Hello and welcome to are we there yet? An exploration and Education in anime. I am your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I am an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm a traumatizing anime movie from your childhood that you repressed years ago. brenda mccullough.

Hey, it's the time of year where we dive into our traumas and turn them into entertainment because it's our Halloween episode.

I love spooks.

And joining us today, we have two very special guests. We have two experts on horror from the podcast. I'm horrified. We have allie rayner.

Hello.

And Sam bundage.

Hi, you guys.

Yay.

Woo. We have friends rare for people with an anime podcast.

It's unheard of.

Every time I wrote horrified in my notes, I definitely in my brain was.

Like, ding, we live for you. Knowing our content. We do that in real life too. It's getting annoying to our friends. Yeah. It's like when we heard about how obiwan kenobi in the Star Wars movies actually made the sounds when he was neighbor. It's very similar.

I mean, it's hard not to.

Apparently Laura durn in the newest Star Wars movie was also doing like the laser blast noise, like pew, pew, pew pew. She couldn't stop. And I was like, yeah, who wouldn't?

Yeah, I definitely would.

Yeah. You're paying billions of dollars for special effects. You can cut that out.

Yes.

So speaking of having fun, I guess we have a new movie that we're watching. This is our first anime movie that we're going to be doing on this show. And it is perfect. Blue. This is something I was just searching for spooky Halloween, things that we could do for the show. And this popped up. And I remembered forever ago I had a coworker recommend this to me, but I had no information on it. Does anyone here know anything about it before we go into it?

I had seen cosplay of it, but I didn't ever look up what it was. So not really.

Got you one of those. I know it exists but nothing beyond that.

I know it's an unsettling anime movie from the 90s ish era, I think 97 or so. And that's about all I know. I know people are very disturbed by it. It's not just like basic like jump scare horror or master movie. It's an unsettling movie.

I didn't know it was in the 90s, but that makes me excited. I gave it a quick Google search. Sam, did you give it anything? No. I'm not even 100% on what anime is. So it's really going to me.

Perfect. You're in the right place.

We are working with the same level of knowledge. So that's good.

Perfect.

So yeah. Allie and Sam, do you have any experience? Did you watch anything growing up? Because I know my experience going into the show was mostly whatever was on TV when I was a kid and said, this is a cartoon. That's fine.

Yeah. Is pokemon an anime.

Yes.

Then I'm an expert.

I think that's everyone's gateway.

Yeah. I watched some pokemon. I watched some digimon.

Hell yeah.

But that's about it for me. I think I watched a little bit of well, I've watched some miyazaki movies, which that's anime, right?

Yeah.

Excellent.

Yeah.

And it says it's not, but, I.

Mean, it's hotly debated in my limited knowledge. It really feels like anime. I looked it up and I was like, well, anime is just the Japanese room for animation, so I'm sure you've covered this on the pod already. I was just like, okay, well, then anything in that style? But that also seems kind of narrow minded. But yeah, no, I didn't watch pokemon or any of dragon Ball Z was a big thing at my school, but I didn't watch it. There's one other thing that I did watch that I loved when I was a kid.

Card capture soccer.

I don't see them.

Is avatar, the last serpenter. Is it? I don't think they do that.

I think Brendan wants to fist fight you right now.

Anime is made in Japan.

Oh, God.

In the anime style.

It didn't want to tell, but it's made in America.

Yeah.

Okay. I can hear Brendan with the venom's voice like, yeah.

How dare you not know about this children's cartoon?

I'm the nicer anime expert.

Yeah. I prefer dana's kinder like, actually, it's made in Japan. And brendan's like, yeah, it's made in Japan.

No, I just know it's a big joke on the Internet with avtar being.

Called in anime when absolutely, I'm sure. Big takeaway. We're both anime pure idiots. novices. Yeah, novices. The Internet told me that anime has weird boobs. Agreed.

Oh, yeah.

Is it appropriate for this podcast for me to say that I've come across some porn in this style? Because that's happened. That's fine.

