THE REVIEWS Episode 53: Perfect Blue
Identity, Intercept, Imagination…
Hey, I’m back from the dead! Before I review this movie, I do wanna get into some stuff. I am not going to stop reviewing. It takes a lot of time however for me to review something, so I do hope you’re able to wait for some time. I know this year, I haven’t been posting a lot of reviews. In fact, this is my fourth and last one of the year. I’ve spent half a year writing a 31-chapter long story, so I didn’t get to do more reviews or stories. This year itself was hard too. COVID-19, home-based learning that sucks big time, studies that were getting too hard, and of course the lack of motivation for me to do anything at all.
Anyway, here’s a big and long review I did to fill up the months I never posted anything review-related on this website at all. With that out of the way, I do hope you enjoy this review, and happy reading.
This review contains spoilers. Turn away if you haven’t watched the film yet.
“Life imposes things on you that you can’t control, but you still have the choice of how you’re going to live through this.” — Celine Dion
.
.
.
It happened again…a few years has passed…
The same thing had occured again…I thought it wouldn’t come to this again…
But it did….I didn’t expect it
No matter what I do, the outcome was the same…
No matter how hard I tried, it still led me to the same end…
No matter where I go, I’ll always remember…
It’s like in this life, it just might never leave me…
Maybe it’s fate…maybe it’s destiny…
I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote this in 2009. Perhaps it was for fun, or I actually had a thought on something. Either way, it was a homework from my English teacher. She told us to write a poem, and I wasn’t exactly the best at it. Back then, this just meant nothing. All I wanted to do is to finish it, pass it up, and be praised by the teacher for punctuality and effort.
I kinda like looking back at the past. I throughly enjoyed myself last time. There was nothing to worry about. No stress, no headaches, no nothing. The work was super easy, and I get to play all day long without thinking about how to score better in an exam, or even my future. Those days were the best.
I remembered the time when my graduation day happened in my primary school, when I was graduating from Primary 6. Each of the graduating class had to come up with a performance, and me and my classmates spent lots of time prepping for it. After school, we’d practise our choreography, make some unique dance steps to make the performance more interesting, and even chose the song to play for it. All that four months spent training…all for one night. It was fun though. I was happy, because I spent time with my friends to do something together. It can be tiring, but being around great company will never make me feel down. Looking back at it, I smiled. I feel bad for those who are graduating this year, thanks to the coronavirus.
I remembered the time when I started publishing books online for the world to see. It wasn’t my first rodeo at writing, but it was my first time posting it on writing websites. I didn’t thought much of it back then. I wrote what I had wanted to write, and I posted it out, not considering if it was even offensive or not. My grammar and vocabulary at that time…were atrocious, to say the least. Right now, I have improved in terms of my writing style, the story plot, and, of course, the grammar and vocablulary. Receiving comments, good and bad, also allowed me to grow and know where I’ve went wrong in my writing.
I remembered the time when I was first introduced to anime. Everyone in my secondary school was head over heels for Japanese animation, and at first I thought: “It’s basically like Tom and Jerry or The Amazing World of Gumball but animated by Japanese people.” I used to not see the appeal of it. People would recommend me anime all week, and talk about it like they are religiously devoted to it, but I said no. I did not touch it, or watch any of it at all. That was until I saw an anime that one of my friends were watching while on a stayover. I was fascinated by the animation, and of course, the pretty female protagonist. Once he told me the name of the anime, I have not stop watching anime ever since. Funny, ain’t it? I used to be so against it, now I love it. And yes, my first anime is Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches.
3 years passed. Now I’m here, and I’ve just finished publishing a Love Live fanfic with thirty one chapters. I’ve also done a number of reviews, and some interviews that will never be found easily. Time really passes fast, doesn’t it? In a flash, a year is about to pass us. It’s about to be Christmas, and malls are already playing ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ like 2 months ago. I’ve realized I didn’t post a lot of reviews this year too. This is the gifting season, and that’s why I’m giving this review to you readers out there as an early Christmas gift.
