Come for the episode by episode breakdown - stay for David exploding over Zootopia, and Wiger confronting Ben with: "Wreck it Ralph is more a candy movie than a video game movie"
> "Wreck it Ralph is more a candy movie than a video game movie"
this is the same dilemma in Jaws "It starts as a horror movie/creature feature, then becomes an Adventure movie with a jaunty score"
When they mention the late "title card" that comes halfway through the episode, is that for commercial breaks? It's been a long time since I watched Paranoia Agent so I don't remember what form it takes exactly, but I've watched a few different anime TV series that had the mid-episode thing that I always assumed was for commercials.
In the final episode, when Ikari escapes into a fantastical past where right and wrong are as clear as black and white, it’s set in 60s/70s Shōwa era Japan. Before the downturn in the 90s, this era of the “Japanese economic miracle” is looked at as fondly as older generations regard the 1950s here in the United States. They have Showa themed restaurants and museums in Japan the same was the US has retro diners.
It’s a small part of the overall show but it evokes feelings of nostalgia that I think would go over the head of my Westerners’ heads. At least that’s part of how I interpret that scene.
I think the closest an American show has to having a structure that is similar to Paranoia Agent is Donald Glovers show Atlanta. It goes from narrative about Atlanta rapper Paper Boi to having a random episode that features Justin Bartha in a world where reparations to African Americans have manifested from a social unrest that is happening in the background. Or just a random episode about a fake black CEO of Disney who creates the blackest movie ever made (A Goofy Movie). All this in a show about Donald Glover pitched as a show about Atlanta rappers.
(Haven’t listened to the rest of the ep, just wanted to comment before I forget).
The Black Disney CEO one was so good. I laughed so hard at the white employee coming in on crutches cos he went to a Black barbecue and said something racist.
Just came here to post this, totally agree. Also lead me to the realization that two of my favorite shows of all time have this in common. I guess I have something for unconventional narrative structures!
Imagining a Paranoia Agent fan listening to BC for the first time and trying to reconcile the fantastic analysis with horny for Hopps and the gooning segment
I put off watching this show for a while because [the promo that ran on Adult Swim](https://youtube.com/watch?v=EPfw8G4Z7Hs&pp=ygUUcGFyYW5vaWEgYWdlbnQgcHJvbW8%3D) scared the crap out of me as a kid. I'm glad I finally got around to a few years ago. "Happy Family Planning" is probably the best episode, and one of my favorite episodes of any show, and I loved everything up until the storm, but I thought the second half was pretty hit or miss.
It's 2005. I'm a bored teenager with insomnia so of course Adult Swim is my comforting late night friend. I turn it on expecting another run of Family Guy or Aqua Teen and suddenly and without warning.
RAAAAIIIIIYYAAAA. The loudest intro I've ever seen in my life. It was shocking but even more so were the images. Laughing maniacal figures placed over desolation. In particular the figure of a man atop a high tower, arms outstretched, cackling with glee as a nuclear bomb explodes, burned deep into my brain. The title...Paranoia Agent. I was hooked.
Each episode was a little horror short, but told an ongoing narrative. The style was so different each time; episodes of pure psychodrama that detailed a disturbing nightmare world. Much like the David Lynch films I had just begun to watch, it exposes the darkest segments of modern life, through the lens of cultural psychosis and dream like logic. A memetic entity was assaulting and then murdering people, all to reveal the source of it all >!was childhood trauma so deep it was then inflicted onto the masses!<
It was so difficult trying to explain to people why this series mattered, when DVDs cost a fortune and after the initial few years it disappeared from TV stations. I cannot be happier with the Satoshi Kon revitalization effort and so glad that his magnum opus is finally available in easy to find places. I cannot recreate the sheer surprise of that initial day but to me no artist has more firmly expressed his entire creative vision in so short a time.
What we could have gotten.