We've come across some porn on this show accidentally.

Good.

So, yeah, finally, the anime idiots outnumber the anime experts this week, so we can finally rise to take over.

The dumb shall inherit it's like anime idiocracy.

So we are going to watch Perfect Blue, and we will be back in just a moment.

It's.

Okay. We just watched Perfect Blue, and I want to sit in the bathtub and scream in the water.

It's not a great feeling. Not a fan of this.

Yeah. Big yikes. Big yikes.

That's a good way of putting it.

Many yikes. Content warning going forward, lots of discussion of sexual assault. So if that's a turn off, I do not blame you.

Can I ask an opening question?

Yeah, sure.

Why is it called Perfect Blue? Okay.

I actually looked this up, and I don't know if we should talk about it later.

We can talk about it later if it makes sense in some way.

Yeah, it kind of ties into color theory and stuff.

Okay. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. Well, that was one thing that people discussed in, like, the ending explained video that I watched, which I definitely what? I didn't watch that.

No, it was so straightforward.

Yeah.

I love how Sam asked, like, an educated question, and I'm like, what in the fresh hell kind of pop group name is cham cham.

At first, I thought it was Chan with an N. That kind of makes sense because that's an honorific in Japan of, like, a friend. Like, oh, that's nice, you know?

No, it's jam.

Wait, I think I got it. It's a mix between Chan and Jam. Like, this is a fresh jam.

Fresh jam.

Jam with your friend. They're your friend. We'll start at the beginning and then see how far we get into explaining what happens, because that goes off the rails real quick, just like the following.

This episode is going to be a little longer.

Yeah, there's a lot to dive into with this.

Yeah, well, you have double the extra dumb opinions, and we have a lot of notes and capital letters. I filled up four pages with me, too.

Six.

Please attach my Google doc to this podcast.

You have, like, a big, sticky note. That's about it.

Wow. Working lean.

I was swept up in the movie. I was just like, oh, man, I sure don't like this, and then kept spiraling further.

Yeah, I would be swept up, and then I'd be like, oh, fuck. I have to wait.

Pause right now. Yeah.

My notes at the end got lesser and lesser because every time I looked down to write something down and looked up, they're in, like, a new location. And I was like, what happened? Oh, gosh.

Like, what? She's waking up again?

Where are we the third time in these two minutes?

I think I wrote at one point, oh, stop revealing. That was just a thought. I had too many reveals.

So, yeah. Let's start at the beginning with the ending performance of our main character, Mima, who is a member of this pop idol group. cham.

Mama.

Cham.

Yeah, I think we need, like, a cham horn. I was a little confused. What was the level of fame that cham had? Were they very famous? Were they entering the pop idol scene? Because she's seemingly she's willing to leave them for one line into TV show. Yeah, because it looks like they're playing to a sparse audience of belligerently, drunk older men, which is confusing to me if they're pop idols.

I actually have a lot of knowledge in Japanese pop idols because I watched a documentary about it. It's very interesting. But there are so many idol groups in Japan because that's just a way for girls to kind of springboard their way into fame or, like, an acting career or, like, an actual music career. Because pop idols aren't necessarily like, they're not really considered, like, musical artists, really. So every pop idol group kind of does have their own following of older men, but I can get into that later. Too.

So idol doesn't really mean, like, they're actually idolized. It just is a stock term. Yeah, okay.

It's just a term.

It does mean that they're idolized. It does not mean they are famously idolized, as we see in this movie.

That's a good way of putting it.

I also watched just a follow up comparing Idol culture to this movie after, and it was saying that, yeah, idols are basically selling themselves as your friend, someone you look up to, like the perfect sister, the perfect daughter, the perfect pure girlfriend that you can give all your money and presents to and pay to see them and meet and greet.

How could this ever go?

There are a lot of big notes referring to this later, so I'll get into it.

But dana's, like, I got to stretch first. Just get ready.

Yeah.

