Anime: Perfect Blue

Content Warning: Violence, blood, nudity, graphic murder, sexual assault, and mind-bending images

Last time, I talked about the novel of the same name. Today, we talk about the better known film of Perfect Blue. And before I go any further, I have to make it absolutely clear that this film (and thus this review) are going to be very graphic and hard to read. It’s a-ok if you want skip it, I will totally understand.

The movie opens with some kind of event taking place with a Sentai group doing a live performance (think Power Rangers) and a large crowd of mostly young men who don’t even react to this show. From here, we cut between the performance and Mima’s evening afterwards. We see Mima as part of an idol trio called CHAM but this her last day with them, as she wants to focus of acting and advancing her career. We’ve given a little introduction to idol culture here as things are starting, listening to the fans talking about the group and how they’ve already heard that she’s quitting. We meet Rumi (Mima’s assistant?), Todokoro (Mima’s manager), and the guy who will be known as Mr. Me-Mania. Take a wild guess what he looks like… As Mima’s evening continues, she talks with her mom and then gets a “heavy breathing” phone call. After that, there’s a fax that’s covered in the word “traitor.”

As we continue, Mima gets a small part on a show called Double Bind, playing the part of a victim’s sister, with the single line of “Excuse me, who are you?” This line is something you should hang on to as we start the trip that is the rest of the this movie. It’s only a bit part but we see her manager pushing the producer and writer to expand her part, as she’s no longer an idol and that won’t cause issues. After discussion, Todokoro opens a fan letter for Mima that was sent to the studio and it explodes. Not too much but enough to make the manager’s hand bleed. As we can see, things are going to be very different than the novel. However, there are little nods to it that start here. The first is the name of the actress in the series playing the psychologist is named Eri (who was Mima’s rival idol in the novel) and the plot of the show is clearly taken from the original novel.

After this point, I will warn you that things are going to get bad and terrible, so hold on to your butts. I’m also going to skim over this as you really need to watch it.

After seeing mention of “Mima’s Room” in a fan letter, she has Rumi help her buy a computer and visits the site. On the site, Mima discovers that someone is posting things about her life, soon discovering that they’re things that only she would know. Unless, you pay very close attention to one line from a character, in which case you might be able to put everything together right away. Exactly one person I know was able to do this.

Mima gets called back to the show, as they want her to be raped. I mean, have her character raped. I did try to warn you. Mima acts like she’s fine with it, but this scene is very graphic and very intense and I do not know how anyone would be able to act this out. And this is where Mima starts to fall apart. She said she was okay with it but she really wasn’t. When she starts to see another version of herself, this one still in the CHAM outfit, she says that she didn’t want to but she does want to be an actress. The other Mima says she’s lying, Mima has only wanted to sing and be an idol. Scenes start to repeat, as Mima starts to fall apart, unable to tell the show Double Bind and her reality apart. And then there’s the murders. The writer, who had Mima’s character get raped, is brutally murdered. When Mima does a photo shoot, it gets very erotic and explicit. Like, we see EVERYTHING. And then the photographer is killed. Mima visits the Mima’s Room blog and sees that the author went shopping and Mima says “I guess I went shopping today.” She is totally falling apart. And she’s not the only one. Mr. Me-Mania has also popped up here and there and we see him speaking but hear Mima’s voice. At another point, he reads an email from “Mima” and all of his posters and pictures of Mima are talking to him. Yeah. This is all kinds of freak-deaky.

The climax of the film comes in two halves. Mr. Me-Mania has been told by the “real Mima” to kill the “imposer.” And this is where I really like Mima, as after all of this, when Mr. Me-Mania comes after her, she fights. She fights hard. She does try to run but fights when she has to. The fight ends with Mr. Me-Mania attempting to rape her on the same set as the scene of her character getting raped, but Mima is able to grab a hammer and hits him in the head. He screams, walks a bit, and falls over. Stumbling around, wearing nothing but the tattered rags of her outfit, she finds Rumi. Rumi takes her to “Mima’s Room.” Yeah. It gets worse. Rumi has gone totally nuts and thinks that SHE’S the real Mima and tries to kill Mima. And Mima, once again, fights back. She’s Mima and she doesn’t want to die. This fight is so fantastic and well done, you’ve probably seen parts of it around the internet. How does it end? I am not telling you. Watch it your own damn self. You really need to.

This movie is one of the best I’ve ever seen. When I was younger, anime was for giant robots, martial arts, and magical girls. This is one of the first ones we got in the US that wasn’t something like that. This was a psychological thriller that could go much further because of the medium used. We could have Mima’s other half jumping from streetlight to streetlight because it was animation. When I talk about this being a masterpiece, it’s not just the plot or the visuals, it’s the whole package. The music, the direction, and the voice work in the Japanese version are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Period. Full stop. And that is why I want you to watch it. Because this is art. It’s also something you can show people who don’t like giant robots or magical girls or stuff like that and show them why we like anime.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Suggestion: Watch it, if you can, it's a solid film. Buy if you can and then watch it again. It really does get better with repeated viewings.