Blurring the lines between fantasy & reality, Satoshi Kon's feature film debut is a cleverly structured, expertly layered & rivetingly told psychological horror that's original, thrilling & suspenseful from start to finish and by intentionally playing with the viewers' perception, keeps them on the edge throughout its runtime.Set in contemporary Japan, Perfect Blue (also known as Pâfekuto burû) concerns a pop singer who retires from music to pursue an acting career. As she climbs the ladder of her new profession by making numerous sacrifices & compromises, she finds herself becoming more unstable and starts losing her sense of reality after being stalked by an obsessed fan.Directed by Satoshi Kon in what's his directorial debut, Perfect Blue is a terrific start to his filmmaking career. Crafted with a precision eye, the film scores high marks in both substance & style and is narrated with a razor sharp intensity that keeps its mystery alive & drama compelling at all times. It's often bewildering but everything falls in place once the final veil is lifted.Covering the themes of identity, perception, voyeurism & celeb fandom, the film was ahead of its time, for it resonates more strongly with today's internet culture & celeb obsession. The twists n turns are aplenty, the animation is slightly crude but it works in favour of the story. Characters are well-defined & aptly voiced while its escalating score further ratchets up its eeriness & sense of foreboding.On an overall scale, Perfect Blue is a masterly directed, skilfully scripted & finely animated example of its genre that commences Satoshi Kon's filmmaking journey on an extremely positive note. One of the best films of its year, one of the finest works of anime in existence, and a cerebral cinematic experience that grabs your attention from its opening moments & doesn't let go until the very end, Perfect Blue comes strongly recommended.

"Perfect Blue" is a 1997 anime about a young woman transitioning from a career as a pop idol to a new vocation as a serious actress. She finds that the metamorphosis is not an easy one when she tackles a sexually charged role that upsets her fans. One such fan appears to be stalking her, while her own doubts about this new direction take a toll on her psyche to the point that the line between fantasy & reality begins to become blurred.Produced on a miniscule budget of three million yen (approx. $25,000 in U.S. dollars), it must be admitted that the movie shows its limitations at times in the animation. That being said, while the visuals aren't exactly elaborate, they're consistently kept fresh with interesting directorial choices and dexterous editing that alternates between fantasy & reality with ease.The narrative is, to a certain degree, purposely difficult to follow, particularly as the movie progresses and the protagonist's state of mind begins to deteriorate. However, I found it to be adequately comprehensible on my first viewing. I wasn't entirely convinced by a late twist that seemed to come out of left field but I found that it made more sense on a second viewing.The story combines well-executed elements of the psychological thriller genre with a finale that ventures into more operatic territory reminiscent of Italian giallo. One or both of those approaches may not appeal to all viewers but I find that the movie's overall success as a psychological thriller may actually be overshadowed by its exceptional depth. This is a movie that's filled to the brim with astute observations on perception, idol worship and the nature of reality.This, I feel, is what elevates "Perfect Blue" above most anime movies (and most live action movies, too, for that matter). While it's unlikely to appeal to everyone, if you're looking for a smart and effective psychological thriller then "Perfect Blue" is well worth your time, regardless of any preconceived notions that you may have about anime. Sadly, the director (Satoshi Kon) succumbed to cancer at the young age of 46 but not before producing four distinctive anime films, of which this may be the finest.