It seems like such a healthy culture. How could anything bad ever come out of that?

Because I was like, oh, if they're so famous, where's all the security? And I was like, oh, no, they're just idolized. Teenage looking girls just dancing their hearts out. No security men everywhere. This is great. Let's keep going with that.

Well, there was security. We do see, like, in the very front row, the guys crouching down in the black jackets with, like, the yellow armbands. Oh, yes, those were the security. But I think they were, like, either volunteer or, like, security for the venue.

And not definitely not the top brass.

Yeah, not pulling their weight, as we see because some hooligans start to get rowdy in this crowd, harassing the performers, throwing stuff on stage and getting into fights in the crowd.

But luckily, there's the spookiest guy I've ever seen.

The creeper from the skinny dude.

Thank God he was there.

Well, we also see earlier he's, like, holding his hand up, kind of holding mima in his hand. Kind of really encapsulating his entire character within that one shot of just like, you know who this guy is and it's not good.

Yeah.

You don't like him?

No.

Yeah.

I mean, just the way he's drawn. Like, you're not supposed to judge a book by his shoulder, but this is the psychological horror anime, and I think the way people are drawn is very indicative of who they are.

This style of animation specifically, really just unsettles me. Like, without even so far, nothing bad has really happened, but I'm already really tense watching this. I find out because the guy who directed this also directed a show called paranoia Agent and just a lot of other psychological trippy stuff. And I just associate this style of animation of his so much with just feeling unnerved and just, like, settled.

So he has a narrow focus.

Yeah, he found his niche and stuck to it.

This is the first movie.

Yes, this is his debut movie.

Well, I think my favorite thing, even beyond the fact that this stalker guy was here and I'm like, okay, I'm intrigued. What's going to happen was that Mima was like this was the whole turning point for her to be like, hey, you guys, I want to be an actress. This is going to be my last show. But she can barely get a fucking sentence out because she's so nervous. And I'm like, use your diaphragm, baby. I don't think the acting career is going to work out if you can't tell people that you're done singing and are ready to act. So that sets me up for like I'm going to be hating and rashing on this protagonist's ability to act. And I don't think that's what the movie is about. But that's what the movie is about for me now.

That's what you've dialed in on.

Now I've made my own choices.

The creepy dude fights off these hooligans in the crowd and sort of they have to call the show early or they try to. But she insists on singing her last song as her farewell. And this farewell song is sort of our anime opening intro. Because it's a movie. I wasn't expecting it, but we do get like a musical number while credits roll.

I got to be honest, I was hoping it was the ending. It wasn't.

Yeah.

I was like, wow, this sure looks like ending credits, but there is an hour and a half left.

This was a spooky movie because they drew a guy with far apart eyes and bad teeth.

Yeah. And then he got a bloody nose and it just made him worse.

Blood never improves anything. We start to cut between this performance and sort of mima's everyday life of just she's a normal girl. When she's not performing, she goes and buys her own groceries. Oh, God. She's just like us.

Relatable content.

People magazine. I do like this sequence, though. We see her, like, at the grocery store and in her apartment. It's just almost no dialogue, I think, for like four or five minutes or so because it does really like without any narrative, it makes you empathize with her. And just seeing like the day to day life, it's like, yeah, I've been there. So we can joke. Oh, she's just like us. But it works in the sense of the movie.

Yeah, I've had fish. I buy milk.

Yeah.

Fucking love milk. mima's my girl.

Yeah.

I do like filling up my bathtub for 45 minutes.

So after the performance, she is leaving, going through all the adoring fans who are saying they're goodbyes. And we hear someone shout out that he's always watching mima's room. And it's sort of brushed aside, sort of a oh, okay, you're a fan. Cool. Got it. But the way in the ground works. Yeah.

We also totally brushed over the three dudes who kind of act as the Greek chorus of this whole movie comparison. Fucking useful time. And I guess they are useful, but they're like, oh, did you hear me as an actress now? And it's like, yeah, no, we just watch that. We're good.

