Episode 113: PERFECT BLUE (1997) (Non-’Lon BoysPick #2)

When we announced our "Non-'Lon" Series last week, how long did you wager it'd take before one of the boys chose an anime? If you guessed "immediately," we have good news!

This week, Harry selected the late great Satoshi Kon's debut feature film, PERFECT BLUE (1997), an eerily prescient psychological horror film about a J-pop idol's reality unraveling that proved so visionary and influential that Western directors like Aronofsky and Nolan made careers out of ripping it off.

In this episode, we unleash our full fanboy powers on Kon's masterpiece, spending just over the actual film's runtime attacking it from as many angles as we can find. Catch us dissecting how the film speculates about the ways in which the internet will change or exaggerate human society, all while weaving an insightful critique of won't WON'T change, and how the forces of misogyny and celebrity have always robbed women of their agency. Our discussion of the film's many intersecting themes converges in a climactic (and somewhat contentious!) debate about where Mina and Rumi end up, what the movie is suggesting about the internet and the self, and, ultimately, it even means to be "yourself" when all selves are fundamentally constructed.

Stay tuned for a particularly provocative episode of "Cody's Noteys," too. Or… you could just skip to it. We know why you're really here.

1:52 - Why Harry chose PERFECT BLUE

3:11 - The patented Grossman Summary

4:42 - Harry’s thoughts

8:37 - Jason’s thoughts

11:58 - Cody’s thoughts

15:02 - Aaron’s thoughts

23:06 - Satoshi Kon’s ambition pays off in PERFECT BLUE

25:09 - Where do you even start discussing PERFECT BLUE?

27:03 - Predicting the impact of the internet on culture and identity

39:22 - The scene that marks the point of no return

45:14 - Me-Mania, Rumi, Tadokoro, and the Madonna/Whore dichotomy

52:51 - PERFECT BLUE’s loose ends

1:03:25 - Terrace House, The Great British Baking Show, and the false promise of intimacy

1:08:26 - PERFECT BLUE’s ending

1:24:27 - Cody’s Noteys (“Trylibs: Identity Crisis”)

1:25:19 - Chaco’s appearance

1:32:08 - The Trylibs story

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Ai no Tenshi (Angel of Love)” from the PERFECT BLUE soundtrack. (Lyrics by Imai Kiko; composed and arranged by Ikumi Masahiro; performed by MISA, Furukawa Emiko, and Shimizu Mie.)

Ghost in the Machine by Harry Mackin: https://unwinnable.com/2019/09/24/ghost-in-the-machine-119/

RagnarRox’s YouTube essay connecting Japan’s economic bubble to otaku culture to Perfect Blue to the megacorporate leveraging of fan culture today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHWSlSyjK5c

“Anchors Aweigh: The Aesthetic of Surface in the Films of Kon Satoshi” by Alexander Kirst: https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/islandora/object/ir%3A675/datastream/PDF/view

Spinsters by Haley O'Shaughnessy & Jordan Ligons: https://www.bluewirepods.com/podcast/spinsters