Paranoia Agent

Tsukiko Sagi, a shy character designer who created the immensely popular pink dog Maromi, finds herself under pressure to repeat her success. As she walks home one night, she is attacked by an elementary school boy on inline skates. Two police detectives, Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa, are assigned to the case. They suspect that Tsukiko is lying about the attack, until they receive word of a second victim.

Soon the attacker, dubbed Lil' Slugger (Shōnen Batto in Japanese, meaning "Bat Boy"), is blamed for a series of street assaults in Tokyo. None of the victims can recall the boy's face and only three distinct details are left in their memories: golden inline skates, a baseball cap, and the weapon: a bent golden baseball bat. Ikari and Maniwa set out to track down the perpetrator and put an end to his crimes.

During the makings of his previous three films (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers), Paranoia Agent creator Satoshi Kon was left with an abundance of unused ideas for stories and arrangements that he felt were good but did not fit into any of his projects. Not wanting to waste the material, he decided to recycle it into a dynamic TV series in which his experimental ideas could be used.

In the case of a film to be shown at theatres, I'm working for two years and a half, always in the same mood and with the same method. I wanted to do something that allows me to be more flexible, to realize instantly what flashes across my mind. I was also aiming at a sort of entertaining variation, so I decided to go for a TV series.[4]

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the series the rare approval rating of 100% based on 13 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Anime auteur Satoshi Kon brings his feverish vision to the serialized form in Paranoia Agent, a disturbing meditation on individual and societal anxiety."[16] Paranoia Agent was one of the Jury Recommended Works in the Animation Division at the 8th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2004.[17]

Charles Solomon from NPR says, "Paranoia Agent may frustrate viewers who expect a straightforward narrative, but it's a disturbing, highly original work from a talented filmmaker."[18][19] John Powers, also from NPR, remarks, "It's one of the best and strangest programs I have ever seen... Kon does something daring. He reveals the fierce sadness and pain hidden by the modern embrace of things that are cute."[20][19] A review in Empire awarded Paranoia Agent 3 out of 5 stars, saying, "for those who like their animation 'out there', Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent delivers by the oddball bucketload".[21] Jean-Luc Bouchard from BuzzFeed praised Paranoia Agent as a depiction of depression, writing, "The entire series totals a mere 13 episodes, but it drew me in immediately, and introduced me to a dark cast of characters whose troubled minds changed not just their own perceptions, but each other's realities as well."[22]

James Beckett of Anime News Network gave the anime an A, and describes the series as "What is the most important thing to remember about Paranoia Agent is that it is a mystery story where the answers to the mysteries are not as important as the questions they raise. A haunting and deeply felt fable of human experiences told with Satoshi Kon's signature flair, eerie and funny in equal measure, visuals that will stick with you for years to come".[23] A review for IGN gave the first three episodes of Paranoia Agent a score of 7/10, comparing it to the works of David Lynch, but criticizing the animation as "downright primitive in places".[24] John Maher from Paste listed Paranoia Agent as the 14th best anime series of all time, comparing it to Kon's other works Paprika and Perfect Blue, adding, "it's every bit the sublime exercise in psychological thriller as either".[25]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Paranoia Agent.

• Paranoia Agent official website (in Japanese)
• Paranoia Agent at IMDb
• Paranoia Agent at Anime News Network's encyclopedia