Speaking of the graduation, books, and anime, I’m going to bring you back to the past, and review this movie named Perfect Blue. It is a psychological thriller anime film directed by the late and legendary director Satoshi Kon, and it is based on the book named ‘Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis’. This movie features voice actresses and actors like Junko Iwao, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki Ōkura, and the well-known Pokemon voice actress Rika Matsumoto. Not gonna lie, I’ve heard a lot of people talking about this movie or referencing it. A lot of them loved this movie a lot too, so that’s what got me interested.
This movie shows us the life of Mima Kirigoe, who turned into an actress after being a member of an idol group for two and a half years. She becomes a victim on constant stalking. More dark things start to happen, and she starts to lose her sense on reality and fantasy. This film was a blast for me, and is still one of the movies I love watching until today. From the animation and the story to the characterization and the music, they are all so awesome and great. It’s such a good movie. Please go watch it. The end.
Nah, just joking. I won’t stop there. I won’t make you read five minutes of my past for a ten-second review. I’ll go into detail. But first of all, look at the poster. It looks kinda normal. There’s no signs of gore or killing or nudity in there. Why is it given a R-rating? You’ll find out soon.
Mima Kirigoe was a Japanese idol before she decided to transition into an actress with her manager Rumi Hidaka and her agent Tadokoro. Some of her fans aren’t happy of the changes, including a weird-looking man who constantly stares at her. When she stars as a minor role in a show called ‘Double Bind’, a fan letter sent to her turned into a bomb as it injured Tadokoro. That’s when all the strange things start happening. More murders, a frightening website that describes her exact everyday actions, and even a virtual version of herself appears right in front of her very eyes. A short summary of the movie.
This plot, to begin with, isn’t that monotonous and bad. It’s actually pretty good, to be honest. It doesn’t have any inconsistencies. It’s pretty interesting to see how things in this movie unfold. This film has an introduction, the build-up, the climax, and the ending, which are all great. I cannot predict what’s going to happen next, which makes me interested to continue watching. That’s a good thing, because that makes me want to know more about the movie, and that’s a way to captivate viewers to watch a film. Suspense. There are a few twists and turns here that will keep you at the edge of your seat. They are good surprises, no worries. There are actual conflicts in this. Conflicts worth having the main character and the audience to think and relate. Like when Mima is thinking whether she should become an actress as her agent and manager argues with each other, both saying points that make sense. Or that time where CHAM experienced success after her departure, and Mima feels down. Or that one time when she had to go nude for a photoshoot for publicity. Also, this is a very, very creepy horror anime. Do not watch if you have a weak heart, because the voice acting plus the music makes it really scary.
Some parts of this film, however, will confuse the hell out of you. It did for me too. I thought either the movie was too complicated to understand, or I was too stupid. Turns out that Satoshi wanted it to be this way because after all, it is a movie about separating reality from fantasy. It’s about Mima trying to find out what’s real and fake, and for us to use our imaginations to guess what happened or how it happened. It isn’t meant to be understood, and it is supposed to be messy, so no, we are all supposed to be confused and that’s absolutely normal. Leaving it at this state is perfection.
Also, notice how it relates to real life so perfectly. This film tells us about Japan’s idol culture quite accurately. As you can see in the movie, most of the fans of CHAM, the idol group Mima was in, are men, and they have franchises of the idols. Talent agencies of idols sometimes organize meet-and-greets, where fans get to shake hands with their idols, take a picture with them, and have a little chat with them. Thus, this allows the idols to foster a close (or closer) connection or relationship with their fans. Because of this, fans are so overly in love and obsessed with them that they demand to know everything about their idols. When their idols do or disclose something unfavorable, or anything that does not perceive the image of ‘pure idols’ and the way idols present themselves, these fans become mad and angry. They will feel betrayed because it destroys the perception of the idols being there only for them. Damn, some fans even go as far as to stalk the idol, or send bombs to the idols, which might kill them. Holy crap.
