Paranoia Agent


Paranoia Agent is a Japanese anime television series created by director Satoshi Kon and produced by Madhouse about a social phenomenon in Musashino, Tokyo caused by a juvenile serial assailant named Lil' Slugger. The plot relays between a large cast of people affected in some way by the phenomenon; usually Lil' Slugger's victims or the detectives assigned to apprehend him. As each character becomes the focus of the story, details are revealed about their secret lives and the truth about Lil' Slugger.

Plot

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, 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. Their hunt is unsuccessful, however, and the investigation eventually leads to both men losing their positions as police detectives.
As the attacks continue, it is revealed that they are not random. Instead, Lil' Slugger seems to target people in crisis, and the attacks, though violent, lead to some improvement in the life of the victim. Maniwa becomes convinced that Lil' Slugger is a supernatural force, driven to rescue the desperate from their tragedies through violence. He becomes obsessive, broadcasting his warning about Lil' Slugger via shortwave radio and seeking a way to kill the supernatural assailant.
As public fear of Lil' Slugger intensifies, his attacks start to become deadly and the line between truth and fiction becomes blurred. At the same time, public anticipation for the launch of the Maromi television series reaches a fanatical high, almost as if the fear of one is feeding the anticipation for the other.
Things come to an end on the night that the Maromi show is set to air. Ikari, now a private security guard, and Maniwa, now a wandering "knight", attempt to battle Lil' Slugger, now an incredibly powerful force leaving a path of death and destruction throughout Tokyo. The two men confront Tsukiko where it is revealed that Maromi was based on a real puppy that Tsukiko had in childhood, whose leash she had one day accidentally dropped, allowing the puppy to run into traffic where it was killed. Fearing reprisal from her strict father, instead of taking responsibility for the puppy's death, young Tsukiko invented a story about a bat-wielding, skate-wearing puppy killer—Lil' Slugger's first "attack."
Ultimately, Lil' Slugger is a paranormal figment of Tsukiko's guilt and fear, brought inexplicably to life when the adult Tsukiko desperately needed to escape her responsibilities and then fed and nurtured by the fear of the populace. This was all further exacerbated by the public using Maromi as a form of escapism to avoid their own fears and anxieties. When Tsukiko finally confesses the truth, and in doing so accepts the guilt for the death of Maromi, Lil' Slugger is defeated.
Two years later, with Tokyo fully recovered from Lil' Slugger's rampage and the reconstruction of city complete, a new character has captured the attention of the public. A cryptic warning from a wizened Maniwa implies that a new cycle is about to begin.

Characters

;Tsukiko Sagi
;Lil' Slugger
;
;Detective Keiichi Ikari
;Detective Mitsuhiro Maniwa
;Maromi

Names

Many of the characters in Paranoia Agent are often referred to with animal names, especially in each "Prophetic Vision" and the episode "The Holy Warrior," in which some characters are depicted as animal-like creatures. In many cases, their Japanese names translate directly to the type of animal which they are referred to as: "sagi" means heron, "kawazu" is an archaic term for frog, "ushi" means cow, "tai" means sea bream or red snapper, "chō" means butterfly, and "hiru" means leech. "Kamome" means seagull.

Production

During the makings of his previous three films, 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.

Media

Anime

The series first aired on Japan's WOWOW from February 2 to May 18, 2004. Geneon had licensed the anime in North America and released the series on four DVDs between October 26, 2004 and May 10, 2005. A UMD version of Volume 1 was made available on October 10, 2005. The English dubbed version began airing in the U.S. on Adult Swim on May 28, 2005 followed by an encore airing that began on June 6, 2006. In Canada, it began a run on digital channel G4TechTV's Anime Current programming block on July 27, 2007. The anime is distributed by MVM Films in the UK. On February 3, 2020, Funimation announced that it had licensed the series for its streaming platform and with plans for a Blu-ray release later in the year. On April 15, 2020, Adult Swim announced that the English dubbed version of the series would be rebroadcast for the first time in over a decade on its Toonami programming block.

Music

The music in Paranoia Agent was composed by Japanese electronica pioneer Susumu Hirasawa. The opening theme "Dream Island Obsessional Park" and the ending theme "White Hill – Maromi's Theme" are performed by Hirasawa.

Proposed film

In December 2009, Japanese cult-film director Takashi Shimizu announced plans for a film adaption of the anime. However, plans eventually fell through and ultimately no film was ever made.

Reception

A review in Empire gave Paranoia Agent three stars out of five, saying "for those who like their animation 'out there', Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent delivers by the oddball bucketload".
Journalist Jean-Luc Bouchard, writing for BuzzFeed, praised Paranoia Agent as a depiction of depression.
A review for IGN gave the first three episodes of Paranoia Agent a score of seven out of ten, comparing it to the works of David Lynch, but criticizing the animation as "downright primitive in places".
Paste listed Paranoia Agent as the 11th best anime series of all time, comparing it to Kon's other works Paprika and Perfect Blue, saying "it's every bit the sublime exercise in psychological thriller as either".