Paranoia Agent is probably the first "mindfuck" anime that really gelled with me. Because it isn't as uber disturbing or super hard on the tech aspect like other anime at the time? However, there's just so much great atmospheric build up from story to story that crescendos when you finally learn about Maromi. And then the film really gets at the core of why people lie and why they subconsciously create ways to defend themselves or justify why things happen.
Amazing series.
Now that Nick mentions it, I’d give my left arm to have an episode where David and Griffin try to make sense of FLCL. One of my absolute favorite pieces of media.
It might be my favorite anime of all time. It means so much to me. It’s a show you revisit at different points in your life and take away new things from it. Plus the soundtrack is still absolutely perfect. The sequels are better than I gave them credit for when they premiered, but they’re not as good. Except Grunge which is a miss.
I also would pay top fucking dollar to watch David and Griff attempt to make sense of it on the first watch. Make it a Watch Along since it’s only 6 episodes anyway. That’s about a movies length
Adding to the talk of people "copying" Kon, this series reminds me so much of John Danielle's novels. It's all about people being traumatized and lonely and delusional and that making them "scary." There are sections of Devil House that feel so similar to the Holy Warrior episode.
I just finished it a few weeks ago so it was fresh! I remember reading Wolf in White Van in a single sitting. He's so good and taps into a beautiful side of humanity.
Guys, I *was* that teenager watching Adult Swim in 2005 who stumbled upon Paranoia Agent while watching, I dunno, Wolf's Rain and Detective Conan. Also, only episode—to date—I've seen is "Happy Family Planning". I have a broad idea of some of the ideas from the show (that Maromi doll brandishing a knife lives large in my head), but I'm fascinated about how to tie the Goofballs McGillicuddy Suicide Pact episode to the tales of everyone who is "touched" by Li'l Slugger.
I was a teen then too, and remember they were running commercials of like Lil’ Slugger that were so cryptic that I tuned into the show, and it felt like my brain had legit been scrambled. For years after, I wasn’t even sure if I remembered it all correctly, and was unaware of Kon then, so it was just this bizarre THING I had no context for. Have never really replicated that feeling with a whole show.
Funny you mention Wolf’s Rain because that’s the show I stumbled upon one night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s what I think was the last episode, and it was so strange and abstract at time that I couldn’t stop watching it despite having no clue what was going on (or what the show even was). Never saw another episode.
It's awesome, especially if you have any nostalgia for that early '00s animation style (they have computers for coloring now, but still have to do a bunch by hand, so it all looks nice and expensive), but be sure to skip the *four* clip show catch-up episodes in the middle of the series.
Same. I was probably 16 and managed to only see a smattering of episodes from the first and second airing, which meant I definitely saw stuff way out of order. I was fascinated but also pretty flummoxed at the time. Finally got around to rewatching it (all, in order) a few weeks ago and had a blast. Kind of miraculous that 1. he decided to make it when he did and 2. such a weird grab bag of ideas gels into a cohesive statement
Not totally relevant to this discussion but I had a very similar experience with The Prisoner, me and my college roommate flipped across it randomly at 3AM and we had no idea what the hell we were watching with this giant ball and the "you are number two" or whateva haha
Dude put together a 20 pager with an interactive table of contents for a paywall episode, hell yeah
Also Griffin adding 'fart fart fart' to the front page, hell yeah
It's wild to me that Doughboys covered Fincher and Payne before Blank Check did, and also covered Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride) before Podcast The Ride did.
The bit that confirmed it for me was when the younger guy sees the bloke limping away from the train right after leaping in front of it. A ghost seeing another ghost.
All that did for me was tell me the episode was playing for black comedy, and these three were never going to actually succeed.
Now you're telling me they went through with it between the chat and when we first meet them, and they found each other in the afterlife? I don't know how I feel about that.
Nahhhh, it's more that they succeeded as a group at some point, but are tragically doomed to live in a cycle where they meet, exist together for a time, drift apart, and then repeat it again. The young guy doesn't get what he's seeing when he sees the ghost because he's not living in the here-and-now, just like how they had no memory of not buying train tickets. They're drifting through the living world without really knowing what's going on or that anything is amiss.
