"Who are you?" - Perfect Blue Review

What if someone else wrote your diary? This is the unnerving reality for Mima Kirigoe (Junko Iwao), the lead singer for the J-pop idol group "CHAM!" who decides to abandon her identity as an idol and become an actress.

Perfect Blue is an psychological horror anime move, directed by Satoshi Kon, originally released in 1997 at the Fantasia Festival. The film itself is based on the novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis (which I haven't read), but in an attempt to make the story more interesting as an animation changes were made to the story. It was originally intended to be a live action film, but after the budget was reduced it was decided to be an original video animation, although if you want to see something closer to the novel without actually reading it you could watch  Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete which only has one thing under the reception on wikipedia to it that calls it "boring", so make of that what you will.

I won't pretend to know much about being a pop idol or an actress in Japan, but they're both celebrities, so it comes with many of the problems of being a celebrity like the pressure and stress of performing. Stress and pressure, of course, isn't an exclusive problem of celebrities, but with Mima's career change from an idol to actress it captures it perfectly. The movie does an amazing job of making the audience feel the stress Mima feels by not just shoving all her problems onto your face, but by slowly building the stress up, a feeling everyone should be able to understand. I even felt like collapsing under all the weight building up throughout the narrative.

The film also explores themes of perception and identity while critiquing society's obsession with celebrities. The difference between what others may perceive as you and how you perceive yourself is somehow interestingly represented. As an idol Mima at times doesn't feel as though her own life and identity belongs to her and not only is this critical of the our culture, but could go a step further to ask how much our affects who we are and whether we are who we believe that is.

Like any good horror, Perfect Blue doesn't rely on jump scares to bring in horror. The most scary thing the movie does is let you understand it. The movie may be hard to grasp at first, but the more you understand about the events transpiring the more your stomach may churn. What's even more horrifying is when you understand the psychology of the characters and, just as in the film, the line between fiction and reality blur (although not quite like the film).

If you want something that will scare you deep down rather than just shock you and forces you to question reality in more than the context of society all while gripping you to your seats I'd definitely check this out. Putting together the movie may require more than one watch, but I promise it won't bore you. I've watched it twice (years apart) and still found it to be a thrilling experience even though I'm not sure how much I've actually understood what REALLY happened. But to find out what REALLY goes down make sure you watch subs not dubs, an important scene is actually changed due to it and not for the better.