Paprika [Blu-ray]

I first saw Paprika last summer when a good friend of mine strongly recommended the works of Satoshi Kon to me and after gazing at the anime titles he made, Paprika grabbed my eyes the quickest given its trippy imagery and description, so I bought it on Amazon and am extremely glad to have seen it because it's one of the most enriching and creative titles I've ever seen in the medium.STORYIn the near future, a huge advance in psychotherapy is created in the form of a device called the DC Mini, which is capable of recording people's dreams. However, the DC Mini is stolen and Dr. Chiba's science team and detective Konakawa join forces to get it back before it falls into the wrong hands. In their pursuit, follows one of the craziest mind trips ever put on celluloid.CHARACTERSWhat's a movie without good characters? Thankfully, Satoshi Kon kept this in mind and fleshed out very believable and interesting characters when creating this animated feast for the eyes and brain. What I also like is that while there's protagonists and antagonists in Paprika, they don't really fit any stereotypes and aren't one-sided morally speaking. Atsuko Chiba (At-Chan, as Kosaku Tokita calls her) has the alter ego in the form of a red-headed and energetic lady named Paprika but unlike most alter egos, Paprika exists entirely in the dream universe. Chiba tends to be serious and butts heads with Tokita. Detective Konakawa is one of the most interesting to me since he has repressed terrors and lives them out through dreams that play out like movies. Tokita is a more unique case since he's a kid trapped in a genius adult's body and given that personality, he acts just like that since all he cares about doing is "doing what he wants" instead of doing what he HAS to do. Even the more minor characters are better than mere plot devices because just like the leads, they feel very believable.PLOTTING AND APPEARANCENormally in my reviews, I separate the plotting and appearance, but in Paprika's case, I have to combine the two since they're dependent of each other and would be awkward reviewing the two individually. This is where most of the fun in Paprika lies in. Kon, being the excellent storyteller that he is, perfectly meshes the dream world with reality and unlike Christopher Nolan's vision of the dream world for Inception, Kon takes full advantage of the opportunities he has and creates a dream world where anything, and I mean ANYTHING, can happen (visually and plot-wise). The plotting is brilliant as to where it's complex but not overly so, in the sense that the plotting isn't a gimmicky puzzle movie where it's a convoluted mess that you're trying to put together (though it's best to pay attention), but rather blending both fantasy and reality within a character's dilemma and ultimately fits what they're going through as a consequence of the DC Mini's severe abuse. An example of this is when Konakawa is pursuing one of the main antagonists, he gets caught in his recurring nightmare and acts out according to the nightmare, and the consequences from his actions affect the antagonists in the real world. There's so much more to this, but I think you get the picture (and that I don't want to spoil the whole movie).Then there's the appearance of the movie. This is integral to the film since it's the imagery that breathes so much life into the dreamworld in Paprika. Kon took full advantage of this opportunity in the visual department and made a dreamworld like no other. In this dreamworld, toys, household appliances, and other devices coming to life and say complete gibberish. There's a scene where Paprika jumps into Dr. Shima's dream, she sinks into Shima's body and causes him to inflate like a giant balloon and explodes, causing him to wake up. When people dive into peoples' dreams, they can take the form of any object they merge with. The best example of this would be with Paprika since she takes a myriad of forms ranging from fairies to griffins in the film. Things get really interesting towards the end when reality and the dreamworld merge since you see businessmen gleefully jumping off a building in formation and Tokita running around as a toy robot firing missiles at a giant Japanese porcelain doll and rambling about fat content in coconut milk. In my first viewing of Paprika, I was left lying in a fetal position wondering what just happened mostly because of the dazzling imagery used to flesh out peoples' dreams.The animation and artwork is fantastic. The frame rate is rather smooth and the imagery is very colorful and detailed. Like Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Paprika is another anime that uses both 2D animation and 3D animation and much like said anime series, Paprika mixes the two in a very tasteful manner since the 3D imagery exists only to supplement the primary 2D animation instead of overpowering it. The characters have very distinctive looks and me being a male in his early 20's, especially enjoyed the way Dr. Chiba was drawn since she looks beautiful but at the same time, her looks actually match her personality since she looks mature (and acts as such). In the case of female characters, Kon has a very distinctive way of drawing them and I personally love how he draws them since they look like anime characters but don't really fit the cookie-cutter styles abused in the genre. Once again, Satoshi Kon and Madhouse Studio crank out a high-quality anime.THEMESTo supplement the well-done characters, surreal imagery, creative story, and excellent plotting, Kon threw in some themes to make an already brilliant anime even better. While subtle, there's themes about the sacredness of one's dreams and the intrusion of technology in said area elaborated by the Chairman (the main antagonist). I felt this was pretty insightful since according to the Chairman, a person's dreams in the movie's current setting are all that's left that's "personal" to someone, and the DC Mini will violate that sense of uniqueness since it'll record the subconscious and have it shared with the whole world. There's also a theme of someone dealing with hard guilt since Konakawa has a film-like recurring nightmare because of personal losses he had in the past relating to film. These themes add more life to an already vibrant animated picture.FINAL WORDIf you love anime that's intelligent, creative, has great characters, and chocked full of mind-blowing imagery, then Paprika needs to be in your collection RIGHT NOW if it's not. If you have the technology, I suggest you get the blu-ray version since the sharper picture and sound really enhances this great movie.RIP Satoshi Kon. Your body of animated work may be small, but it'll be remembered and lauded for eternity.