Likewise, in this movie, a fan named Me-Mania was so obsessed with Mima he disapproved of the transition she made and it made him terribly upset that he couldn’t accept the fact that she is an actress and still thinks of her as an idol. At the start of the film, he works as a security guard for CHAM’s last show. The scene where he has Mima on his hand tells us everything that Satoshi Kon wanted to tell us. He’s a creepy fan. He also projects her into a CHAM performance where Yukino and Rei are performing “Alone But At Ease”, which proved my point earlier. He couldn’t believe that the Mima, the idol, the cute star he had envisioned in his head, isn’t the same in reality. He never spoke a damn word until the third-quarter of the movie, all the more showing he’s a creepy man.
Throughout the movie, he sent a letter bomb, murdered people associated with her or her work in cold blood, and stalked her everywhere, giving her creepy smiles. He even owned the accurately-creepy website that I mentioned earlier, which is ‘Mima’s Room’, and tried to murder Mima because he thought she was an imposter. All because his favorite idol ‘Mima’ told him to do so, which he didn’t know was someone impersonating as her all along. This shows the fans will do anything and go all out for their idols. Look at the similarities of both cases. Perfect Blue happens in Japan, Mima’s an idol, and Me-Mania is the fan. This film showcases the Japan’s idol culture perfectly, and it’s even more relevant today, with new pretty idols entering the industry, and more fans starting to become obsessive.
Speaking of stalking, there is the Björk stalker case, which was somehow similar to this movie, and happened around the SAME TIME as the making of Perfect Blue. Also known as Ricardo López, he was head over heels for a singer named Björk in 1993. He wrote many fan letters, gathered personal information about her, and started straying away from reality as he became more obsessed with her. In 1996, Björk started dating a musician named Goldie, which angered Ricardo because she was dating a black man, which didn’t line up with his perception of her.
Originally, he was writing a diary worth 800 pages, but stopped upon hearing this news and started filming eleven videos tapes of himself, each having around two hours of runtime. He became angrier over time, and at one point, he wanted to kill her for it, thus the idea of the letter bomb surfaced in his head.
He put sulfuric acid into a hallowed-out book, with the intention of killing Björk. He killed himself with a revolver after mailing it, in hopes to ‘reunite’ with Björk in the afterworld. Too bad that plan didn’t succeed at all. The US police managed to get into his home, find out about the video tapes, and informed the London police that a bomb is on their way. The latter managed to defuse the bomb, and Björk was unharmed. The day was saved. However, that was a really creepy case. It showed us how stalkers can be so hung-up on their favorite idols that they decide how their idols should act or do.
That case also let me see how the events in Perfect Blue…can be real, because it did happen in real life before. In 1997, the only way celebrities can be seen or heard are through news, television, or they are people with large following. Now, with stuff like social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the movie becomes more relatable than it was 23 years back. Anyone can be considered a celebrity these days with a number of followers, and they can be found through social media, where they’re being stalked through too. They can also receive death threats from anonymous people. How technologies have evolved the world. Pretty unsettling, but it makes this film more relevant and terrifying than before.
This movie also requires the viewer to sit down, and concentrate on every single detail of this movie. Make sure to do so, look at every single scene of this movie carefully. It makes you understand the movie way better. I know I said the music makes the movie creepy, but this is some good shit I’ve been hearing. I really like 想い出に抱かれて今は (Cherish These Memories) and Season.