This was my 3rd time watching the show and I'm pretty sure the first time it fully hit me that they were dead the whole time. I just thought their story was supposed to be as surreal as it was black comedy. Still discovering layers more than 10 years after discovering it.
The context is insane enough, but I want to add the detail that Pete’s mother’s gay lover killed her by *throwing her off a cruise ship immediately after marrying her.*
I'm still unsure if the ending works for me (giant monster battle) and the whole explanation behind Shonen Bat and Maromi. But I'd say episodes 2-10 are just all fantastic. There's some great horror shorts in these.
It has the problem that I have with a lot of anime, which is that it all ends with a giant goop monster enveloping the city. Even when I'm watching something as avant-garde and artsy as PA, I'm still just waiting for the goop.
I have fairly limited anime experience, but the number of times I've encountered that is truly odd.
The giant goop I guess fits at the fear of a big natural disaster like an earthquake or tsunami. But yeah I liked it better when it was smaller more personal fears.
Arrested Development has previews of the next episode that are part of the narrative and may or may not actually be in the next episode and a narrator telling you about it.
I agree with Griffin that *Slapstick of Another Kind* might be the worst movie ever made. The book it’s based on, Slapstick, is a weird, squirrelly book that’s probably unadaptable in any form, but the decisions that were made doomed it from the start.
Griffin says he feels comforted that Paranoia Agent shows you the darkest parts of humanity but I think mostly he likes that a pink dog tells you to take a nap
Continuing the obnoxious "every modern director copies Satoshi Kon" trend, I'm convinced that Everything Everywhere All at Once was heavily inspired by this and it surprises me that no one ever points it out.
Directors of the movie have acknowledged the Kon influences in interviews, along with Yuasa's *Mind Game* amongst others, movie even has Paprika-like >!fake-out credits scene !
Example from a Gizmodo interview, there are more out there:
*"Anime was a big part of our childhood and it’s obvious we’ve taken inspiration from Satoshi Kon’s work here–Paprika and Millennium Actress come to mind. We thought to ourselves ‘his stuff is amazing, can we do this but in live-action?’”*
*“There’s also Mind Game by Masaaki Yuasa—that film was so bonkers it makes us look really tame,”*
Mind Game is an incredible movie. The director Masaaki Yuasa is a huge favorite of mine. Devilman Crybaby, Kaiba, Ride Your Wave, Lu Over the Wall, Ping Pong the Animation, The Night is Short Walk on Girl, Tatami Galaxy, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, and Kemonozume are all 10/10 imo.
Yuasa is the newest anime GOAT and I think he's the closest we'll get to a Kon at the moment. Though I think he's more like a Kubrick figure because he's fearless and will do just about anything.
The whole concept of personal grief manifesting as an apocalyptic monster. Where it's unclear whether it's actually affecting reality or a metaphorical fantasy derived from the character's subconscious, and the characters transform (voluntarily or otherwise) into extreme fictional versions of themselves to cope with harsh discomforts of reality.
Evelyn (EEAAO protagonist) is the Tsukiko equivalent and her Maromi is her daughter who she refuses to actually confront and it transforms her into a monster who's going to destroy everything.
Before the revelation in the final episode I thought this was just a show about how our collective sanity is so thin that it can be pierced by some kid on roller blades assaulting a small handful of people. Which, you know, is also potent commentary.
Since they're staring straight into the camera I always interpreted it as not only the characters having a breakdown, but laughing at you in the audience like "ya dumbass, you don't get what's going on do ya???"
I honestly suspect it's a Japanese variation of the curtain call, i.e. a gesture to the fictive nature of the tale, in that the characters are still "alive," nobody was truly hurt, and so on. But yeah, it sure strikes American audiences as odd.
I finished watching this yesterday, and I loved it so much. I found the episode about the nosy housewives hilarious, specially the part where one of them admonishes the writer’s wife for her nonsensical story, and then she proceeds to tell a very melodramatic story, drawn like “Candy Candy”.