A clown emerges from a tiny clown car. After doing so, she says, “It’s the greatest showtime!” and with this, Paprika begins. Elephants, clowns, and other circus performers march out from behind curtains and we are introduced to Kogawa Tishimi, a detective seemingly hunting someone in the audience. Before long, he's trapped in the middle of the circus ring and the audience runs towards him, all now sharing his face. He falls through the floor and finds himself being seamlessly carried by an energetic young girl across various different scenes, each one reminiscent of a different film, until he ends up in a hallway, chasing after a killer. As he gives chase, the world around him literally collapses.And then he wakes up.As it turns out, he was involved in an experimental therapy session with a woman named Paprika. The device used is referred to as a DC Mini, which allows more than one person to share dreams for therapeutic purposes. The plot thickens when it turns out that a few of these devices have been stolen by dream terrorists, who can use the device to enter and insert dreams into other peoples minds, driving them mad by blurring the lines between the dream world and the real world. It gets worse when the very fabric of reality is called into question. Another film by the late Satoshi Kon (Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers), Paprika displays his fascination with dreams and the way they can be interpreted onscreen. There are various plot elements here (and some imagery) that can be seen in other more recent films like Inception, though unlike Inception, in which the world of dreams can be controlled and manipulated due to its rules, for Satoshi Kon, the world of dreams has neither rules nor logic. This can be seen clearly during the opening credits, which introduce the title character. She happily makes her way through the city jumping in an out of advertisements and altering the world around her as she skips from place to place. As a dream girl, she can do anything she wishes.The dream sequences throughout the film are a clear highlight as it allows Satoshi Kon’s imagination to run free, much like the horrific parade dream that marches through other people’s dreams, collecting them and growing, all with the accompaniment of the wonderful music of Susumu Hirasawa, a frequent collaborator of Kon. The visuals in this film blend are simply stunning, and above all, maintain a genuine feeling of surrealism, much like a real dream. The people trapped in the parade spew nonsense sentences that likely only make sense to them alone; the environment can be changed and altered to the point where someone can press themselves through a wall like it was made out of plastic wrap. While there's a strong amount of emphasis on the dreams, this is also balanced out with the characters in the real world; Paprika is the dream alter ego of Doctor Chiba Atsuko (both voiced by Megumi Hayashibara), a doctor working at the company that developed the DC Mini. Unlike her free spirited alter ego, Chiba is very reserved and serious. She works alongside Doctor Tokita (Tôru Furuya), an enormously fat and immature scientist that developed the device, and Doctor Shima (Katsunosuke Hori), their chief. The chief is the first victim of a dream attack and he falls prey to it mid sentence. In this scene, as well as throughout the film, Kon shows that he prefers to let the audience see something before they are given an explanation of any kind. The last and a particular interesting character is Kogawa (Akio Ôtsuka), the detective. At first glance he seems like any tough older detective, but as his dreams develop we learn much more about his past and in particular, his connection to film. Because of this film connection, there's a plethora of movie references littered throughout the story; some are obvious while others are much more subtle visual cues.I am fascinated by this film, much as I am by all of Kon’s previous work. It's a mature and serious story with mind bending and unforgettable imagery. Bending the line between reality and dreams has been a theme in many of his stories, and it’s no wonder that he chooses to visualize this through animation. With animation, just as in dreams, there are no limitations.

This movie took me a second time to fully get what the heck was even going on, it's a very overwhelming movie sometimes because of how much is going on in it, but not in a bad way. It's very trippy, dreamy, and if you miss even a second you'll be even more lost than you probably already are. By the end of my first time watching it I was honestly mentally exhausted, but less than a year later I gave it another watch and finally was picking up on everything so much better!! I absolutely love how they portray things in this movie, and it really gets my imagination going which I love. Absolutely a must watch!!

It's definitely something!