- Paranoia Agent From Satoshi Kon, the legendary director of Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Paprika comes a dark and mysterious, thought-provoking psychological thriller. Citizens across Musashino City are being attacked and terrorized.
- Paranoia Agent (Japanese: 妄想代理人, Hepburn: Mōsō Dairinin) is a Japanese anime television series created by director Satoshi Kon and produced by Madhouse about a social phenomenon in Musashino, Tokyo caused by a juvenile serial assailant named Lil' Slugger (the English equivalent to Shōnen Bat, which translates to 'Bat Boy').The plot relays between a large cast of people affected in.
Episode Recap Paranoia Agent on TV.com. Watch Paranoia Agent episodes, get episode information, recaps and more. Paranoia Agent: A Case-Study of Fear and Repression. Paranoia Agent, despite being extremely short, is a very intriguing series to watch.Its disturbing imagery plays upon our innermost fears and the characters we’re introduced to show the various forms fear can take. Paranoia Agent 1x9 Animation, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy 25min 2004 After hearing of the incident in the previous episode, several women share rumors related to Lil' Slugger, most of which is farfetched.
The cause of these breakdowns is unique for every victim Lil’ Slugger attacks (see Fig. 1), but they typically come from some deep-seated psychological problem that is brought to its full-height by fear. For this reason, they are unable to deal with their present circumstances. This inability then causes them to look for something that will alleviate their problems, whether it be something as masochistic as Lil’ Slugger, or deceptively comforting as Maromi. But what it all boils down to is repression, and its consequences.
For example, there is one kid named Taira Yuuichi who is extremely egotistical and conscious about how others view him. While he tries to hide these flaws through his role as class president, his popularity starts to rapidly decline when the students start comparing him to Lil’ Slugger because of his age and what he wears. He even goes to the point of suspecting another kid for spreading the rumors, though he has no actual proof. So by the time Lil’ Slugger knocks him out with the bat, Taira’s fear of losing his status as the popular kid has overwhelmed him completely. But what occurs after he’s hit is very interesting, because despite having a head injury, Taira is no longer stressed, and he doesn’t remember what caused it.
The same thing happens to the other victims, but as the series progresses, we discover that these so-called “cures” are only temporary. This in turn causes the fear to return, and Lil’ Slugger feeds off of these fears until he nearly consumes all of Japan. Now whether he is real or not is debatable, but what the show implies is that he’s a psychological demon created from Tsukiko’s denial when she accidentally killed a puppy, who happened to be named Maromi, when she was a little girl. So when she created the character Maromi many years later, the reppressed guilt began to surge, and then combined with the fear of losing her fame if she couldn’t meet her company’s demands, Lil’ Slugger came back, and she once again used him as an excuse to hide from her troubles. But because she was so famous, the image of Lil’ Slugger spread into the unconsciousness of the millions who heard the police report, who was then summoned by the mentally deranged who needed a form of escape, which included a sleazy reporter, a woman with split-personality disorder, a man whose ideals clash with a low-life reality, a boy who sees the world as a role-playing game, and a mediocre employee who murdered everyone on his production team.
All of these people are so far off the beaten path that fear is like a disease to them, and the only solution is through self-inflicted pain, which temporarly makes them forget it. But not everyone is completely clean, because as the influence of Lil’ Slugger increases, so does the popularity of Maromi. Born out of a disturbing event that Tsukiko tries to forget, Maromi also represents repression, but with a more comforting appeal. While Lil’ Slugger’s demeanor is dark and frightening, Maromi’s is innocent and cuddly (see Fig. 2). Its adorable face makes one forget one’s troubles in an instant, taking them to a happier place that lies outside of real life. However, the characters who experience this are completely out of touch from reality, leading to a false black-and-white interpretation that lingers as long as the complex fears remain reppressed. An example of this occurs when Keiichi, after being laid off the Lil’ Slugger case due to a suspect being murdered under his and Mitsuhiro’s pr0tection, falls into a vivid daydream where he’s back in the days of his prime as a cop while being accompanied by Maromi and a younger version of Tsukiko posing as his daughter, even though he never had one. Eventually, images of his wife start to appear, reminding him of the fear he has for her weak health and their shaky marriage. Through her, he learns of her recent death, which snaps him out of the false reality he’s created under Maromi’s influence.