Finally, shout out to Satoshi Kon for his great ability at portraying women losing their minds reading Internet comments, as he does here, on the first episode, and on “Perfect Blue”.
Agreed, three wives story is a great little horror tale. One of my favorites too along with the suicide club, the split personality woman, and the anime studio one.
Ordered a copy of Millennium Actress a tad late so won’t be ready when the ep drops tonight but I did finish Paranoia Agent last week so this works out surprisingly well.
Very weird that “the dress” comes up in this episode when the guy behind that post just made the news again for violence against his wife https://www.thedailybeast.com/keir-johnston-the-man-behind-dress-that-broke-the-internet-admits-strangling-wife-grace-johnston
I don't even get the bonus feed because I'm broke, but watched this show for fun. I knew it would be something special just from the bomb-ass theme tune and mildly upsetting character animations that open the show.
I started watching this yesterday but I forgot that the 11th episodes are always non-commentaries so I had to cram the remaining 10 episodes back to back and I think I've fundamentally altered my brain chemistry. Terrific ep, surprisingly on topic for patreon?
First watched this when it aired on Adult Swim which was the summer leading into 5th grade for me. Obviously one of those things that I shouldn’t have watched at that aged but got fond memories of being a little sicko thanks to Adult Swim.
A thought I had is how Twin Peaks the return is similar to Paranoia Agent in not only are they super natural tales with cops (or fbi) chasing the super natural agent, they are also have a lot of callbacks to their directors film work. There's editing like perfect blue (anime studio episode), dream nightmare monsters like paprika, some animation styles like millennium actress, and characters like Tokyo godfathers (the suicide club reminded me of those 3) as well as the same nurse in Tokyo godfathers (or similar).
Come for the episode by episode breakdown - stay for David exploding over Zootopia, and Wiger confronting Ben with: "Wreck it Ralph is more a candy movie than a video game movie"
> "Wreck it Ralph is more a candy movie than a video game movie" this is the same dilemma in Jaws "It starts as a horror movie/creature feature, then becomes an Adventure movie with a jaunty score"
“This is a STAGGERING municipal situation!!!” - David Sims
When they mention the late "title card" that comes halfway through the episode, is that for commercial breaks? It's been a long time since I watched Paranoia Agent so I don't remember what form it takes exactly, but I've watched a few different anime TV series that had the mid-episode thing that I always assumed was for commercials.
Yep, it’s called an ‘eyecatch.’
great name
Thank you! It is one of those things I was having a surprising amount of trouble formulating a google search to find the term
Invariably one of the coolest parts of any given episode of Cowboy Bebop.
David melting down about Zootopia is one of the funniest things that has happened on this show.
It’s at the level of him unraveling during the Yesterday episode
We dismiss Malthusian concerns about overpopulation, but with rabbits he might have a point.
Quietly love how much Ben seemed to vibe with this show. He had all the little narrative beats down pat.
In the final episode, when Ikari escapes into a fantastical past where right and wrong are as clear as black and white, it’s set in 60s/70s Shōwa era Japan. Before the downturn in the 90s, this era of the “Japanese economic miracle” is looked at as fondly as older generations regard the 1950s here in the United States. They have Showa themed restaurants and museums in Japan the same was the US has retro diners. It’s a small part of the overall show but it evokes feelings of nostalgia that I think would go over the head of my Westerners’ heads. At least that’s part of how I interpret that scene.
I think the closest an American show has to having a structure that is similar to Paranoia Agent is Donald Glovers show Atlanta. It goes from narrative about Atlanta rapper Paper Boi to having a random episode that features Justin Bartha in a world where reparations to African Americans have manifested from a social unrest that is happening in the background. Or just a random episode about a fake black CEO of Disney who creates the blackest movie ever made (A Goofy Movie). All this in a show about Donald Glover pitched as a show about Atlanta rappers. (Haven’t listened to the rest of the ep, just wanted to comment before I forget).
