Paranoia Agent

2004. TV series. (13 X 30 min.) Supernatural thriller. dir Satoshi Kon. scr Seishi Minakami. mus Susumu Hirasawa. des Masashi Ando. -jd

A psychological thriller that traces the development of an urban myth, Paranoia Agent weaves a collection of seemingly stand-alone stories into an allegory about the coping mechanisms people evolve to deal with their fears.

In modern-day Tokyo, a rollerblading street thug wielding a golden baseball bat attacks a young woman on a deserted nighttime street. The victim is Tsukiko Sagi, a toy designer who created the popular character of Maromi, a Sanrio-like pink dog whose image is replicated on merchandise all over the city, such as toys, backpacks, beanbag dolls, and pillows. The police are skeptical about Tsukiko’s story, but more attacks occur to other people. Even after a suspect is captured red-handed, the beatings don’t stop. Rumors about the serial attacker, nicknamed “Lil’ Slugger” (“Shonen Bat” in Japanese) because of the baseball bat and his estimated youth, begin to spread.

As the stories about Lil’ Slugger grow more and more fantastic, he becomes an almost mythical character in the popular imagination, a strange savior who appears to people who feel “emotionally cornered,” overwhelmed by stress, and offering an escape into the role of pitied victim. As the legend of Lil’ Slugger grows, so too does his myth, and his power over people’s imaginations. Meanwhile, a new animated TV show adds to the allure of Maromi, whose wide, trusting eyes are now accompanied by a soothing voice. “You’re just tired,” Maromi reassures an apple-cheeked animated boy who is depressed over losing a baseball game. “Take a rest.”

The mystery deepens. The two police officers assigned to investigate the original incident—Ikari, the senior detective, and Maniwa, his junior detective partner—are fired, and begin their own descents into fantasy worlds. Ikari retreats into an illusory Tokyo of yesteryear, while Maniwa follows the trail of Lil’ Slugger, through the growing urban legends and myths, until he discovers a connection to the first victim, Tsukiko Sagi, and her creation, Maromi. It all ends in a face-off between the opposing forces of Lil’ Slugger and Maromi, who have since taken on lives of their own, and the people of Tokyo are the battleground between them.

Created for a late-night adult audience, Paranoia Agent is the first TV series by Satoshi Kon, whose career has included violent adult drama (Perfect Blue), biographical fantasy (Millennium Actress), and screwball comedy-drama in the tradition of the golden age comedies of Hollywood (Tokyo Godfathers). Paranoia Agent was produced immediately following Tokyo Godfathers, and with many of the same staff.

Like all of Kon’s films, the city of Tokyo is a recognizable environment in Paranoia Agent, a realis­tically detailed place of specific neighborhoods, weather patterns, and shifting light for different times of day. Twilight is rendered with particular beauty, and has an almost sinister quality in the story, since Lil’ Slugger often emerges after dark. Episode 3, “Double Lips,” contains a memorable twilight scene, the sky aglow with vivid color at the city dump, as Harumi Chono, a character with a dual personality, changes from one identity to another just as the sun begins to set.

The character designs are understated portraits of real people, stylized but recognizably Japanese. Certain characters, such as Tsuikiko Sagi, have a different, more cartoonish look, with unusually large round eyes compared to the other characters, and a startled expression. Kawazu, a sleazy reporter, has the most exaggerated appearance, with a wide, froglike face and squat proportions, but a close contender would be Paranoia Agent’s own “comic book guy,” a roly-poly collector of anime figurines who habitually wears a Maromi T-shirt.

The greatest achievement of the animation’s designs, though, is probably Maromi itself. A helpless, droopy beanbag in an eye-scorching shade of bright pink, Maromi is completely believable as a toy that could create a craze, based on any number of currently or recently popular similar toys on the Japanese market. When Tsukiko’s own Maromi toy begins to move and speak in episode 1 (our first hint that something is very odd about Tsukiko Sagi), it struggles to hold up its heavy beanbag head, and to walk on its short, floppy legs, a visual that manages to be simultaneously amusing and horribly creepy. The first time its dishlike eyes narrow menacingly, it’s a shock on the level of the walking nightmare toys in Akira.

In Paranoia Agent, the style of animation is used to reflect the characters’ mental states. In episode 2, “The Golden Shoes,” we’re treated to grade-schooler Yuichi Taira’s fantasies and fever dreams: he’s the golden hero greeted by cheering crowds or surrounded by jeering enemies whose faces morph out of shape and become menacing. Video games and manga are also used as symbols for unrealistic states of mind. In episode 3, “A Man’s Path,” the stereotypically macho images of men’s manga are used to illustrate the thoughts of the policeman who’s been driven to masked thievery to try to pay back his debts to the yakuza. “The Holy Warrior,” episode 5, takes place wholly inside the video-game-inspired fantasies of the Lil’ Slugger suspect, with the characters traveling through the unreal environments and even changing costumes to suit the visuals of the game. “MHz” and “Radar Man,” episodes 7 and 12 respectively, enter the world of a crusading superhero who can hear secret frequencies inaudible to others. Anime figurines talk and bestow secret information. Tokyo morphs into a land of cardboard cutouts. Lil’ Slugger grows to monstrous size. All of this is subjective, seen through the eyes of the characters, and the more people believe, the more real their visions become.

