

We never really see Chiba without the glasses and office attire, though, except in that fantastical scene where Osanai bodily rips her out of Paprika, so we'll never know for sure. My observation was made based on this - it struck me that Chiba's conservative choice of dress was conscious - she didn't *want* to be pretty. But Paprika did.

DRWii wrote:

That's a very good description, but the problem is that Spec-fic is an all-encompassing term for various genres (that most would consider fit that description), one of which is Sci-fi (along with fantasy, horror, etc.). It just annoyed me a bit, is all.

Robert Heinlein coined the term out of dissatisfaction with what the "science fiction" label evoked amongst the public - technically PAPRIKA is sci-fi, but it's a breed apart from what most people think of as science fiction, hence my use of the term. I picked the term up from Harlan Ellison, who has utilized it similarly - I've never seen it used as a "catch all" to describe genre fiction in general. It seems too broad to me - how would fantasy possibly be speculative fiction, considering that most fantasy begins with unreal concepts and settings?

Thanks for the love, gang. I hadn't had the opportunity to write about Paprika previously so this scratched an itch for me.

Is there a way I can link to this retrospective in chronological order without having to link to each article individually (or the last one and point people to the bottom of the page)? It'd be great if each article ended with a link to the next one chronologically, so I could link to just the first one. I'd love to be able to send this to people, as I know many familiar with one or another of Kon's works, but not all of them.

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The Dreams of Satoshi Kon: Chapter VI - The Endless Dream