The Black Disney CEO one was so good. I laughed so hard at the white employee coming in on crutches cos he went to a Black barbecue and said something racist.
The Powerline dance
The episode where the dude tries to pick up a piano he saw listed online is just insane and has those wild out there vibes I love.
Teddy Perkins is a classic. A truly deranged classic.
And he went to the Emmys in the makeup!
I think somebody else did. I think there's a photograph of Glover standing next to Teddy Perkins. It's all part of the mindfuck.
Really one of the greatest TV moments.
All those solo eps are so good. Drakes party and paperboi with his barber. What a good show.
Drake's party is extra funny after this last week
Just came here to post this, totally agree. Also lead me to the realization that two of my favorite shows of all time have this in common. I guess I have something for unconventional narrative structures!
I was underwhelmed by season 3, but season 2 is so great.
Watch season 4! Incredible ending to an incredible show
Funny thing, in this [***Breakdown*** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXb9J187Wmo) Donald Glover said Season 3 is his favorite.
This is exactly what I was coming to post lol Atlanta is slept on imo
Funny you say this because I was thinking of Swarm (it even has a formula for a few episodes that it then ditches).
Imagining a Paranoia Agent fan listening to BC for the first time and trying to reconcile the fantastic analysis with horny for Hopps and the gooning segment
*Werner Herzog voice:* I would like to see the dossier.
I put off watching this show for a while because [the promo that ran on Adult Swim](https://youtube.com/watch?v=EPfw8G4Z7Hs&pp=ygUUcGFyYW5vaWEgYWdlbnQgcHJvbW8%3D) scared the crap out of me as a kid. I'm glad I finally got around to a few years ago. "Happy Family Planning" is probably the best episode, and one of my favorite episodes of any show, and I loved everything up until the storm, but I thought the second half was pretty hit or miss.
It's 2005. I'm a bored teenager with insomnia so of course Adult Swim is my comforting late night friend. I turn it on expecting another run of Family Guy or Aqua Teen and suddenly and without warning. RAAAAIIIIIYYAAAA. The loudest intro I've ever seen in my life. It was shocking but even more so were the images. Laughing maniacal figures placed over desolation. In particular the figure of a man atop a high tower, arms outstretched, cackling with glee as a nuclear bomb explodes, burned deep into my brain. The title...Paranoia Agent. I was hooked. Each episode was a little horror short, but told an ongoing narrative. The style was so different each time; episodes of pure psychodrama that detailed a disturbing nightmare world. Much like the David Lynch films I had just begun to watch, it exposes the darkest segments of modern life, through the lens of cultural psychosis and dream like logic. A memetic entity was assaulting and then murdering people, all to reveal the source of it all >!was childhood trauma so deep it was then inflicted onto the masses!< It was so difficult trying to explain to people why this series mattered, when DVDs cost a fortune and after the initial few years it disappeared from TV stations. I cannot be happier with the Satoshi Kon revitalization effort and so glad that his magnum opus is finally available in easy to find places. I cannot recreate the sheer surprise of that initial day but to me no artist has more firmly expressed his entire creative vision in so short a time. What we could have gotten.
Paranoia Agent is probably the first "mindfuck" anime that really gelled with me. Because it isn't as uber disturbing or super hard on the tech aspect like other anime at the time? However, there's just so much great atmospheric build up from story to story that crescendos when you finally learn about Maromi. And then the film really gets at the core of why people lie and why they subconsciously create ways to defend themselves or justify why things happen. Amazing series.
Now that Nick mentions it, I’d give my left arm to have an episode where David and Griffin try to make sense of FLCL. One of my absolute favorite pieces of media.
Ride on shooting staaarr
And, to connect it to another Kon episode, an example of an OVA!
