Forum - View topicParanoia Agent -- Disapointing
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Slipstream
Posts: 44 |
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I'll try to keep this spoiler free...just to warn you...
I just finished watching the last episode of Paranoia agent...and honestly, It was a waste of time. Satoshi Kon simply has nothing new to bring to the table. After jumping off the pad with speed with the first six episodes, the remaining seven totally lose all cohension and Kon rips off his previous titles (Perfect Blue. Millenium Actress) in order to fill plot voids he could not fill with intelligent writing. I don't think I have ever been more disappointed with a hyped anime title until now. In Millennium Actress, Kon had characters interacting with another character's delusion/fantasy. In MA, it was an interesting and cute idea that worked well...in that regard. In Perfect Blue, Kon used a similar technique and I thought it was hit and miss. Too many inconsistencies arose that jarred me from the story. With Paranoia Agent, after finally watching episode 13, I look back and realized 10 episodes never needed watching. Two of them made no sense to the grand story and offered questions that were never answered. Yes I know, Kon apparently likes the idea of people finding themselves involved directly in other people's fantasy/delusion. Here, it simply does not work and makes no sense when several characters do it. The ending is totally chaotic. Its like a story moving from Point A to B. I don't mind a story even skipping a few (A to B to G), as along as understand the transition. PA moves from A to B to Pi. I know what Kon is trying to say...the problem is that he already said it in two previous titles. Paranoia Agent has no Internal Consistency and is blatantly deceiving in its first half-dozen episodes. The great cop/psychological/mystery angle PA took is totally ejected in favor of Kon going back in doing what he thinks works. Unreality and Reality mixing is a tried and true format but here, Kon uses it as a crutch to hold up a story with no other supports. Under careful inspection, it topples over. When he wrote Magnetic Rose, he did the EXACT SAME thing. In its Science Fiction format, I was willing to forgive it. In a modern setting, there is nothing to back up the facade. Magnetic Rose succeeding because of its presentation and skillful direction. After watching Blue, Actress, Rose, and now Agent, I am firmly convinced that Kon is unable to tell a different story. I don't mind a show that is confusing or hard to follow, but have some internal consistency. Watch Last Exile or Texhnolyze to watch stories unbelievably hard to follow in some places. They pay off in the end because you can watch previous episodes and they start to make more sense. Internal Consistency. If you watch the first 6 episodes, I would give it a B+. It features an amazing opening theme with inventive visuals you will remember. The final 7 rate around a D, which would honestly bring the whole to under a C- purely because the ending of a show is what you will finally take away when watching. This is a warning to those who watched the first DVD, hoping for payoff...it never really comes... [EDIT: Fixed spelling in thread title and a few other places.~Zalis] |
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msi435
 Posts: 465 Location: Behind you! |
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Kon is good at psychological thrillers and that is what he makes. It's like Alfred Hitchcock or Wes Craven making a comedy, it wont work, the same goes with Kon. Sure I do agree with you the series dose tend to wonder towards the end, but you need to give him some slack it's his first attempt at a series. He did set up a great series and like most anime's it has rather.... eclectic ending. |
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Slipstream
Posts: 44 |
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Yes but by that logic, Kon has only been good at one show, Blue. MA or Tokyo Godfather's aren't thrillers. Lets break down my problems then shall I...
spoiler[The boy posing as Shounen Bat tells his story, like MA, the cops are pulled into his fantasy world without explanation. Like MA, one cop becomes an active particicpant. This no longer becomes a cool story telling point, it becomes a vital plot element. The episode after with the three people trying to commit suicide. On its own, its okay, but against the PA storyline, it has no purpose and confused the story even more. I get they are already dead but...it never comes up again. The older cop creates his own reality and then the girl finds herself trapped in it simply by walking throug a door. How? When did fantasy become a physical realm you could stumble into? And don't get me on the fat guy with the dolls. For no reason, dolls come to life and aid a character...it never explains how or why. Is this another illusion? Whose? The fat guy or the cop? And the Apocalyptical ending. Throws out all the build-up in the first dozen episodes. It also serves to tell us the first 6 episodes with the other characters (although fun to watch at the time) were pointless...they don't assist the ending at all. It just becomes about her...then we have a big reset switch and everything starts over again. I understood that Shounen Bat was a delusional creation given physical form by the thoughts and minds of the city (ala Freddy Kriuger) and that the only one to kill him was the girl that started it, but the way Kon tells it, so chaotically with subplots that never go anywhere and the very tired route he takes with fantasy lives taking oh physical reality... Look at Magnetic Rose, Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress and now this. Kon is simply ripping himself off. He needs to drop this story telling technique and try something new. ] |
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red stranger
 Posts: 184 |
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spoiler[The young cop is already crazy - we see that later, but at that point where he's with the fake shonen bat he is simply trying to get into the mindset of the boy. The young cop just goes overboard. The older cop thinks it's all BS. He isn't really in the story, but he just can't help getting dragged along by the other two. And doesn't really become a plot point. The older cop is right, it is all BS, as the boy admits later.]