Paranoia Agent Episode 9
So as you can see, despite Maromi and Lil’ Slugger’s differences in terms of promoting repression, they are similar in that they were made by the same person, and they both feed on the fears of people to sustain their existence. However, their attempts at reppressing people are thwarted by certain individuals, namely the detectives and eventually Tsukiko, because instead of giving into their fears, they accept them in some form. For Keiichi, it was the love for his wife that gave him the courage to realize the truth about Lil’ Slugger. Meanwhile, Mitsuhiro decided to take the path of the spiritual warrior, allowing him to confront Lil’ Slugger on a physical and psychological level. As for Tsukiko, it was accepting the guilt of her previous actions, and that was what ultimately destroyed her inner demons.
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Dear lord did Paranoia Agent ever rally back. After tossing off what was easily its weakest episode so far, Paranoia Agent apparently decided it was time to throw out a trump card, and so tossed off an episode that skewered the fuck out of anime production while simultaneously working as a self-contained/beautifully composed horror story and also indulging in some lovely new visual tricks besides. This was an episode I’d heard of – given the current existence of Shirobako, it was probably impossible for someone as weirdly embedded in the western anime subculture as me to avoid having heard of “the Paranoia Agent anime episode.” But even for all the unfortunate baggage I’d carried to this episode courtesy of smug old-school fans shitting on Shirobako (which is a goddamn masterpiece, and will easily outlive the scorn of naysayers), I was pretty blindsided by this episode’s unimpeachable quality. Great visuals, fantastic use of classic Kon-isms, and a biting, passionate take on the anime industry. Couple that with a larger frame that actually fits well into Paranoia Agent’s structure, and you’ve got an episode that easily earned its sterling reputation. Paranoia Agent does not fuck around.
You can check out my full review over at ANN (and I go kinda deep on this one, getting pretty specific in my praising of its various aesthetics tricks), or run down my episode notes below!
A completely new, almost crayon-styled children’s cartoon aesthetic. A boy with a bat walking, and then the mascot appears
This art style’s wonderful. Pastels, soft lines, exaggerated horizon lines to make the whole world seem small
He reminisces on missing a pitch, the mascot walks up to him
And the art style switches to uncolored key frames for his reaction shot. Cute
More uncolored key frames scattered throughout, complete with notes on motion
“Take a rest.”
And then it switches to the director storyboards for a moment, and then we’re out in the animation studio
They’re doing the VA sessions for “Mellow Maromi,” a new show based on the mascot
Paranoia Agent Episode 9 Reddit
Cute cutaway explanation of what a production manager is, courtesy of Maromi-chan
Apparently the original director ran away, so the production’s behind schedule, so they barely have the materials they need to properly dub to
Kon’s favorite trick – the production manager nods off in the studio, wakes up driving his car
Heavy rains and flood warnings
Nice direction of this car sequence, really grounds us here
Saruta is his name
Again, great use of incidental sound to set the atmosphere – the humming of the car, the regular sweep of the windshield wipers. It lulls us like it lulls Saruta
The writer is hospitalized, paralyzed from the arms down. The whole studio’s grumbling about it
Shirobako this ain’t – the whole studio’s a sagging, depressed-seeming place. Of course it is – this is Kon
And we meet another production manager, Nobunaga Oda. The audio refers to this guy as “desk,” so he’s gotta be the Miyamori-role one
The guy from H&M, the mascot company, comes over with plushies
Oh man, Shounen Bat skating silently along behind him on the highway. Real horror again
More hyper closeups to create uncomfortable spaces
Our viewpoint character is basically Tarou
Another staff member has an accident
Wild animation of Saruta taking out his frustration on old key frames
The rainy car ride is a framing device for the whole episode. Nodding in and out
And he sees Shonen Bat approaching in the rear view. The untrustworthy mirror, another classic horror device
He misses the air time. “It’s not my fault!” he repeats – and then sees his own arm is no longer colored
Paranoia Agent Episode 9 Episode
He’s being undrawn… but it was all a dream, and now he’s back in the car
Constant repetition of that shot of the fuel and time. Another classic Kon trick
Episode director Wanibuchi was attacked by Shonen Bat
The animation director also got hit by Shonen Bat
Saruta immediately folds up the art director’s background work. Wow
And the radio starts blaring the opening song, lol
GREAT match cut of a slap from the director transitioning to him skidding against the highway wall
Everyone either quits or gets hit by Shonen Bat. Kon not pulling punches – in the anime industry, everyone’s stuck in a corner
So it was Saruta himself with the bat. Wonderful shot as the phone rings
Paranoia Agent Episode 9 Explained
Yep, a condemnation of the whole industry. The next in line yanking completed work from the prior’s cold, dead hands
Paranoia Agent Episode Guide
“Take a rest. Take a rest.” And then the tv shuts off. Brilliant episode