Watch the visual review here - https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=rDcw_MCYs-MPERFECT BLUE, is an psychological thriller anime surrounding Mima, who decides she wants to become an actress because she is tired of the pop artist world, when she becomes this actress she repeatedly degrades herself by allowing herself to do scenes that she would never have thought of doing before, all the while murders take place that seem to relate to her, while she is also followed by an overly obsessed fan and her pop-artist self in the form of a ghost. People are worried for her as she starts to loose her grip on reality. And this all correlates to develop this extremely intense, dark and strikingly gorgeous animated film. The movie also was a huge inspiration to Black Swan and Requim for a Dream with some scenes looking almost identical. And if these highly commended films got inspiration from this, you better believe the hype.Perfect Blur has deep messages, one of the messages mentioning how fans can be over-obsessive and try to take possession of their favored celebrities. As fans start attacking her mentally and physically it makes Mima do what the fans want her to do and go back to singing. This is the main aspect of the movie that drives her to lose her mind. I'm not going to say anymore as I will probably end up spoiling it!Perfect Blue is an incredibly smart piece of work that tricks you, throughout it you are left wondering if what you saw was real. It shows Mima's dreams, the show and the reality. One scene for example, that was nicely acted and well shot, Mima is acting in her show, but you can tell she gives more emotion than anyone else, because the scenes that she acts in, reflects different parts of her life and some of those scenes are showed later in the movie. Sometimes we get details about Mima's life when you suddenly realise it was being read out by one of the actors of the show when the camera pans a bit to the right, adding to the confusion of what is fact and fiction.It also makes you think of different ways and outcomes of how the movie will end, but the movie knows what you're thinking and swerves around the normal movie clichés.And from start to finish I was so intrigued by this attention to detail, like how the film is created like we are Mima, we are loosing our mind with her, as some scenes aren't placed in chronological order and some scenes cut without characters finishing their sentences and only parts of the picture is showed at times, making our mind believe we are in one place, when we are actually somewhere else. And this wasn't an editing issue, this is all part of the effect.Different colours along the duration of the movie have different meaning, for example, the prominent colour of red popping up everywhere symbolises, what I think, her madness. If you look at the movie in this way, in certain scenes it gets more and more evident and disturbing, while in a poetic way. Some scenes near the end reminded me of the famous shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho. Trust me when I say that you will be awed by the beautifully made film. It reminded me of some of the great movies out there like Fight Club and The Sixth Sense, and how they add and remove little coloured items from scenes to symbolise what the movie is trying to tell us. Keep in mind that The Sixth Sense was praised for its attention to detail when it was release in 1999. Yeah, this movie was released in 1997, they did the seemingly new colour scheme story telling before The Sixth Sense. If it isn't evident already, in many ways, movies created now days have followed the Perfect Blue strategy in one way or another. As I have said before, it is praised upon by genius film directors. I just find that really cool, alright back to the review.The film continually asks questions and answers only the questions needed to be answered as it does leave the ending up to your own interpretation, but it kind of takes a bit of researching to figure out the possible endings as there are multiple. Every scene has its own story and is important and adds up to something in the long run.Perfect Blue has been criticised lately on its quality of video saying it's not up to par with anime made recently in the 2010s'. Well duh! It hasn't been remastered at all, so of course the picture will be a bit washed out and not the standard of 2010s' animations. People actually want to see this movie as the same old anime with huge eyes, fan service and short high pitch gasps. But this is a very mature and realistic animation and at times I actually forgot I was watching an animation! You don't get that in most movies in this same genre surpassing the creative standards like Perfect Blue has.This anime has touching, shocking and amazing scenes that are well paced to have surprisingly good performances that go well with an incredible score, masterful imagery and editing, breaks the fourth wall for a second, hidden details in every scene while holding together a brilliant and compelling story with an enormous amount of replay value. I can't stop praising this film, I personally didn't have any huge problems with this movie and is actually one of the best films I've ever seen.A+Watch the visual review here - https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=rDcw_MCYs-M

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156887/ This was an very deep anime movie, I think I begin to understand why it's called Perfect Blue, Perfect Blue might mean that the sea is deep and it is a parabel, metaphor for the film's message is deep, so assume that the color blue is deep, and when something is completely and deeply so it must be blue and perfect. In short, the movie is about the psycho logical aspects of schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress because she is a burned-out artist but choose to change your occupation to an actress, but then trying to broaden their fanbase by changing their image. She does this by sailing on the sea as a fashion model. This will of course not help, but she thinks she can change, believe that everything will be all right if she changes careers to something that may not be as hard for her. The film's director is not a master, because you did not really understand what was what in the film, they could have improved it so that you understand or that they had any character who could understand what was going on during the movie. Sometimes she dreamed, but then got it all the way out there, sometimes she dreamed or dreamed, she did not and then did not know the time horizon of the film. The ocean is deep ocean is deep .... The movie was boring because it stagnated in some places and it was not a success, the other negative I found with this film was that the film did not have a better description or illustration of the stalker in the film. Then you do not know even if it was a stalker or it was hallucinations from her. I'm not going to seek out theories on what people think, the movie gets 5 out of 10, good try to depict how a famous person affected by stalkers and how one becomes mentally unstable when you think you are exposed to stalkers. The film could have easily been an 8 out of 10 of the movie been easier to understand, and if the movie had a closure instead of an open ending where you need to figure out possible explanations for the ending. possibilities for what it could have been. Then I tried the film illustrate the psychological too complex, so it was not at all successful. The music was barely sufficient to make it scary. The animation looked realistic and well done for its time and budget they spent on the film. It was unique to attempt an advanced and complicated story about a famous pop singer who becomes mentally unstable. I still recommend it because you maybe will like it if you are into open endings and complex narration. The psychology aspect is very interesting though so that was the reason I wanted to watch this