spoiler[I don't think that they are already dead, rather they met each other with the intention of dying. They wanted to escape the world through death, but they ended up escaping with each other. That's why shonen bat didn't kill them - they had found happyness with each other, and were no longer trapped. It fits with one of the main themes - people being trapped and trying to escape, but it's unessary, and your right, it doesn't add to the main story.]
spoiler[Shonen Bat was a physical manifestation of fantasy - specifically the designer girl's fantasy. The designer girl entered the cop's world through the Maromi doll - another physical manifestaion of her fantasies. She seems to have some kind of strange power to make fantasy real, and then created Maromi, who's popularity seems to be spreading this power to other people. If you notice, the old cop has his fantasy after he finds a Maromi cell phone thingie, and when he drops it (or did he break it?), his fantasy world ends. The designer girl created both Maromi and Shonen Bat to escape her troubles. The old cop uknowingly used the Maromi's power to create the fantasy world to his escape his problems.]
spoiler[I didn't really get the fat guy either, but again, he used the dolls to escape his world. They came to life only after the young cop went crazy. The young cop was just living in his fantasy world. ]
spoiler[But it was all because of the designer girl in the begining. From the start the old cop (who was the sanest of the bunch) though she was making everything up. He was right. But instead of making a straight forward cop story, Satoshi Kon added the paranormal elements to it. It resets in the end, because that's the way it always does. People latch on to a fad, it grows into gigantic proportions, and then collapses. And then everybody goes on to something else, just as if the fad had never happened. Only in this case, the fad was a deadly combination of Shonen Bat and Maromi, two creations of a woman with the power to make fantasy turn into reality.]
I don't think he's "ripping himself off". He's found a style that he likes and is using it. I think the problem with Paranoia Agent is that he tried to wedge a few two many ideas into a story that wasn't really long enough for TV. If it had been an OVA with half as many episodes, it would have been great. I think Kon though "look, I'm not restricted to 90 minutes anymore". Then he was a bit surprised when he came close to the end of the story, and found he still had half a series to make. |
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Slipstream
Posts: 44 |
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No, I understood the majorityof the points you mentioned (spoiler[except the dropping of cell phone. Didn't catch that])
However, on the subject on the three friends spoiler[ check out the last scene, when they jump in front of the picture. The girls never notice them and look horrified (HORRIFIED) when they see the picture...what did they see? Cause it sure as heck wasn't three people making faces to garner that reaction. Also...remember when they are about to jump in front of the train...one person beats them to it. Then one of them sees the guy walking away, "That hurt a lot more than I was expecting.". They are seeing a dead guy. Trust me...I belive they are already dead.] And I understand the points that were reality and weren't and who was crazy and who wasn't. I simply have a problem with that fact that Kon is repeating the same storytelling technique that he used before in Magnetic Rose and Millenium Actress. It was unique in MA...now it looks unoriginal. Also...question spoiler[The girls sees the reporter at the end...are all the other characters dead...cause it sure looked like it from my angel...] |
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GATSU
Posts: 15614 |
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Slipstream: I thought he started being mediocre around Tokyo Godfathers. But he needs the cash, so I'll let it slide.
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Slipstream
Posts: 44 |
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I like that answer...
Lets go with that. 
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Steve Berry
Posts: 522 Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA |
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Of course, Tokyo Godfathers was the last project he did before PA-- so that would only be two bad projects if you disliked both, or one bad project if you just didn't like PA. And although I like Millenium Actress more than Tokyo Godfathers (it's my favorite piece of his), I still thought Tokyo Godfathers was very good, and easily better than almost everything else coming out from other directors. We've set a very high standard for Kon, which is great, but I'd never consider Tokyo Godfathers a failure.