The unusual opening credits foreshadow a lot of this, the story as state of mind, with laughing characters superimposed over ruins and floods and high aerial views of Tokyo, the Alps, the planet Earth itself. The ending credits, which show all of the characters asleep in a grassy meadow in the shape of a question mark, presided over by a huge Maromi, provide a counterpoint to the opening. Helpless laughter to start, and helpless surrender into sleep to end. The series has an additional framing device in the form of an old man, who writes out equations on the ground with a piece of chalk, using symbols and numerals that later turn out to have significance in the story.

Scriptwriter Seishi Minakami also wrote for Gunparade March and Boogiepop Phantom, and cowrote Kon’s 2006 film Paprika.

Character designer Masashi Ando did key animation on Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers and character design and animation direction on Paprika, and worked as a key animator on many Studio Ghibli productions, such as My Neighbors the Yamadas, Pom Poko, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Whisper of the Heart.

Paranoia Agent tackles a very contemporary problem. Practically no one in the series wants to accept responsibility for their own choices. The opening minutes of the show establish the rhythm of modern life—people stalled in place, waiting, on trains, in traffic, and crowding through crosswalks. We listen in on cell phone conversations, excuses, and complaints. “I didn’t mean for this to happen!” “That’s not what I wanted!” “I didn’t have any other choice!” and “It’s not my fault!” It’s easy to see why the myth of Lil’ Slugger would appeal—as such an obvious villain, he absorbs all the blame. But while Lil’ Slugger creates victims, Maromi, another manifestation of the same concept, doles out excuses. “It’s not your fault,” the animated Maromi coos. “Don’t worry so much!” Instead of inspiring pity, Maromi encourages sleep, avoidance, and apathy instead. But both Lil’ Slugger and Maromi are means of escape, a way out of uncomfortable situations, especially ones that the characters themselves have created.

The series is mostly episodic, with whole episodes dedicated to individual characters’ stories. Many are stand-alones, and can be enjoyed without knowing much about the larger plot, such as episode 8, “Happy Family Planning,” the darkly comic adventures of a hapless suicide cult, episode 9, “ETC,” an anthology of increasingly hard-to-believe stories about Lil’ Slugger as told by gossipy housewives in an apartment complex, and episode 10, “Mellow Maromi,” which shows the inside workings of the animation studio creating the Maromi TV animation. The interlocking character dramas do add up to a complete mystery, however, and when the real story behind the creation of Maromi and Lil’ Slugger is revealed, the series builds to a climax that’s humorous, enlightening, and disturbing in equal measures, and then the ending loops right back to the beginning. The ultimate message: it could all happen again. In fact, it probably will.

For a short series, Paranoia Agent has a large number of highlight moments. It’s hard to beat the most truly surprising events, though, such as the moment in “A Man’s Path” when Lil’ Slugger is apprehended in an all-too-human tussle after being conked on the head by a thrown shoe, or the climactic moments when Ikari breaks out of his own mental prison by shattering his illusory version of Tokyo, or when allegory takes literal form, and an actual black wave of despair surges through the city.

The original Japanese name for Lil’ Slugger is “Shonen Bat,” a parody of common titles for items aimed at children of Lil’ Slugger’s estimated age, such as the manga magazine Shonen Jump.

The manga panels shown in episode 3, “A Man’s Path,” resemble the work of Ryoichi Ikegami (Crying Freeman).

Satoshi Kon directed episode 2 himself, but used the name “Yoshihiro Wanibuchi,” the fictional name of the director of the Maromi animation, for the episode credits.

Nearly all of the names of the characters give hints to their roles in the series in their kanji spellings, and also contain in-jokey animal references that appear in the dialogue, such as the hapless animation production assistant, whose last name has the character for “monkey” in it, which is why (on top of his monkey-like appearance) everyone calls him “monkey.”

The surreal, computer-generated eye-catches (the bumper animation created to bracket commercial breaks) of blooming flowers, crackling electricity, and geometric shapes were created by the director of photography, Michiya Kato, who also directed the children’s series Oden-kun.

advisory Paranoia Agent is intended for adults; there is violence and nudity, although tastefully handled. The baseball-bat attacks are handled in the style of vintage mystery films, with most of the violence suggested rather than shown. No truly graphic violence is visible on screen, although what’s implied is sometimes even scarier. There are attempted hangings in the suicide cult episode, and a man jumps onto the tracks in front of a moving train. There is some blood, at the end of the series. Male and female nudity is shown.