In Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue, pop idol Mima is ready to change her image: from innocent star to mature actress. It’s a decision that’s partly about money, partly about people-pleasing, but also, in a subtle but real way, about her own desires. There’s too much suffering entailed in becoming the actress she’s decided to be for her not to have chosen it herself. When we see her as a pop idol, she’s fine during the routines, but outside of them she is shy, afraid of disappointing her fans, unable to announce even her own departure.
It turns out, though, that she’s right to fear her fans. It doesn’t feel as if the singer for a not-especially-successful group should have enough obsessive fans for them to be a problem for her, but as she discovers, it only takes a few for stalkerish persistence to become actively frightening. Convinced the real Mima is being erased and slandered by an imposter, being made dirty and filthy by playing the parts she plays in dramas and …
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