Frankly, the odd thing was that people wanted something different from him and he made it, and guess what-- now they are complaing about it.... that seems odd to me. I mean, it has "wonderful coincidences" in it (people meeting up at opportune times, etc.), but it's basically a straight forward telling of a story with a lot of comedic moments. I thought it very different from Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress. But yes, regarding Paranoia Agent-- it felt like a bit of a repeat for me-- rehashed or reused ideas. Not much of a stretch for him. Didn't he say in one of the interviews that he basically had a bunch of different old story ideas left over that he wanted to try and use? And that that was sort of the beginning of the creation of Paranoia Agent? I watched that interview and thought "Oh boy, that's gonna be a problem." I'm a writer myself, and I've tried that method, and it led to a lot of difficulty creating a sense of unity and consistency in the project. Much like Kon in Paranoia Agent. |
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Slipstream
Posts: 44 |
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I don't mind people repeating themselves if I like what I see. People complain Mamoru Oshii repeats himself in his films, with his directing decisions, his story points, and his repeated use of monologue-ing. However, I still enjoy his work. My problem with Kon is his assumption that we accept the blurring of fantasy and reality. For him, it seems obvious that its established before the story even begins. It jarrs me. It did in 'Actress but I was willing to forgive it... Here it starts half way through and it destroys my suspension of disbelief. I am willing to accept a girl talking to a stuffed animal that talks back...thats ones imagination. Having someone ELSE talk to it is a different story (I am being metaphorical there as I don't belive that actually happens)
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djarch
Posts: 41 |
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I have up to disc 3 right now, and I've seen all episodes currently available. I won't be surprised if you're completely right. The first two discs, up to ep 6 were completely awesome. I loved it, I thought it was genuinely chilly. The latest disc, I'm not so sure about. I keep hoping disc 4 will offer some sort of retribution, but it doesn't sound like it. I would've given discs 1 and 2 an A, with disc 3 a D. Still, if you average those out, it comes out to be a decent anime.
But that's all. It's okay. Average. But I don't know about disc 4 yet, we'll see. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15614 |
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Steve: I'd consider TG more of a disappointment than a failure.
I consider Paranoia Agent to be more of a regurgitative effort. Slip: Half of Innocence was a recycled Beautiful Dreamer, but it worked, because there was still a lot of heart in it. I don't feel that way with Paranoia Agent. It's trying to be smart without having anything to say. If I wanted that, I'd watch Evangelion. |
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Slipstream
Posts: 44 |
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How does disc 3 end, btw. Which episode?
I have noticed this recently with a lot of Anime coming down the pipe these last two years. They come out and absolutely explain nothing in the first 4 episodes. You keep at it because, to offer an odd colloquialism, you want to know who killed Laura Palmer. In fact...part of the mystery is trying to figure what the setting is about. Isn't it damned annoying to watch a title, having characters encountering a mystery, like you, they cannot solve, BUT then have the additional problem of not knowing vital parts of the setting that they know but you don't? The solution, I have noticed, for American shores, is to explain the setting in advertisements. I think this ruins the fascination of the story. Part of the story is understanding the whens and the wheres of the setting. Look at recent titles like Lain, Last Exile, Texhnolyze as examples. The advertising and even the website tell you facts about the story you won't learn in the Anime for several episodes. I liked Last Exile and Texhnolyze because they paid off. In the end, everything made sense. You could watch the series again and find facts to back up the explanation. It allowed a second viewing to be more enjoyable. Some american movies do this occasionally...but I know of no TV show that ever tried it successfully. |
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Optix
 Posts: 33 Location: FIRIN' MAH LAZERS!!!1! |
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Well I just finished watching the series and I figure I'd necro this thread for the sole purpose to say...I wish I had that 6.5 hours of my life back.
Satoshi Kon really put out a head scratcher here. I'm all for far fetched anime but perhaps I like mine delivered with a more linear approach. It took up until episode 5 before I started to understand how everything was supposed to be meant but I'm amazed that ANN tripped all over themselves with their revews. In my opinion this is not the great work that they touted. I haven't had a chance to see any of Kon's other work but at this point I'm not going to actively seek them out because if they're like this one I think I'd rather just sit through seasons 1-whatever they are on now of Pokemon. I dislike Pokemon so... |
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skyesage
 Posts: 97 |
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Well, it is too bad that people hate this show, because it is a brilliant piece of work, and I wish I would have been able to devote the time necessary to appreciate it.
...I definetely loved MA though. I still need to see Paprika. |
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HMMcKamikaze
 Posts: 189 |
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I've seen seven episodes so far and I'm not really sure where it can go from there. I figured out the premise after watching the first episode so nothing has really surprised me so far. That being said, things seem to be going down hill. The message that I gathered early on was that everyone had become so disconnected (as illustrated by the very beginning of the first episode where even though everybody has a cellphone they choose to lie to each other) that people would go as far as being victim to feel like part something greater than them self again. In addition, it was a way to escape the increasing pressures of a dehumanizing society and remove blame from them if they weren't happy with the way things were going. They were victims, how could they be held accountable? the problem is, I think that Kon overcomplicated an already meaningful message, and it doesn't look like it's going to improve anything.
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