ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Anoushka Slater
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Payno
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Davidon80
The series starts off with a mysterious attack by an unidentified baseball wielding perpetrator on a young graphic designer. With this the mystery begins, the perpetrator is labelled 'Li'll Slugger' by the media and then a series of other attacks happen across Tokyo. The next is a young middle school pupil, then a corrupt cop. We shift time scales and narratives even realms of consciousness to eventually a final showdown to the root cause of Li'll Slugger's reign. Many unexpected twists happen along the way, each episode is dedicated to a different character.This amazing series by the late great Satashi Kon has all the hall marks of his best work: satire, artistry, pathos and strong character development. The satire in this series is jet black and aimed squarely on Japan, in many ways this series can be read as an artistic poke at modern Japan's cult of weird. Everything is lampooned in this series from kawaii cartoon characters to ritual suicide. It seems that Kon has drawn up a list of many of the weirdest facets of Japanese culture (at least to the eyes of a western audience) and enthused them into this script under the guise of a crime thriller. With all the narrative changes and the strong emphasis on shifting characters, the actual final showdown is a bit of an anti-climax. However it is clear that this series is not intended to be viewed as a completed narrative piece. The series is more about segments with the main thread holding the series together being a focus on modern Japan's counter culture fetish, by the final episode most of what Kon has set out to lampoon has already been achieved, with the finale merely offering a sense of closure rather than revelation.In my opinion this is Japanese animation at is best, Satashi Kon was a genius, he understood that anime can be challenging, political and in some respects a greater medium than movies. It is fair to say that all of his works attempted to bridge this gulf between anime and art, and never is this more evident then in Paranoia Agent. Of all the great Japanese animators Kon was the most creative, cinematic and consistent. Despite the fact that Kon has only a hand full of full features to his name, his impact on modern cinema has been far reaching. Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan are two examples of Hollywood directors who hold Kon in high regard, both directly referencing the work of Kon in their own; Perfect Blue for Aronofsky and Paprika for Nolan. It is no coincidence that both men are two of the most creative and imaginative minds working in movies at the moment.Paranoia Agent is a fine example of Satashi Kon's genius and offered a glimpse at what Kon could have achieved if his life wasn't cruelly cut short. Paranoia Agent is a rare treat and one to be savoured.
db215
It's a mystery to me why Satoshi Kon's animated Dolmio puppet designs get such a positive reception. His reasoning for making half his characters look like disturbing cast offs from glorified passatta adverts is anyone's guess, and for me personally his stories lack the depth that is so often accredited to them. Paranoia Agent is a good example of this kind of over-hype.A similar thing occurred to me when I watched Perfect Blue on its release. For the life of me I couldn't work out exactly what it was I supposed to think was so very good about it. The story didn't add up, was impossible to substantiate in a believable universe without attributing dementia to everyone within it, and had character designs far more disturbing than it's own leanings towards controversy. This is exactly the same as Paranoia Agent.Story 5/10The series starts out rather promisingly. The albeit very bland (frankly pathetic) main character gets attacked by what becomes know as "shounen bat" or "lil' slugger", or various other things. Struck down whilst under severe pressure at work (she is a character designer who has only had one idea since she was a little girl), she begins a trend for such attacks on similarly distressed people. There is some promise there, and I admit to having been intrigued enough to have higher expectations than before starting the series. After that it completely falls apart. The series is barely held together through its loosely connected and tiresomely formulaic middle-episodes which ultimately amount to an "etc" to what has gone before.I read an interview with Satoshi Kon which described the 'budding idea' of Paranoia Agent as a collection of ideas left over from his films. Well, that explains a lot. A lot of disjointed concepts in one place, in quick succession, lacking, in my view, any charm or appeal.Characters 5/10The characters introduced in the first half of the series are interesting despite their looks. They have at least some level of on- screen charisma, unlike the leading lady whose unspoken pondering on self worth is tedious to the point of embarrassing. The shounen bat character itself is one of the big letdowns of the series. Visually unappealing and lacking in personality. The diversion into preposterous fantasy that his arrest leads to is also one of the worst writing choices made in an anime, from my perspective. Later characters have little to offer. Some are even as boring and faceless as the lead (can you tell I didn't like her?).Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I'm completely sick of this kind of pathetic female anime lead. The limp-wristed, downward looking mute. Rei Ayanami's with no moments of relief. And this character in itself is supposed to carry the series into the brackets of "psychological", or "mindf___". It is far, far too readable to succeed.Animation 7/10Apart from the hideous cross between the Wind in the Willows and King of the Hill that are the character designs, the animation quality is generally very high, if (contrastingly) nondescript. Nothing in the mes en scene makes it stand out from other recent series. In later episodes it does experiment with more interesting (though not wholly original) concepts such as animating the backing sheets minus cells, and using a version of puppet theatre to describe a man's ideal world. Whether I am just a sceptic or they were solely used for budget reasons rather than anything artistic I don't know. In any case it has been done before, though I did like the puppet world.Sound 6/10OP is nice the first few times (as is the sequence), but gets old. Incidental music is nothing special. Not good, not bad.Overall 6/10There's nothing here to bring me back, or anything much that I will remember. Having said that the scenario with the disgusting toad-like old man and his daughter was well put together.In sum it was not much fun to watch this. In fact in places I wanted to just delete the damn series (relentlessly bad swordplay episode anyone? ). In a way I am glad I finished watching it, though perhaps not so glad that I started it.To be fair, the last episode was a lot better than I had expected. The story was not surprising in contrast to what several reviewers have said (sorry!), nor was it powerful or did it carry an important message. BUT, if you liked Perfect Blue and similar series/movies, you may well like this too. Plus, it is only 13 episodes long. You could do worse things than watch this.
Timothy McKann
When I first got to watch this show on Adult Swim,It was really killer,I have to say that out of all the anime that Satoshi Kon has created,this one is an ace in the hole. I only got to see the first 2 episodes,and they were very interesting. But when the show went off the air on Adult Swim,I had to see it again,and that's when I decided to buy it. When I started collecting the series on DVD,it was even more better. My favorite characters in the series were Keiichi,Tsukiko,and Maromi.My favorite episode in the series was the Happy Family Planning episode.I also want to say that this series is not suited for children,and can also give them nightmares. So if you want to see something killer,then this series is up your alley. And be careful when watching this series,it can mess with your head.
Shaun Marquet (metalsonic_chaosking)
Paranoia Agent, without doubt, is a good anime, but certainly not for everyone. It is a dark anime about a series of attacks carried out by a mysterious child known only as 'Lil Slugger', and the efforts of the detectives to find him/her. The show often takes different angles, away from the main characters, showing us what is happening with other characters on the show. There will be people, who after watching this, will be thinking 'WTF just happened?' after seeing some of the things this show contains. Towards the end the show becomes outrageously weird, Lil Slugger suddenly becoming more than 10 feet tall and Tsukiko's travels into an insanely weird environment, where everyone but him are 2-D characters. Throughout every episode, there is an old man, whose name was either never mentioned or I have forgotten it, but although he seems irrelevant, almost every episode ends up involving him in some main way, such as Episode 5: The Holy Warrior and later on, where he is referred to as The Old Master by a man called Mitsuhiro, who goes by the alias of Radar Man and fights with Lil Slugger from at least episode 11 (have not seen Disk 3) and is technically the one who solves the case of Lil Slugger. Without giving anything else away, I recommend this highly to anyone who likes a 'Smart' anime/show, and a good mystery at that. 8.5 out of 10