Rumi is a really surprising figure, I gotta say. When I first watched it, I only understood she got DID, also known as dissociative identity disorder, and she thought she was Mima. Turns out, after watching it a few more times, I realized that her actions do show that part of her. The one time where she looked over Mima’s script and realized that she only had one line. Rumi wonders why Mima is so worried while she herself is biting her own thumb, showing that she’s worried too. She was frantic and advised Mima strongly to not do the rape scene when the latter was presented with the choice to go with it or not. Rumi even cried when Mima was getting ‘raped’, although staged. All of these show that she feels she is Mima, and that’s why I said to look at every single detail. To be fair, I understood her as she was a failed idol before, and that hit her back quite a lot. Since at that time Mima was still an aspiring idol, she developed a second personality which believed that she is the real Mima Kirigoe. She is also the person behind the many, many horrible things that happened throughout the movie, and to think that she put an innocent front all along. She tricked us into believing she was a good person, and she made us all shocked. This is an example of a very good character building, characterization, and a twist well done. Rica Matsumoto voiced the character well and gave it life. Good job, Matsumoto-san! To be honest, I didn’t realize she was also the voice of Satoshi in Pokemon until I looked it up.
Now, onto the spotlight of the movie, I’ll talk about Mima Kirigoe, the main protagonist in this psychological horror thriller film. During the first few minutes of the movie, you can see two sides of Mima very distinctively. There’s the idol side of her, where she starts performing on stage, singing with CHAM’s other two members, Yukino and Rei. The side where she puts out her perfect form, the fake side, the side that’s not truly her.
Then, there’s the personal side of her, where she rides the public train, buys her daily necessities in the supermarket, and return to her home, which looks like a normal civilian’s home. The side where she’s true to herself, the real side, the side that’s truly her. What does this tell us? All celebrities are normal humans. They’re not some special people, they are like us.
Anyway, the movie switches the two fronts of her back and forth. In one scene, she’s performing. In the next scene, she’s buying food for her fish. In the following scene, she’s performing again, and afterwards it shows her crossing the zebra crossing on her way home. Then it repeats. Idol, personal, idol, personal. It’s clear as day to see the difference, or the real and fake life of Mima Kirigoe.
As the movie progresses, and she becomes an actress, scary events started to unfold. Not only is CHAM getting their newfound success without her and she regretting over leaving the idol group, she also is stressed over acting in ‘Double Bind’ after the rape scene, and she keeps reading ‘Mima’s Room’ to be confused and horrified by the accuracy of her actions and thoughts in it, giving her paranoia that she is constantly being stalked. What’s even worse is that after the rape scene, people’s perception of her changed, and it’s not the way she wants people to see her as, but unfortunately and sadly, it became reality. That was the start of her suffering from psychosis, making her unable to differentiate her own personal life and her acting life. Somewhere in the movie, Mima was rejecting someone who was offering a modelling job to her. It looks like a daily thing, doesn’t it? She is just walking down the streets, turning the job offer down because she is an actress. Seems like normal. Turns out, this is part of ‘Double Bind’. Surprising, isn’t it? Not even we can tell what’s real or not.
That really petrified me, because I got to see how Mima started losing her mind as the film goes on. She became unsure of her own life, and we saw it happen too. It’s like she’s starting to lose everything about herself, taking every last part of her soul away from her, until she becomes a soulless woman. It doesn’t help when a virtual version of herself keeps appearing in front of her to insult her continuously, calling her names like filthy and tarnished. She’s like an inner demon of Mima, knowing her every thought, like her regret over leaving CHAM.
Also, the show Double Bind makes it harder for her, and us, to distinguish her own life from acting. By some coincidence, Double Bind is like the exact same thing as Mima’s life. She’s acting in a show which depicts her life, but at the same time she’s also acting in her life. Confusing. In the show, the character played by Mima killed her beloved sister and took her identity due to dissociative identity disorder. Familiar, isn’t it? Yeah, Rumi tried to do the same thing too. She tried to kill Mima and take her identity due to Rumi’s dissociative identity disorder.