You don't need to tell us. We heard the crowd of people there saying, oh, she's saying goodbye. Don't got it worse.

That I always thought it was weird that we see those guys with a stalker orbiting around them throughout the whole movie and they never seem to pick up. Like, hey, there's this weird guy also kind of stalking us. They never noticed that he's always in the same place as they are.

That's a different anime.

That was the canceled sequel.

Oh, God. I wrote this note a little bit later, but the stalker who I referred to in my notes only as Spooky Guy. Spooky Guy is a full foot taller than anyone else, and he has a deeply fucked up face and no one clocks that. He's always around everywhere. If I saw that guy once, I would be like, I will never forget him. Yeah.

He will haunt my memories for the rest of my life, regardless of whether or not ten years from now, I'm going to look in a corner of a building and I'm just going to see him and I'm going to lose it.

The japanese jason. borges. But yeah, I'm sure he's cool. I'm sure no one's worried about him. He's a fine citizen. What could go wrong?

Someone gives her a love letter.

Yeah, she gets her fan mail as she's walking away from that performance and she's reading through it. And someone also mentions that they are checking in on mima's room and it's unsettling.

Just creepy.

Yeah.

Oh, I totally didn't get it. I thought that they meant like, oh, we're watching you in your room all the time. And she's like and I was like, what the fuck? What are you talking about? Why is that okay? And then I realized later that it's got a url in it or something.

Yeah, it says, I put up a link to mima's room. So I was kind of like, how are you not like, in my notes? In my notes? This is when I wrote, I'm horrified. And then in parentheses, ding. That was when it happened. I was like, this isn't good.

New episodes every Monday.

Sorry.

That seamless plug.

Yeah. I was also wondering, like, this is a big red flag. Do you not get it? But then, like, the next scene, she has to be explained to how the Internet works and what a computer is. And I was like, oh, okay. I got it.

Yeah.

So this movie yeah, let's not gloss over the phone calls she receives.

Oh, yeah, because she's on the phone.

With her mom who has a Southern accent, which I love.

I also have to write that down.

Yeah. Because I guess, like, I watch Terrace House, a Japanese reality show, and they always talk about how, like, oh, I can hear your accent from this region, but I super can't tell.

Right.

So I feel like that's kind of what it was supposed to be like, oh, Mima is from a different region of Japan. She's not originally from Tokyo, so she's, like, down south.

I love that they made that choice, though, to really incorporate, like, a Southern accent to draw that correlation.

Yeah. But while she's on the phone with her mom, she's like, oh, I have.

A call on the other line. Hold on, mom.

And then it's just breathing.

Just darth vader.

Yes.

At which point I was already out. I was like, I can't is this.

Also when she receives a fax?

Yes.

I still don't know what it says.

I had subtitles and the dub going, so it said Trader all over the page.

Oh, man, that changes things for me. I just got chills.

Yeah, that is spooky. It could have been saying, like, the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dots.

I thought maybe it was just more stuff like about mima's room or something. But that makes it so much better in my mind.

Yeah. Especially for old dubs like this. I like to have the subtitles because those tend to be the literal translation while the spoken words are adapted. So I can just see how things shifted in the translation process of the dub. So, yeah, luckily, I got that up.

Well, that's like how when I was watching it and I was mentioning Sam, like, oh, is this girl's name rumi or do in Japan? That's her roommate. And she just is referring to her as, like, hey, roomy. Like, oh, my God, look at this. Maybe this is, like, a Lost in Translation moment for me. And then I was like, no, I'm a fucking idiot. That's just her name.

No, I thought the same thing. I was like, well, she lives alone. Why does she call her roomy? But then I figured it out.

Yeah. And nothing dates a movie better than a fax machine. Just that sweet window in late 80s or early ninety s of, like, five, six years.

Yeah. Or having to explain the Internet to somebody.