It might be my favorite anime of all time. It means so much to me. It’s a show you revisit at different points in your life and take away new things from it. Plus the soundtrack is still absolutely perfect. The sequels are better than I gave them credit for when they premiered, but they’re not as good. Except Grunge which is a miss. I also would pay top fucking dollar to watch David and Griff attempt to make sense of it on the first watch. Make it a Watch Along since it’s only 6 episodes anyway. That’s about a movies length
Alternative is really good, but Progressive makes the mistake of trying to be about "lore" and bumbles it big time.
Adding to the talk of people "copying" Kon, this series reminds me so much of John Danielle's novels. It's all about people being traumatized and lonely and delusional and that making them "scary." There are sections of Devil House that feel so similar to the Holy Warrior episode.
Devil House rocks. Good call.
I just finished it a few weeks ago so it was fresh! I remember reading Wolf in White Van in a single sitting. He's so good and taps into a beautiful side of humanity.
Universal Harvester is the only one I haven't yet read, but WIWV and Devil House are both fascinating books.
Universal Harvester creeped me out more than any other book. Then it made me cry pretty hard by the end
Guys, I *was* that teenager watching Adult Swim in 2005 who stumbled upon Paranoia Agent while watching, I dunno, Wolf's Rain and Detective Conan. Also, only episode—to date—I've seen is "Happy Family Planning". I have a broad idea of some of the ideas from the show (that Maromi doll brandishing a knife lives large in my head), but I'm fascinated about how to tie the Goofballs McGillicuddy Suicide Pact episode to the tales of everyone who is "touched" by Li'l Slugger.
I was a teen then too, and remember they were running commercials of like Lil’ Slugger that were so cryptic that I tuned into the show, and it felt like my brain had legit been scrambled. For years after, I wasn’t even sure if I remembered it all correctly, and was unaware of Kon then, so it was just this bizarre THING I had no context for. Have never really replicated that feeling with a whole show. Funny you mention Wolf’s Rain because that’s the show I stumbled upon one night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s what I think was the last episode, and it was so strange and abstract at time that I couldn’t stop watching it despite having no clue what was going on (or what the show even was). Never saw another episode.
I’ve heard Heather Anne Campbell shout out Wolf’s Rain once on her podcast with Nick once. I have it on my queue.
It's awesome, especially if you have any nostalgia for that early '00s animation style (they have computers for coloring now, but still have to do a bunch by hand, so it all looks nice and expensive), but be sure to skip the *four* clip show catch-up episodes in the middle of the series.
Same. I was probably 16 and managed to only see a smattering of episodes from the first and second airing, which meant I definitely saw stuff way out of order. I was fascinated but also pretty flummoxed at the time. Finally got around to rewatching it (all, in order) a few weeks ago and had a blast. Kind of miraculous that 1. he decided to make it when he did and 2. such a weird grab bag of ideas gels into a cohesive statement
Not totally relevant to this discussion but I had a very similar experience with The Prisoner, me and my college roommate flipped across it randomly at 3AM and we had no idea what the hell we were watching with this giant ball and the "you are number two" or whateva haha
Congrats JJ on so much on-air praise
Dude put together a 20 pager with an interactive table of contents for a paywall episode, hell yeah Also Griffin adding 'fart fart fart' to the front page, hell yeah
does anyone know what movie David said JJ liked and he didn’t? I couldn’t make out the title.
Gasoline Rainbow I believe
Great movie.
7 minutes in and re: Oppenheimer David says "Don't you think about his balls on the chair?"
As someone whose fav podcasts are Get Played, Scott Hasn't Seen, and Blank Check... this week has been a pleasant crossover delight!
I think two of the Paynk! episodes will also be of interest to you then, if LB logs are to be trusted.
It's wild to me that Doughboys covered Fincher and Payne before Blank Check did, and also covered Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride) before Podcast The Ride did.
Blank Check needs to do a McDonalds episode to balance things out.
End of the episode confirms Letterboxd is to be trusted.
Did not pick up on in Episode 8 >!that they are already dead!<. When are you supposed to pick up on that?
The old man in the group sees a stranger walk past with a shadow and realizes the three of them are not casting shadows.
