When you ask somebody who’s not really all that interested into anime to cite a couple of anime films, the responses are always the same. “Akira”, “Ghost in the Shell”, “Spirited Away”… But a lot of people will also mention another movie by the name of “Paprika”. While most anime movies don’t receive a wide release outside of Japan, “Paprika” did, and it’s very easy to see why – its stellar animation, mindbending visuals and story that’s confusing in all the right ways made it a hit in Japan, and won it a moderate success outside of it, which is about as much as anime movies can enjoy, really. “Paprika” is a very interesting case within the anime industry because its director, Satoshi Kon, has never actually made a bad movie. Not only that – he’s never made anything that hasn’t been absolutely and completely stellar. From “Perfect Blue”, which inspired a generation of Hollywood directors, through the brilliant “Millennium Actress” which showed the world how a character-driven historical drama was supposed to be made, to the amazing “Tokyo Godfathers” which is, by far, the best Christmas movie I’ve ever seen despite coming from a culture that celebrates Christmas by eating lots of KFC. His movies could be terrifying, but they could also be quirky and hilarious when they wanted, but most importantly, they consistently pushed the boundaries of what could be done with anime and animation in general as a medium. Still, I believe that none of his works give us a better look inside Satoshi Kon’s mind than his first and only foray into serialized anime, “Paranoia Agent”.

While “Paranoia Agent” has a semblance of an overarching narrative, it is, for the most part, an anthology show. Characters cross over from story to story, giving the semblance of an interconnected world, and yet for the most part each episode revolves around a particular character and the struggles that they’re undergoing. The theme of the show is how our mind gives our problems physical form, manifesting them and causing us to confront them. Each character is plagued by something, be it guilt, regret or a feeling that’s a bit too complicated to describe in a single word, and the primary antagonist of the series is a creature that confronts them with their issues, allowing them to achieve catharsis in the most unusual way possible. At the heart of the story is a young woman named Tsukiko Sagi, who some time ago created a mascot character that has since taken Japan by storm. The character, a small pink dog named Maromi, appears on keychains, posters, toys, and even has his very own TV show. Pressured by everyone to repeat her success, Tsukiko starts looking for a way to escape… and finds it when, rather conveniently, a young boy on roller skates attacks her in a parking lot, giving her an excuse to take a few weeks off. Naturally, the detectives assigned to the case are skeptical of the existence of such an attacker, until a second victim reports being struck by a young boy on rollerskates. Then a third, a fourth and fifth. Little by little, hospitals start filling up with people who have been attacked by the mysterious boy (nicknamed “Lil’ Slugger” by the media), and as such have been allowed to escape their problems. Is this a mass psychosis, or is something a lot more demented and mysterious going on?

From what you just read you might be thinking that every episode is the same – “Oh, we’ve got a guy who has some sort of problem and deals with it during the episode until Lil’ Slugger comes and hits him on the head”. Yeah, well… No. Episodes are as varied as they would be on an anthology show, and while the theme of Lil’ Slugger and his influence connects them all, building up to a climax which brings Tsukiko back alongside several other characters in order to solve the mystery once and for all. In the middle of this all too delicious hamburger we’ve got the meat, which consists of stories that are as varied as they come, and the best part is that they’re not all about people with problems that Lil’ Slugger has to solve – some are about people with problems caused by Lil’ Slugger, while some only tangentially involve him. For example, one of the earlier episodes is about a young boy who matches the description of Lil’ Slugger, and the rumors start ruining his life. Another episode is solely about a couple of housewives gossiping about who, or what, Lil’ Slugger actually is, with each trying to one-up everyone else in order to relay the most shocking account of the events regardless of just how ridiculous they sound. My favorite episode is when the members of a chatroom decide to meet up in order to commit suicide together, except one of them turns out to be a little girl, so the whole episode becomes about them trying to bring her to the authorities while pretending to be searching for a suicide spot. It’s surreal, it’s bizarre, and yet it’s presented in such an amazingly intriguing way that you can’t help but be invested in it.

I really can’t talk in depth about the nature of “Paranoia Agent” without getting knees deep into spoilers territory, but suffice to say that you’re in for a ride! If you’re interested in checking out a crazy, creative semi-anthology series from one of the world’s greatest animators, then you owe it to yourself to give it a watch! It’s worth every second!

For the next few blog posts, I decided to switch things up a bit on the blog! I’m usually talking about anime series from the 80s which are directly related to Saint Seiya, in some way, and by “directly related” I mean they’re Hokuto no Ken. Well, even though I’d never get sick of writing about Seiya and Hokuto, but I’m fairly certain you guys might get sick of reading about them if I don’t mix things up, so why don’t we fast forward a bit in the timeline and talk about some current anime that I’d recommend? At the end of the day, while 80s anime had a certain charm to it, anime from the last 10 years is also pretty darn great!

The first series I’d like to talk about is “Plastic Memories”, which is notable for being one of the best dramedies I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’m not just talking about anime, I’m talking about any medium here. It manages to take a setup that is so utterly depressing and make the best of it, because the characters choose to make the best of it. The drama comes naturally, but the comedy is enforced by your typical wacky character archetypes (the normal guy protagonist, the shy, quirky romantic interest, the tsundere, the aloof superior, the womanizer – you know the drill) doing typical wacky things. It sounds like a weird, even inappropriate contrast, except it really, really works!