Yeah. This movie feels like it's a period piece where it's like, oh, look at all this old technology. But it's like, ooh, the cutting edge. The Internet browser. Do you know what that is? No. Do I? Double click, please.

She says that one.

Yeah. This movie came out originally in, I think, 97, and then in the Us. It came out in, like, 99.

So celebrating its 20th anniversary next year.

Oh, jeez. Oh, God. That was 20 years ago. So, yeah. She gets this fax, and then the next day is she on set for the we find out as a TV show. But I didn't find that out until the very end of the movie.

Oh, yeah, she's a TV show or a movie. It's a cop drama.

Yeah. Because it's airing as they're filming it because a letter happens during when it's airing.

Yeah, because in that first scene of them on set, they showed the writer and he's like, oh, I still don't know who the killer is yet. Got to figure it out. Which would be catastrophic for a movie.

Yeah, that's true.

Just writing it as you go.

Well, is it a spoiler at this point to say, oh, well, he never finds out because he gets super shot. Is that later?

Is that magic? Yeah, he eats it.

I think it's later, though. I think it's post rape scene.

Yes.

Oh, God.

Because I think that's initially what causes his death.

It's the backlash from him writing that, right?

Yeah, exactly.

I don't know if it was intentional, but the show he's writing is called Double Blind and then both of his eyes are stabbed out.

It's called double bind, which actually fuck.

Never mind. You were so close.

Could you just go fuck yourself for 1 minute?

I don't know if any of you know what a double bind is.

No, I don't.

Great. It comes into play a little later, but I'll just explain, like the general thing of it now. A double bind is when someone is presented with two things that are impossible to do together, but they're expected to do them together.

That's pretty perfect for this movie then, because of the again, maybe spoilers, but we've all seen it. Yeah, we've all seen like, neither can live while the other survives kind of situation.

Well, so the main double Bind that I've heard of all the time is that women are expected to be pure and virginal, but that at the same time expected to be sexually knowledgeable.

Right.

So if we think about it from like an idle perspective, that's true. That's exactly what they're expected to do.

I've actually heard because jpop and kpop groups getting so much more popular, like, I've heard in News and Rumors, there's some kpop group that actually got two people got fired because there was a boy group and a girl group. And they started dating and they're like, okay, cool. You guys are dating, your contracts are done, you're fired, you're out of the group and you're dead to us. Because you have to promote that idea of like, I'm single and could potentially be your dream girlfriend or boyfriend.

Yeah, and I'm also pure. I'm not doing anything dirty. I think Disney has similar things because when we did an episode about purity rings and I'm horrified, sam was mentioning a little bit about what did you say about the Disney the Disney brothers? disney's trying to because they really lost out with brittany and Justin and all of them because they became adults. And then they started seeing sexy music that wasn't Disney brand anymore. So Disney couldn't capitalize on them. But now they have it like with the craze of purity rings, it was like this perfect. Not only is Nick jonas so hot, but he's not fucking. So you don't have to be worried that he's a bad example for your kids and we can keep him even as he ages because look at this ring on his finger. It was like Disney wet dream that people started wearing purity ring.

His astronauts is so hot that's like.

Exactly what idols do. They do sign a contract that they do have to be single. And if they do have a relationship, it can't be public because like Brendan said, they have to maintain this persona of like, I could be yours and I could be yours forever. I'm your girlfriend. You can think that I'm your girlfriend and that's okay. That's what I'm for.

Nothing bad will happen.

It was a short doc. I'll post a link to it in the description. It was comparing idle culture to this movie. And they had an example of a girl group that was singing and even artistically, it bleeds in where the lyrics were, I'm as pure as the day I was born. I will be pure while I'm still a school girl. And I'll be pure forever. Yeah.

Bye.

Yeah, not great Labor Day. So yeah. Even beyond just their persona, artistically, they're all about, I'm pure. I'm a clean virgin girl.

Yeah, cool. That's what the double bind is. And that's the name of the show she's on.

I'm so glad that I have that sound bite of Patrick dugan saying, I'm a clean virgin girl.