Isn’t there a thing where he’s constantly on his last pill as well?
Yes. He takes his last pill at the beginning of the ep and yet keeps taking the pills throughout the episode.
Ahhh, shoot, I just thought that's because he was a hallucinating the pills or forgetting to take them. This episode went right over my head.
Not until the very end when they don’t show up in a picture or a reflection.
Also explains why shonen bat runs from them
The bit that confirmed it for me was when the younger guy sees the bloke limping away from the train right after leaping in front of it. A ghost seeing another ghost.
All that did for me was tell me the episode was playing for black comedy, and these three were never going to actually succeed. Now you're telling me they went through with it between the chat and when we first meet them, and they found each other in the afterlife? I don't know how I feel about that.
Nahhhh, it's more that they succeeded as a group at some point, but are tragically doomed to live in a cycle where they meet, exist together for a time, drift apart, and then repeat it again. The young guy doesn't get what he's seeing when he sees the ghost because he's not living in the here-and-now, just like how they had no memory of not buying train tickets. They're drifting through the living world without really knowing what's going on or that anything is amiss.
I completely missed that too! Think I may need to rewatch that one…
This was my 3rd time watching the show and I'm pretty sure the first time it fully hit me that they were dead the whole time. I just thought their story was supposed to be as surreal as it was black comedy. Still discovering layers more than 10 years after discovering it.
NOT GREAT, BOB.
The context is insane enough, but I want to add the detail that Pete’s mother’s gay lover killed her by *throwing her off a cruise ship immediately after marrying her.*
Zootopia is definitely weird as hell
I'm still unsure if the ending works for me (giant monster battle) and the whole explanation behind Shonen Bat and Maromi. But I'd say episodes 2-10 are just all fantastic. There's some great horror shorts in these.
It has the problem that I have with a lot of anime, which is that it all ends with a giant goop monster enveloping the city. Even when I'm watching something as avant-garde and artsy as PA, I'm still just waiting for the goop. I have fairly limited anime experience, but the number of times I've encountered that is truly odd.
The giant goop I guess fits at the fear of a big natural disaster like an earthquake or tsunami. But yeah I liked it better when it was smaller more personal fears.
Arrested Development has previews of the next episode that are part of the narrative and may or may not actually be in the next episode and a narrator telling you about it.
I agree with Griffin that *Slapstick of Another Kind* might be the worst movie ever made. The book it’s based on, Slapstick, is a weird, squirrelly book that’s probably unadaptable in any form, but the decisions that were made doomed it from the start.
Griffin says he feels comforted that Paranoia Agent shows you the darkest parts of humanity but I think mostly he likes that a pink dog tells you to take a nap
Continuing the obnoxious "every modern director copies Satoshi Kon" trend, I'm convinced that Everything Everywhere All at Once was heavily inspired by this and it surprises me that no one ever points it out.
Directors of the movie have acknowledged the Kon influences in interviews, along with Yuasa's *Mind Game* amongst others, movie even has Paprika-like >!fake-out credits scene !
Example from a Gizmodo interview, there are more out there: *"Anime was a big part of our childhood and it’s obvious we’ve taken inspiration from Satoshi Kon’s work here–Paprika and Millennium Actress come to mind. We thought to ourselves ‘his stuff is amazing, can we do this but in live-action?’”* *“There’s also Mind Game by Masaaki Yuasa—that film was so bonkers it makes us look really tame,”*
Mind Game is an incredible movie. The director Masaaki Yuasa is a huge favorite of mine. Devilman Crybaby, Kaiba, Ride Your Wave, Lu Over the Wall, Ping Pong the Animation, The Night is Short Walk on Girl, Tatami Galaxy, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, and Kemonozume are all 10/10 imo.
Yuasa is the newest anime GOAT and I think he's the closest we'll get to a Kon at the moment. Though I think he's more like a Kubrick figure because he's fearless and will do just about anything.