During that part of chasing and cornering, Mima didn’t want to die, and she had enough of Rumi trying to kill her, after it was revealed Rumi was behind all the murders, ‘Mima’s Room’, and even tricking Me-Mania. She also sees Rumi as the Virtual Mima. When Rumi pins her to the wall and is about to kill her, she screams that she is the real Mima. Even after taunts by Rumi, or Virtual Mima, Mima states firmly that she is who she is, saying a big fuck-you to Rumi and her insecurities. Mima didn’t give a shit about what others say. She wanted to be an actress because being a idol to her is suffering. After this whole movie, she finally realizes who she is, what she wants to be, and that she doesn’t care about what others think of her. Even after the way she was being looked at from the rape scene, even after the breakdowns she had at home, even after the disapproval from many fans of hers
Wow, to be as brave as Mima…being who she wants to be…In my whole life, I’ve written stories and reviews that are according to what I wished or wanted to write. I’ve done some things that might be normal to me. However, to some people, these stories and reviews might be shitty, and the things that I’ve done might make me look like an asshole to them. I might get insulted for not following what other people want me to say or write. However, I am who I am. I do what I want to do. I shouldn’t have to feel bad because I didn’t fulfil someone’s fantasy in my fanfics or original fiction. I shouldn’t have to feel like shit because people think I’m malicious, when I didn’t do anything wrong at all. I shouldn’t have to feel regretful just because my stuff does not please some people. As long as I know what’s right and wrong while doing the stuff I do, I shouldn’t have to worry about what others think.
Because I am who I am. I am Noah. I am 215Productions. I am FallenVengeance. I am HexagonCube. I am me. Others do not determine who I am going to be in future or who I am as a person. Only I do, because I have control over my own life. I know who I am.
Perfect Blue is a really good movie to watch. A lot of disturbing, dark themes are shown here, and they’re pretty interesting and accurate. The story plot is remarkable, the characters and characterizations are outstanding, the music in this film are impressive, and the fact that the themes in this movie is more relevant now than when it was first shown in cinemas is phenomenal and terrifying at the same time. There are also some life lessons here to learn that can be pretty useful. I didn’t expect loving this movie a lot, but I did, and I still do. This is one of my favorite movies up till today. Satoshi Kon is a man who is ahead of his times. He was a really great director, and his other works are awe-inspiring too, but sadly he passed away in 2010 due to terminal pancreatic cancer. Rest in peace, Satoshi Kon-san. This movie’s going to be a 4.7/5 for me. I really recommend this movie a lot, and I do hope you enjoy it too.
To end this review off, I’m going to quote a sentence from an author, which really relates to Mima:
‘The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.’ — Stephanie Perkins
Thanks for reading this very long review. It’s been exactly three months since I last posted a review here, and I’ve only posted like four reviews this year. 2020 has been tough, with COVID-19 and wearing masks becoming the new norms. There are reasons I’ve been so busy not writing reviews.
- I was concentrating on writing my previous fanfiction which had 31 chapters.
- I was busy doing my studies. They became harder, and when it was taught online, I was so confused. Damn. Anyways, I’m glad that I get to go back to school now to learn. It’s way much easier.
- I was taking a mental break. There has been lots of things that happened to me and around me that I had to call a timeout. In those times, I’ve watched more shows and movies, and concentrated on this review.
For your information, this is the longest review I’ve done so far. I might do longer reviews next time, who knows? This movie took me on a turn of events, and it surprised me so much, so that’s why I had a lot to write.
Also, as of 2022 (I’m editing this currently after the review of Brave Frontier), my name is HexagonCube. You can still call me Fallen or Death215 but I’d prefer HexagonCube or Noah. There was a whole ass long monologue by me here, but you don’t really need that anymore, do you?
Well, hmm, to give you a short reason on why I changed my name over and over again, I’m…not that sure myself. Heh. I guess I feel the name could be better. FallenVengeance has been used before in some Seven Nation Army music, so i decided to just drop that. HexagonCube came from me creating a logo from a website. The logo consists of four cubes that looked like a hexagon after combining it, so that’s where the name came from. Pretty original, right? Probably.
Still, thank you once again for reading through this review and its afterword, and…
