“What? This isn’t true! I didn’t write this!”

Leaving the world of J-pop behind her, Mima Kirigoe begins life as an actress on a crime drama show called Double Blind. When offered a lead role in the show as a rape victim, Mima accepts the role despite reservations from her manager. However, the backlash from fans over her career change and a strange website called ‘Mima’s Room’ written by a fake Mima begin to worry her.

Directed by the late Satoshi Kon and critically acclaimed as one of the finest examples of an animated thriller, Perfect Blue will leave you shocked and more than a little spooked. 

The Evolution of Horror launched back in 2017 and has since grown to become one of the world’s most successful horror and film history podcasts, winning several awards and accolades. In this weekly podcast, host and creator Mike Muncer explores the history of the horror genre, from silent cinema to modern classics, via different subgenres.

Perfect Blue is considered to be one of the best anime movies of all time, and more specifically one of the greatest horror anime movies of all time. It’s also one of the movies that gave director Satoshi Kon his reputation as one of the best in the medium.

Perfect Blue began life as an adaptation of the novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis by Yoshikazu Takeuchi. It was shopped around to various film studios for an adaptation, before eventually being handed to Kon as his potential directorial debut. Kon accepted it, wanting to embrace the chance to direct a movie of his own, and because Takeuchi allowed him to make whatever changes he wished. This was a bonus because while Kon felt the book’s story of obsessive fans overdone and uninteresting, he was able to turn into something far darker.

Perfect Blue follows Mima Kirigoe, an idol in the group CHAM! who decides to leave and become an actress. However, the transition proves difficult due to pushback from fans, including one who begins to creepily stalk her. This causes a psychological breakdown, one where Mima is unable to distinguish the difference between fiction and reality. She also begins to see her idol self everywhere she goes, seemingly taunting her.

While the novel was a straightforward story about an obsessive stalker fan unable to accept an idol moving away from her innocent image, Satoshi Kon took the adaptation to entirely new places. In fact, the similarities between the movie and novel largely end at the main character being a former idol and the existence of a stalker fan. Kon was much more interested in exploring the mental toll having a stalker in the midst of a major life change could have on a person. Kon’s interpretation draws horror less from a creep lurking in the shadows and more from something darker lurking in the human psyche.

While the novel was a straightforward story about an obsessive stalker fan unable to accept an idol moving away from her innocent image, Satoshi Kon took the adaptation to entirely new places. In fact, the similarities between the movie and novel largely end at the main character being a former idol and the existence of a stalker fan. Kon was much more interested in exploring the mental toll having a stalker in the midst of a major life change could have on a person. Kon’s interpretation draws horror less from a creep lurking in the shadows and more from something darker lurking in the human psyche.

Perfect Blue is pure existential horror. It’s a study of identity, and struggling to spot where the persona you present to the world ends and where the real, authentic you begins. While the movie was made in 1997 and presented this breakdown of identity through the lens of a celebrity, its message becomes much more poignant in a world of social media where we all present a specific view of ourselves to the world. In a world where anyone can gain a following and be visible at all times, what does it mean to be yourself?

These questions would become recurring themes in all of Satoshi Kon’s works, from Millennium Actress once again exploring the blurring of fiction and reality through acting, to Paprika and its surreal dreamscapes. It also stood out from other anime of the time for its emphasis on stark realism in its visuals and its dark psychological horror themes that were rarely explored in the medium.

All this led to a mass of critical acclaim, with critics across the world lauding it, even winning awards at the Montreal Fantasia Festival and the Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal.

It’s also proved highly influential, with directors around the world taking elements from it in the years since. Most notable among these was Darren Aronofsky, who recreated a scene of Mima screaming into her bathtub with Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream. His later movie Black Swan also shares plenty of similarities with Perfect Blue.

Perfect Blue is not an easy watch, but it’s a movie that needs to be seen, especially if you’re a horror fan.