Novel: Perfect Blue - Awaken From A Dream

Content Warning: Violence, female masturbation, obsession, torture, gore, misogyny, gender bending fetish, and creepy idol fans

Oh boy, here we go. This book is actually a collection of short stories that are disconnected not only from the original work but from each other as well. The only common thread connected them is that they all feature pop idols and creepy fans. Let’s get started

Wake Me From This Dream:

The first story is the shortest and the weirdest. We’re introduced to Toshihiko, a lazy man and idol fan. We just follow him around in his crappy apartment and learn little bits about him. And then things get weird when he sudden transforms into his idol, Asaka Ai. He starts out shocked and then, well, he “explores” this new body, shall we say? However, he’s being stalked by someone. That someone turns out to be his original body. And they’ve come to kill him. Or her? It’s a real weird one, as it’s Ai’s body but Toshihiko’s mind and apartment. Like I said, it’s a weird one.

Cry Your Tears:

This one starts one with yet another unnamed creepy fan who is obsessed with Kawasaki Yuma, an idol that is just starting out her career. She’s a relatively normal girl, who gets bonus points from me for being introduced wearing a Milky Momo vs Godzilla t-shirt. She’s done a single or two and TV performances but gets a job doing commercials for an appliance company that forces her to dress up like a younger girl. Yeah, I know. She also has a boyfriend who’s an up and coming actor but it keeps them apart sometimes. Once again, everyone ignores the creepy letters and things and they really shouldn’t. Because our creepy stalker this time is all about Yuma and carries around a box cutter. He stalks her and even turns up at a meet and greet for her fans. Yuma picks up on his weirdness but no one else cares.

Before too long, Yuma is spotted by a photographer with her boyfriend and it hits the newsstands. I really love how Yuma stands up for herself and her boyfriend when the news hits her office. She’s one of the best idols we’ve seen so far and we’re not even to her best part. After getting home and feeling that something is wrong, she calls her boyfriend and asks him to come over. When there’s a knock and she opens it, it isn’t him, it’s the stalker. He binds her with tape and then starts to assault her. In many ways but doesn’t penetrate. Thank goodness. To stop her from trying to escape, he cuts the bottoms of her feet. Yeah. This stuff is bad. And just when you think she might be saved, when her boyfriend finally turns up, the stalker slits his throat. This gets worse as the stalker gets ready to assault her again but she turns the tables and fights back. It actually works out as she’s able to stab him a few times and even cuts his Achilles tendon. She tries to escape, making it slowly out of her apartment and starts trying to go down the stairs, in a slow speed chase. He wins and drags her back into the apartment. He tricks him and says she’ll sing for him. What song? Why her number one hit, Lariat Of Love. I’m betting you can figure out what she does when he gives her the microphone with a cable attached…

Even When I Embrace You:

Our final story is about Yukiko and her stalker. This one is different as she has a female manager and her stalker wears a bunny mascot suit. One that has been partially burned. And he is just as dangerous as the others.

Yukiko first sees him in an empty display of her that’s been set up for her next big performance in a mall, caressing her wax statue the venue has commissioned. It freaks her the fuck out, like most of us would. This guy must have super powers as he keeps managing to disappear several times in the story. Yukiko knows this creep is after her but no one else seems to believe her, even her manager.

The rabbit appears several more times, stalking her at her events and when traveling home. He finally lets himself be seen during her appearance at a TV studio but vanishes yet again. Her manager mobilizes her fan club to walk patrols around her home. And one of them is killed by the rabbit, showing just dangerous he is. Of course, he is smart enough to vanish with the body, so no one knows exactly what happens. It does make them increase security and get police protection at her next event, the one with the display in the mall.

Just as she’s getting ready to preform, two things happen: Someone starts a rumor that Yukiko is going to be on the roof and the officer watching the freight elevator lets the rabbit walk past him because no one told him to look out for him specifically. With all this going on, Yukiko is on her own and has to flee from the rabbit. They end up on the roof and, with equal measures of intelligence, luck, and skill, Yukiko is able to get away from the rabbit. Of course, since this is pretty much a slasher movie, the rabbit’s body vanishes at the end.

And that’s all of the stories. I don’t think I liked this one as much as I liked the last book. The first story wasn’t engaging to me and felt like fetish fuel. The next two were pretty good but were either too gory or relied on old horror tropes that I dislike. The author just makes these obsessive fans but rarely gives them names or personalities of note. They exist to stalk and hurt the idols. On the flip side, I actually do like the idols and their personalities. They good people and don’t deserve what’s happening to them. Which I think is the point of all this. However, if it were me, I would never ever get involved in this world because of these freaks and weirdos. I am by no means perfect, and I do follow and interact with a few idols online, but I try to be polite and not weird. Just, normal I guess. But I hesitate to talk with them because I see how creepy their fans get. And I don’t want to be seen the same way.

