Anime fans everywhere have been looking forward to this, one of four anime theatrical releases originally planned for this year, and one of only two to materialize. Was the wait worth it? You bet. Even with an English audio track that could use some improvement, that can't stop this fantastic suspense film.

According to an interview, director Satoshi Kon had some funding problems with this project, which was originally supposed to be an OAV series. Hence, some scenes (especially earlier ones) don't hold up well on the big screen. (There's some sprite shifting, and most pen lines are visible.) However, once the story gets rolling, all of that is quickly forgotten, and later scenes are so smoothly animated that fans thought that it was computer-rotoscoped. (In reality, computers were only used three times, for special effects.) Perfect Blue rips through its story at a breakneck pace, and the result is one of the most psychotic pieces of film making ever made. It's disturbing... It's freaky... It's a little bit confusing at first... It's not perfect, but certainly worth watching. The dubbed version was a little bit of a disappointment, however. As required by the plot, the music is dubbed, and despite what some fans felt, it was actually quite faithful to the original Japanese songs both in style and lyrics. That wasn't the problem... Some of the dialogue comes off as a bit corny, and the acting doesn't help matters much. (Some parts that were intended to provoke a chuckle have lost their charm, while others inspire unintentional laughs.) The otaku still use the "-rin" suffix to address Mima, which is sort of like a little girl version of "-chan". Of course, this isn't explained, so no one in the audience knew what that meant (It's translated by Rika Takahashi, whom I've blamed for similar problems in CLAMP School Detectives). English on-screen titles also appear a few seconds early, which effectively kills the suspense a few times.

Manga Video has done with the theatrical release exactly what was done in Japan -- produced it in mono, while releasing a complete Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack on home video. I have no idea why this was done, but it does cheapen the experience a bit. Little directorial touches to the audio track are missing too, like the boom box in the elevator doesn't overdrive at all. (Maybe the AC-3 version will sound better?) An alternate ending was also produced and was released on the Japanese DVD, and one certainly hopes Manga Video follows through with this as well.