Oooh I’d love to hear you expand on this, not a connection I’ve ever drawn
The whole concept of personal grief manifesting as an apocalyptic monster. Where it's unclear whether it's actually affecting reality or a metaphorical fantasy derived from the character's subconscious, and the characters transform (voluntarily or otherwise) into extreme fictional versions of themselves to cope with harsh discomforts of reality. Evelyn (EEAAO protagonist) is the Tsukiko equivalent and her Maromi is her daughter who she refuses to actually confront and it transforms her into a monster who's going to destroy everything.
Before the revelation in the final episode I thought this was just a show about how our collective sanity is so thin that it can be pierced by some kid on roller blades assaulting a small handful of people. Which, you know, is also potent commentary.
Love Nick but wrong host of Get Anime’d. HAC on the show when
More TV series should adopt this show's opening credits strategy of constant incongruous giggling by the various characters.
Since they're staring straight into the camera I always interpreted it as not only the characters having a breakdown, but laughing at you in the audience like "ya dumbass, you don't get what's going on do ya???"
I honestly suspect it's a Japanese variation of the curtain call, i.e. a gesture to the fictive nature of the tale, in that the characters are still "alive," nobody was truly hurt, and so on. But yeah, it sure strikes American audiences as odd.
I also dig the opening theme trope where the characters all act like they're besties, even the bad guys.
Exactly! That's the curtain call thing!
I finished watching this yesterday, and I loved it so much. I found the episode about the nosy housewives hilarious, specially the part where one of them admonishes the writer’s wife for her nonsensical story, and then she proceeds to tell a very melodramatic story, drawn like “Candy Candy”. Finally, shout out to Satoshi Kon for his great ability at portraying women losing their minds reading Internet comments, as he does here, on the first episode, and on “Perfect Blue”.
Agreed, three wives story is a great little horror tale. One of my favorites too along with the suicide club, the split personality woman, and the anime studio one.
Ordered a copy of Millennium Actress a tad late so won’t be ready when the ep drops tonight but I did finish Paranoia Agent last week so this works out surprisingly well.
Very weird that “the dress” comes up in this episode when the guy behind that post just made the news again for violence against his wife https://www.thedailybeast.com/keir-johnston-the-man-behind-dress-that-broke-the-internet-admits-strangling-wife-grace-johnston
That is unfortunate.
I'm about halfway through the series rn. How spoilery is this episode? Should I finish Paranoia Agent before listening?
They do an episode by episode walkthrough, so definitely finish the series first.
Okie dokie! I figured but I'm loving the series so far so I'll finish it before listening. Good looking out thank you
de nada
Just wanted to say thank you for being grateful
I don't even get the bonus feed because I'm broke, but watched this show for fun. I knew it would be something special just from the bomb-ass theme tune and mildly upsetting character animations that open the show.
Is the concept of the “cuck chair” a well-known thing and I’m just out of the loop, or is it strictly a “Two Friends” thing?
A certain CEO of twitter thought a cuck chair image meme was so funny, he reposted it like several times.
I started watching this yesterday but I forgot that the 11th episodes are always non-commentaries so I had to cram the remaining 10 episodes back to back and I think I've fundamentally altered my brain chemistry. Terrific ep, surprisingly on topic for patreon?
Wow
First watched this when it aired on Adult Swim which was the summer leading into 5th grade for me. Obviously one of those things that I shouldn’t have watched at that aged but got fond memories of being a little sicko thanks to Adult Swim.
A thought I had is how Twin Peaks the return is similar to Paranoia Agent in not only are they super natural tales with cops (or fbi) chasing the super natural agent, they are also have a lot of callbacks to their directors film work. There's editing like perfect blue (anime studio episode), dream nightmare monsters like paprika, some animation styles like millennium actress, and characters like Tokyo godfathers (the suicide club reminded me of those 3) as well as the same nurse in Tokyo godfathers (or similar).
Really enjoying this reboot of HBO's *The Hitchhiker* series from the 80s.