Rating: 2 out of 5
Suggestion: Read it if you like thrillers or really liked the first book, as it’s just more of the same.

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.

Novel: Perfect Blue - Complete Metamorphosis

Content Warning: Violence towards women, child abduction and murder (implied), regular murder, sexual assault, dismemberment, psycho killer stuff, and frightful things

Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis as a novella (or “light novel” as kids call it today) that inspired the animated film “Perfect Blue.” But it is it's own beast.

The novel opens with The Stalker (or the Darling Rose) kidnapping a young girl, letting you know that we are In For Some Shit. While they don't show him killing her, we know it happens at some point later.

After that, we're introduced to Kirigoe Mima, a moderately successful idol, as she gets out of the shower to hear her phone ringing. She answers and hears heavy breathing. The caller speaks, apparently for the first time. It's The Stalker, telling Mima he wants to “save her” and stop her from going down her current path. This little interaction is core of the story that is about to unfold...

From here on, we're somewhat rapidly introduced to the people in Mima's life. Her assistant, Rumi, who is a woman who failed to make it as an idol. Tadokoro, her manager, and later, Eri, Mima's “sworn enemy.” I'd like to say that this book will teach you about idol culture but it's all 30 years out of date, so it's very much different these days. Okay, there's enough here that still happens but don't take everything as gospel.

What's going on with Mima, and inspiring her Stalker to save her, is that she's starting to change her image as an idol. Three years ago, Mima premiered as a normal, wholesome idol, keeping her sex appeal to a minimum and keeping her image clean. One thing that hasn't really changed (according to my limited research) in idol culture is that they have to keep a cleaner image. No drinking. No smoking. No dating. And no sexy stuff. Mostly. Now, Mima is getting older and she needs to change her image. This is something she wants to do, I'd like to point out. Her fans seem to be against it but her agent and the company behind him seem to be for it.

While Mima is preparing for her new single, her Stalker is getting bolder and bolder. He has handed a note to Rumi while her and Mima were at a TV station, followed them to figure out where Mima lives, and then it gets worse. After killing and kidnapping the young girl at the beginning of the book, he's kept a piece of her skin. He then cuts off a piece of his own skin and puts her skin where his was. This scene shows us that The Stalker is obsessed with “purity” which is why he is so focused on Mima not changing.

Speaking of Mima, she does a racy photo shoot for a photo book timed to release with her new single “Sexy Valley” as part of changing her image. This gets Eri all kinds of ticked and she has sex with a fifth-rate tabloid reporter to get him to get some dirt about Mima, telling him that Mima had a relationship with some rocker.

As we get closer to the end, we find out that Eri is having a relationship with the rocker, and he and Mima dated a few years ago, but she broke it off. As Eri is leaving from her tryst with the rocker, The Stalker shows up and kidnaps Eri. Meanwhile, Mima is debuting her new style on TV, wearing some sexy clothes.

Now that The Stalker has Eri, he ends up raping her before cutting her face off. Yeah, you read that right. This is practice for the next phase of his plan. After the show, Rumi goes to Mima's apartment to get up a surprise, only to get kidnapped by The Stalker. He then uses Rumi to get Mima to come to a closed TV station not far from her house. And this is where shit really gets wild...

The Stalker's whole plan is to cut of his skin, then cut off Mima's skin, and become Mima but not really? I don't quite understand it completely but that might because I can't make the logical leaps he is. The climax of the book is Rumi and Mima running around the old TV station, avoiding The Stalker (who has cut off his own face), trying to stop him. Mima's manager and the photographer show up, but it's really Mima's fight. She ends up killing him in a suitably horrific way.

This is a wildly different story than the film (which I will be talking about next time). Where the film is much more about the psychological horror of the lost of identity and reality, this novel is much of a more traditional psychological thriller. And both are good in their own ways, it's just a matter of taste. Now, the novel is also more involved in idol culture, even if it is a few decades out of date, so that might be another reason to pick it up. I really do love the references to VHS tapes and Laserdiscs. That really took me back.

I do have to say that I would enjoy seeing this updated and done as a live action film, as the story could benefit from it.

Rating: 4 out of 5
Suggestion: If you like psychological thrillers, and/or Japanese idols, you will enjoy it a lot. If you liked the film, you should read this just to compare the two.