“Plastic Memories” is set in the not too distant future where lifelike robots named Giftias are the latest trend. The robots don’t age, obviously, but other than that look and act exactly the same as humans – they can learn, they develop a personality based on their environment, they gain their own dreams, wishes and aspirations, hell, they even have certain civil rights! The only thing that differentiates them from humans, aside from the whole “no aging” thing, is that their lifespan is only 81920 hours – roughly about 10 years. After that, their memory and personality starts to fall apart, and if they’re left to deteriorate completely very bad things will happen (suffice to say, having a super-strong automaton without memories or a personality roaming the streets is not a good idea). In order to prevent this from happening, units known as Terminal Services retrieve Giftias shortly before their expiration date, by erasing their memories and OS, essentially killing them and then recycling their body to be used for a reinstalled OS – though the new Giftia will have a significantly different personality and no memories of his or her past life.

In case you didn’t grasp that, let me put it this way – their job is to go to families and take away their children, husbands, wives, parents or siblings, euthanize them and then recycle their bodies. It’s the equivalent of working as a doctor whose job is to do nothing but tell people their loved ones have died. It’s heartbreaking, heartwrenching and not something that anyone should ever have to do, and yet certain people have to because it’s better than the alternative. One of those people is Tsukasa Mizugaki, a high school student who flunked his final exams because he developed appendicitis. On his first day of employment he gets paired up with Isla, a Giftia who’s set to train him in the best way to retrieve targets (sometimes all you have to do is ask, but other times families are quite reluctant to part with their Giftias) and to assist him in his job. Naturally, it’s not long before feelings between the two blossom.

This is sort of where the beauty of “Plastic Memories” lies – it’s a brilliant drama, a brilliant comedy, a brilliant romance and a brilliant sci-fi all rolled into one wonderful package, and it is beautiful. I was often surprised about just how much I laughed, considering the overall rather depressing setting. The characters are all funny and memorable, including the regular cast and the side characters that they encounter during their retrieval missions. I really loved how, in merely 13 episodes, we were able to examine realistically just how many uses society would potentially have for human-like robots. The most common ones are, of course, children, but on several occasions we’ve seen humans being raised by Giftias, or them being used to do certain jobs such as being a bodyguard. And of course the anime doesn’t shy away from the darker side of humanity, with a particular character being a black market dealer who steals Giftias and reinstalls their OS so they could presumably be used as sex slaves.

Honestly, the whole retrieval aspect of the anime was the most interesting part for me, personally, but for better or for worse in the latter half of the series that takes a backseat to the romance between Isla and Tsukasa. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a great romance – unlike so many other anime romances, it doesn’t end just as soon as they decide that they’re a couple, quite the opposite. Sure, there’s a bit of a “Will they, won’t they”, but the moment they decide that they do want to be together after all (um, spoilers, I guess?) they start going on dates, joking about at home, stuff that normal couples do. After all, a Giftia’s lifespan is pretty limited, and they know that better than anyone. It’s not about crafting a relationship that will last – it’s about crafting memories that will.

I honestly can’t recommend “Plastic Memories” enough. It’s got everything you might want from an anime – action, drama, comedy, romance, sci-fi, you name it. There’s no reason for you not to watch it, so stop reading and get on it, people!

“Saint Seiya”, just like pretty much every huge anime franchise, has seen a ton of videogames based on it. Starting with “Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary” ten years ago on the now archaic PS2, the franchise has seen three more games based on it, with the latest, “Soldier’s Soul”, being released only a few months ago on the PS3, PS4 and, rather surprisingly, PC. While this may seem shocking, it’s really not – as I said, most big franchises of fighting anime have gotten plenty of games, including “Hokuto no Ken” (no, I’ll never stop talking about it on this blog, so sue me), “Bleach”, “Naruto”, “DragonBall” and so on and so forth. And admittedly, most licensed games haven’t been very good. Essentially, if you’ve played one of them, you’ve pretty much played all of them – they’re all 3D fighters with lots of flashy special attacks that play exactly the same way. “Ultimate Ninja Storm” is exactly like “Heat the Soul” which is exactly like “Dragonball Xenoverse”, minus a few differences.

Sadly, “Saint Seiya: Soldier’s Soul” falls into that same category of flashy 3D fighters, but I’m happy to say that it’s done well enough to definitely warrant the interest of both casual and hardcore “Saint Seiya” fans! First of all, it’s very important to note that this is the first “Saint Seiya” game that allows you to play through the entire story, starting from the tournament arc and finishing up with the Hades arc. And what’s even better is that the story in between the fights is narrated by fully 3D cinematics, which means that even if you know literally nothing about “Saint Seiya” or its story you can learn everything you need to know just from this game. I love it when games do that! By the way, “Hokuto no Ken: Ken’s Rage” does the same thing, just so you know. I told you I’d never stop talking about “Hokuto”! I should’ve titled the blog hokutonoken2014… But I digress!

About 40 characters are playable in both the story mode and in versus mode, which is really cool – I personally didn’t feel like anyone was missing from the roster, so that’s definitely a very good sign. Aside from story mode, you can play in a variety of tournaments and extra battles, against the AI or against your friends. One of my favorite features was the offline tournament mode for up to 8 players, which is something that’s pretty rare in these types of games! But at the end of the day, if you’re not a fan of 3D anime fighters, there’s not much in “Saint Seiya: Soldier’s Soul” that’s going to change your mind. The standard gameplay is the same – do some combos to fill up a meter at the bottom of the screen, then unleash special attacks while trying to avoid an opponent trying to do the same. It’s not exactly “Street Fighter” level of depth, nor is it trying to be. I don’t think you should hold it against it, though – not every fighting game needs to be a perfectly balanced tournament fighter. Sometimes, all we need is a faithful adaptation of a beloved storyline and some awesome sequences!