Latest news with #MillenniumActress
SoraNews24
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- SoraNews24
Psychological horror anime gets new T-shirt line, and even the fabric is meant to be unsettling
A way to show your love for the heroine of Satoshi Kon's directorial debut without losing your sanity. There's a wave of '90s anime nostalgia hitting right now, as we can see with things like Clamp Godiva chocolates and Gundam Wing fried chicken buckets. But what if instead of magical adventures or exciting action, you're looking for a way to reconnect with one of the most psychologically jarring Japanese animated works of the 1990s? Then you're in luck, because there's a new line of Perfect Blue T-shirts. Originally released in Japanese theaters in 1998, Perfect Blue was the directorial debut of Satoshi Kon, who would go on to helm three more lauded anime films, Millennium Actress , Tokyo Godfathers , and Paprika . Perfect Blue's story is centered on Mima, a recently retired idol singer who's decided to become a full-time actress, but the transition's difficulties go beyond professional complications as Mima's ability to distinguish reality from delusion, and with her sense of self, begin to splinter. The movie's visuals, produced by famed anime studio Madhouse, are a mix of pretty, graceful idol singer imagery and frightening horror, and the T-shirts, from Japanese apparel company Atmos, seek to create a similar visual contrast. To preserve the '90s aesthetic, Atmos' designers selected old-school silkscreen image transfer and inkjet printing processes. The fabric is spun such that the resulting fabric is airy but with a courses to its texture, meant to evoke the blurring of reality and fiction for Mima within Perfect Blue's narrative. There are a total of four designs in the lineup, with the three shirts pictured above available on either a black or white base. The final design, shown below, exists only in black. The shirts are being released ahead of a series of revival screenings for Perfect Blue which will take place at the Human Trust Cinema Shibuya in downtown Tokyo on September 12, 13, and 14. To ensure fans will be able to wear their new shirts to the screenings, they're being offered for sale through the Atmos online store here, priced at 8,800 yen (US$59), between August 9 and 17, and will also be stocked at a special popup store at the Atmos Urahara shop in the Harajuku neighborhood from September 12 to 21. Related: Atmos Urahara, Human Trust Cinema Shibuya Source: PR Times, Atmos Top image: PR Times Insert images: PR Times, Atmos ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Winnipeg Free Press
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Blunt-force trauma
It's a beautiful morning in the 21st century and the trains and streets are packed in Tokyo, but no one is talking to or even looking at one another — nearly everyone has earbuds in, or their eyes are cast down at small flip-phone screens. So begins Paranoia Agent, which finished its 13-episode run in the West in 2005 — one year before the first version of Twitter went live — and has proven oddly prescient, 20 years later, about the atomized, digitized lives we're now living. Paranoia Agent was the lone full-run anime series helmed by the late Satoshi Kon, a visionary writer, director and animator who tragically died of pancreatic cancer in 2010 at just 46 years old. While his body of work was limited, most of it stands out in a crowded field, particularly his features Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003) and Paprika (2006). IMDB The mysterious Shonen Bat wields his weapon on the poster for the surreal thriller Paranoia Agent, which turns 20 years old this year. Kon's work reveals an interest in looking at where the technology of the hyper-connected internet age might take us — and what it might do to us. Paranoia Agent makes for a great sampler of his observations, about not just growing social anxiety, but the specific ways in which the internet era has put us in a panopticon. Looking back on it with the benefit of hindsight, it's surprising how well Kon foresaw the conflict and unease to come in the then-nascent social media era. It all begins when Tsukiko Sagi, a character designer whose previous puppy-dog creation is an enduring mixed-media hit, faces pressure at work to create another star. Walking home at night — and dreading an important presentation for which she's wholly unprepared — she is assaulted by what she describes as a young boy wearing golden inline skates and wielding a bent golden baseball bat. When news of the attack breaks, it doesn't take long for the rumour mill to spring to action: speculation, finger-pointing and dehumanization are the name of the game. Gossipers start adding their own details to descriptions of 'Shonen Bat' (Bat Boy), subtly transforming the public's conception of him. Many are quick to blame an aimless young generation for the attack. The show makes a point of showing Tsukiko perusing a web forum dedicated to her character, only to find some users accusing her of fabricating the attack for attention. As police investigate, victims pile up, many of whom are fearful of some personal weakness being exposed. A popular schoolboy is ostracized after classmates note his resemblance to Shonen Bat, triggering paranoid anger which leads him to target what he sees as a jealous rival; a young woman's plans to marry are compromised by the alter ego of her split personality, who takes over at night to do escort work; a crooked cop gets in debt to gangsters to build a house for his family and is pressed into committing robberies to cover that debt. All of them end up getting the business end of the golden bat when at their lowest. That each of these victims is the centre of an episode is prescient in itself: in 2025, it's normal to call a newly minted online punching bag the 'main character' of a given social media platform. Get caught doing something embarrassing? Take a nasty dig at someone for no reason? Thwack. Police eventually arrest a suspect, but he's a copycat — a child under the delusion he is living inside a fantasy role-playing game. Everywhere, alternate worlds are eroding real-world connections and some people are more than ready to see strangers as monsters worth slaying. Citizens discussing the case offer conflicting views of Shonen Bat's nature: most say he goes after people who feel 'cornered,' while others suggest his victims call to him, demanding punishment. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Eventually, a maddened detective realizes Shonen Bat is not a person but a social contagion, a bogeyman made flesh — the ultimate Other and scapegoat, skating at high speed to dish out cruelty to anyone who might feel vulnerable, for any reason. As tales of his menace spread, he grows larger and more demonic, enveloping the country. Paranoia Agent isn't without its faults. It can become too abstract for its own good, and its resolution is a little bit pat. But the series' strengths more than make up for its low points. When a creator dies at a young age, it's easy to wonder what they might have thought of the current day. Paranoia Agent, 20 years later, shows us clearly what Kon saw in the future we now inhabit: a world of people who fear they're being watched and who defensively clutch their bats, even as they look over their shoulders and listen for the sound of skates. Paranoia Agent can be viewed on anime streaming service Crunchyroll. Darren Ridgley is a copy editor for the Free Press. Darren RidgleyCopy editor Darren Ridgley is a copy editor and member of the adjunct editorial board at the Free Press. Darren has previously worked as a reporter, photographer and editor at weekly newspapers in Drumheller, Alta., Manitoba's Interlake region and at Canstar Community News. He joined the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Darren. Every piece of reporting and analysis Darren produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
