Anime Hajime Review: Paranoia Agent

Series Synopsis

Tsukiko Sagi (voiced by Mamiko Noto) is a rookie character designer who's just created the immensely popular cartoon dog, Maromi. Having been highly introverted her whole life, when tasked to think up the next big sensation, the pressure is nearly unbearable.

One dark night, Tsukiko hits her limit. With nowhere to run, there is little she can do. Suddenly, a boy wearing a baseball cap, inline skates, and wielding a golden bat lurks out of the shadows and attacks Tsukiko.

The two officers assigned to the case, Detective Keiichi Ikari (voiced by Shozo Iizuka) and Mitsuhiro Maniwa (voiced by Toshihiko Seki), have a hard time putting the piece together. With no witnesses or evidence, they start to think Tsukiko made up the entire story. That is until another victim appears. And then another, followed by another. Soon Tokyo is filled with rumors and fear of the mystery assailant who has been dubbed Shonen Bat.

As incidents grow in frequency and brutality, the truth behind Shonen Bat becomes foggier. Something is plaguing the streets and it seems to be getting stronger with each passing day.

Series Positives

Here’s a mix bag if ever I saw one. This show I enjoyed and enjoyed it thoroughly. Paranoia Agent is a good series.

Tsukiko

There are elements to this show which make it stand out and make it worth watching. Those elements are brilliant, fantastic, and not only counterbalance the issues, but overwhelm them…to an extent.

Shonen Bat

The visuals for instance, are phenomenal. Throughout, but particularly at the end, the art style and animation were well done. I’ve got hand it to Paranoia Agent; it is a show-not-tell kind of anime.

When given the choice, I prefer actions and imagery over exposition. The down side to this is it forces you to fill in the blanks yourself and sometimes that’s easier said than done. Then again, the up side is, it allows you to fill in those blanks yourself and add your own interpretations.

The Setup

As horror/mystery stories go, this one had me on edge. Paranoia Agent was creepy. What made it hit harder was, it got creepy suddenly.

This wasn’t unexpected. I knew going in, this series would try to delve into some frightening territory; it’s what caught my attention. Episodes one through four did just that. They built up a rather unnerving atmosphere.

First is Tsukiko's run in with Shonen Bat. Not only was the entire city trying to wrap it's collective consciousness around the possibility of the culprit being a child, Tsukiko had to deal with the growing number of people accusing her of making the whole thing up. Luckily for comfort, she has her creation Maromi (voiced by Haruko Momoi) giving her constant reassurance. Yeah that wasn’t at all unsettling when this doll started moving around and talking.

In episode two, a boy named Shogo Ushiyama (voiced by Mayumi Yamaguchi) is basking in the light of his popularity. Due to his trademark rollerblades and cap, once the attacks started, he was instantly associated with Shonen Bat and became an outcast. This completely shattered his young and slightly narcissistic mind to the point of paranoia.

Episode three focused on a quiet, well-mannered office lady named Harumi Chono (voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi), who also happened to have a split personality. Her other half, Maria, was much more aggressive and had risen to become one of the most requested call girls of the area. So far they've tolerated each other’s existence. Suddenly it became a nasty fight for control once Harumi decided to cast Maria aside due to her recent engagement.

The fourth episode dealt with Masami Hirukawa (voiced by Toshihiko Nakajima) who finally pushed his luck too far. Being squeezed for everything he was worth, Masami was desperate for cash. He started robbing people, which quickly escalated from pick-pocketing to full on home invasion.

All of these characters became victims of Shonen Bat because of the desperation they found themselves in. My intrigue was peaked at this point. Can’t say I was on edge, but I was invested none the less.

Episode five happened and I’ll talk about that in a moment. But then came episode six. Where the f@#$ did this come from? Paranoia Agent was hovering at around a six out of ten on the creepy scale. In one swoop, it rocketed to a god damn level twelve.

Detectives Ikari and Maniwa bring in a possible culprit. During their interrogation, they learned their suspect was nothing more than a copycat. In fact, it seemed Tsukiko was indeed lying about her story, so she’s brought back in for further questioning.

The detectives grilled this woman and they were beginning to drag the truth out. All the while, there were these random cuts to...something else. At first I thought these were flashback back to when Tsukiko was a child. I wasn’t fully wrong. Some of these were flashbacks, but eventual they started to show present day. Also these were not the memories of Tsukiko, but of a middle school girl (voiced by Nana Mizuki).

This kid was just that, a kid. It was her dad’s birthday and she wanted to surprise him. So she jumped on his computer to set up. There she noticed something. Now there have been shows in the past which have gotten to me. I’ve been made to feel terrified by a few stories. I’ve been disturbed and uncomfortable before. But rarely, very rarely has a series made me want to vomit as badly as I did in that moment. The rest episode just spiraled into a hellish whirlwind of what-in-the-actual-f@#$-is-going-on.

A+ Paranoia Agent, that was effective. Holy Christ.

Series Negatives

Mirai Nikki is a show that to me seems to have a lot love behind it. I thought it was okay…that’s it.

Why do I risk rustling the hornet’s nest that is an anime fan base? Well many of the same problems I have with Mirai Nikki I also have with Paranoia Agent. The main one being, it goes way overboard.

These series were great in their respective beginnings because they felt personal. There was a small group of characters we got to know. The events of the story and of the mystery stay amongst them. Therefore when something did happen, it felt big, it felt tragic.

Then near the end during the climax, suddenly the entire world becomes involved. Everything turns into a spectacle. It’s all out in the open, it’s not hidden anymore. Both of these shows worked best in the shadows. Once you stepped into the light, there was no longer a monster in the dark.

To give credit where it’s due, Mirai Nikki did a much better job at mitigating this. Unlike Paranoia Agent, the infrastructure of Mirai Nikki's story allowed for the possibility of everything going bat s@#$ insane. So it wasn’t fully out of nowhere, but it was a bit much.

Well there's that and the fact Mirai Nikki didn’t do what Paranoia Agent did.

Utter Bull S@#$

There was filler. There was god damn filler in this thirteen episode anime. Why?

This is beyond unnecessary and is completely unwelcome. In Paranoia Agent these moments were wastes of time and took away from the actual story.

One instance of this was fine, I guess. It would have made a great OVA, but it had no business being a f@#$ing episode. It did add to the mystic of Shonen Bat, so I could have let it go. Too bad that was made impossible since it came after episode five.

This episode was stupid. Why did we have to travel through a slapstick fantasy world spawned from the delusions of some kid? Did you expect me to say that, especially after I just went over the creepy craziness happening around it? Probably not and I sure as hell didn’t think I was going to see it.

Plus, it came back. This didn’t get dropped, it wasn’t a one-time event. The show removed it's own bite.

While writing this review, I saw this series described as a satire. For a while I thought I could use that to justify this being here. However, I couldn’t think of what was being satirized. Therefore I’m back to square one. This was just really dumb.

Final Thoughts

I can’t stand some of the things in this show. Yet I’m still recommending it.

Despite doing god knows what at times, when Paranoia Agent decides to get serious, it’s incredible. The feelings of unease and tension make this a series hard to stop watching. It has great buildup, fantastic art work, and a few truly terrifying moments.

As a horror anime, it did work to some degree. If you can sit through the occasional nonsense, this is one that’s worth checking out.

               Google+                           Facebook                           Twitter