Everyone make it your ringtone.

Yeah. So she's on a show called Double Bind, and now we know what a double bind is.

Thank you, dana. Oh, my God.

You're welcome.

We have experts here for a reason.

I know. I'm so glad. I feel like I'm wandering around in the desert with this movie.

We'll find a cactus eventually, so that.

Makes it better.

In this she has one line on this TV show and her agents are like, what the hell? She threw away a singing career for one line? That's bullshit. Okay, whatever. But on the set, she gets some fan mail and in it there is a small explosive device that her agent opens and just destroys his hand. I don't know if it was translated for you guys, but since I had the subtitles up, the letter read like this was just a small taste of what's to come.

Oh, we didn't I had no idea.

Yeah. This is the warning shot, so watch yourself.

You miss your hands, you're going to miss a lot more. Wow.

Yeah.

Well, that's what you get for opening someone else's mail.

That's true. He shouldn't have opened her mail.

He spends the rest of the movie in jail for federal crime.

This movie was funded by the federal postal service.

I watched a little YouTube, like, I guess, video essay you call him, about the perfect blue after this. And in the video, the guy talks about how this is a very real thing that actually happened during the creation of this movie. It happened with the icelandic singer of bjork. She had a very obsessive fan in Florida who was just completely enamored with her and tried to send her a hollowed out book, like, as a package. And when you open up the book, it would spray sulfuric acid. And he tried to either, like, burn her or kill her with it and then killed himself so they could be in heaven together.

Jesus.

This was happening in, like, 96. So this would be during the production of this movie, like, when it's happening in real time.

Jesus. I'm just thinking this was the perfect episode for you guys to come, because this is about a very real thing.

That happens, and it's megaphone. And that's the thing which is our essential bread, butter, if you will.

It's what everything comes back to.

Good.

Yeah. But rumi is kind of just like.

It was a prank.

He's okay now. His hands are just bleeding.

Fine.

Don't worry about it.

Fine. Nothing else is going to happen, Mima. I'm just going to set up your Internet and you'll be fine.

I was infuriated that it was like, no, we don't have to call the police about this. It was just a bomb and a letter.

Yeah, just a small murder attempt.

But now, in hindsight, after seeing the ending, it makes sense why she so easily brushes this off of like, yeah, don't worry about it.

Oh, I guess you're right. I just realized that Brendan coming in.

Because I did write down it's a prank. I'm like, what the fuck? Someone just sent you a bomb. That's not a prank. It's a big deal.

Even after people start dying, both of her agents are kind of just like, don't worry about it. You don't have to be worried about it, Mima. Nothing is going to happen to you.

It's idle culture.

Honey, does your dial up work yet?

Rumi sets up her Internet and explains it all to her, and then Mima uses the opportunity to go to this mima's Room blog.

I respect that, though, because if I got a computer for the first time, I would absolutely Google myself first thing.

Yeah. I feel like especially in the 90s, especially if you're at all popular, like, she was, why wouldn't you look yourself?

I really can't wrap my mind around I get that the Internet is a novice to her and everyone, but she was kind of giggling as she was reading it like, oh, that's so me. I do go to the grocery store and it's like, what are you doing? Why are you not blindly terrified right now? Do you know what I mean? I couldn't wrap my head around how casual she was about all of it, but I guess maybe if the Internet is new, she's like, oh, that's so cute. I love it. And then later on, she's like, wait, how do they know all this? But from the. Get go before they knew about the fish food brand and stuff like that. The second somebody started writing as me, I would be a little bullshit.

Yeah. I mean, this terrified me, horrified me. Only because I hadn't a few years ago, it was 2015, my Instagram was public, and I received a text message from someone. It said, Is this dana? And I was actually expecting a text from someone who didn't have my phone number. So I said, yes, is and then they said, hello, my name is Billy. I follow your Instagram and I think you're really pretty.

No.

