Peter Bradshaw 

Perfect Blue review – cult anime pushes teenage girl over the edge

Satoshi Kon’s 1997 exploitation movie about an ex-pop star and her stalker still packs a punch, but certain scenes are extra uncomfortable in the Weinstein era
  
  

Perfect Blue, directed by Satoshi Kon and first released in 1997.
Perfect Blue, directed by Satoshi Kon and first released in 1997. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

This animated exploitation movie from Japanese film-maker and manga artist Satoshi Kon is rereleased 20 years after its original appearance. Based on a 1991 novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takuechi, it is a broad, brash pulp thriller which isn’t shy about explicit violence and softcore nudity, and some of its scenes are incidentally pretty uncomfortable in our Weinstein age.

A singer in an up-and-coming teen girl-band decides to quit pop music and try to get into acting. But just as she does so, her erstwhile bandmates get a smash-hit single without her. Meanwhile, she can only get small demeaning acting roles – including that of a rape victim. Moreover, the attentions of a crazed stalker send her psychologically over the edge, and she increasingly can’t tell fact from fiction. The action is wrapped up with a slightly ridiculous reveal, which doesn’t quite make sense on its own terms, but Perfect Blue has its own kind of cult pungency.

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*