Perfect Blue – Review

Are you ready to get your brain fucked? No? Okay stay away. Yes? Then tune in to Perfect Blue, a total headcase of a film that will get deep under your skin. Some consider this very good and very dark film one of the best anime of all time. Check it out and find out why.

As pop sensation trio CHAM isn’t enough for Mimarin Kirigoe (Iwao) anymore, she decides to leave music for the movie industry. Her fans are dismayed at the loss for the group, but hesitantly support her transition.

As her final shows play out, the audience behaves a bit wilder. One disfigured man (Ôkura) begins to obsess with Mima during her last concert, and things begin to get odd. As Mima gets home and checks her mail, there is a weirdly written letter, a breathy phone call, and an ugly fax. The plot is heating up, and she is feeling shook.

Without knowing who is messing with her, all she can do is try and move on. As Mima lands a role on a detective TV show ‘Double Bind,’ she gets a shot at her dream. Too bad this is when reality goes totally off the rails and Mima struggles with an unscrupulous stalker, vicious murders, and a warped bending of reality and television.

Perfect Blue is absolutely nuts. The story is uncomfortable, but great, and the execution is where it really hits home. A blurring of reality is always fun, but there are not too many that layer context and insanity onto each other so well like this film. Somehow scenes deliver clues, exposition, mind bending confusion and dreamlike narrative all cohesively.

The mysteries of Perfect Blue make the very short runtime fresh, while the psychosis smashed in keeps the film interesting even on an immediate rewatch. The film is pretty bonkers and delivers the goods on many thematic grounds. Let the slow opening take you on a wild and bending journey.

Sometimes it is hard to tell what is real while watching Perfect Blue, which is part of the expertly built story and direction. The animation itself is quite good for the time and does some impressive stuff when its wilder concepts are playing out. Voice acting is also good with the original Japanese sounding the best but the English is not too bad either. Blasphemy or not, watch it how you prefer, I don’t give a shit. Well crafted sound effects and music enhance this creepy story.

This film is loosely based on a novel, and was originally going to be a live action movie before budget issues transformed it into animation.