Yeah. So I said, how did you get this number? And he never texted me back. Thank you, Billy. But it was at that point I made my Instagram private. And it's public now because I cosplay and stuff and I like people to see it. But things are so public, and this is just the beginning of that. And I know this wasn't meant to be commentary on social media because obviously there was no social media.

It's a primitive form of that of everyone. I mean, that kind of what is it? Chat forums and chat rooms were the kind of beginning of that sort of weird troll culture. And so I think it totally ties into that.

Well, like the video I watched, they said, this is why Perfect Blue is terrifying and in the video. And it's only getting more terrifying every year the more we delve into social media. This is back in 97, where it wasn't that big of that common of a thing. Most people didn't have the Internet. But now, today, and especially with social media, it's so much more common and terrifying that someone could just impersonate you. And even I had, like, a weird instance where I accidentally impersonated someone. It was like an anonymous forum where he just didn't have a username. And I just posted a comic from an artist. I like, a little web comic. I was like, hey, this is cool. And it was like a little slice of life about her daily life, like, with her cat or something. And they're like, oh, wow, I never saw that one before. Did you just make that? Are you that artist? I was like, no, no, no. I'm like, I just I found it off her page. I can link to you exactly where I got it. They're like, no, I never saw this before. You must have just drawn it. You're that person.

I was like, no, Brendan didn't know the power that he has.

I kept doubling down on it. I was like, oh, no. And I just bailed out. But they thought I was that person, and it started getting real weird real fast.

Yeah, well, there you go.

We just did an episode on gamergate with a former colleague of ours, or mentor of ours who wrote a play about it and did a lot of research and worked with some of the people who were affected by gamergate. And before we posted the episode, he told us he was like, I want you to change every password you have. I want you to overhaul everything. I don't want to use the hashtag. It's very important that you guys think about your safety, because some of the people that he had worked with had been doxed, and it was insane. It was really wild, the kind of lengths that people will go to even when they're just bored. So you can imagine the kind of lengths that somebody would go to when they're obsessed with you.

Angry.

Yeah, it's terrifying.

So was this movie.

Yeah. She's like, oh, this is just like me. Wouldn't you be weirded out if you found out someone was impersonating you online?

I think at first she saw it as just like a little maybe like a kid pretending like, oh, if I was an idol, I'd like to be like, mima and all this. It's like, this is funny. But then once it got to the personal information of like, this is the food I buy from this store, within that scene, she very quickly realizes, like, oh, no, someone's watching me.

The movie is just, oh, no.

Yeah, just like the specificity of like, this is the fish food brand I buy. This is the milk. I like, I took a left foot out of the train rather than a right foot.

Oh, my God.

About that.

That's the spookiest bit.

Yeah, that was the moment where she.

Was like, you see her the next time she's on the train. Like, hesitate when she's getting out. Like, remembering that, thinking like, someone's watching me right now. And it's when she runs out, we overhear someone say, are all those psycho thrillers made in Japan turn out like that? She's like, ooh, that met a joke.

Well, that was that Greek chorus, right? Those three dudes?

Yeah, they were talking about how boring Double Bind is. Probably going to be genius.

And the entire audience is like, I mean, we're with you. We're with you still.

But now she's kind of, like, scared all the time.

Yeah, I got into it at this point. I was ready to keep watching at this point, honestly, because I was like, I need to know how to I.

Don'T know at what point this was, but he was there. Spooky man was there. And I just wrote, I don't like that guy. I don't like him one bit.

Voice of the people.

I don't like that same I am.

Yeah, anytime I wrote him, like, I didn't even have to call him Spooky guy. I just knew who I was talking with.

A capital H. Oh, God.

I just wrote down cd for creepy dude.

Nice.

Perfect.

Wait, I thought him was powerpuff Girls also.

That pretty good, corollary same energy season.

Yeah, these shows are all the same.

I like him from powerpuff Girls. A little better than this guy.

I like him much more than this guy. And him is literal satan in that world.

That's true.

But quick nonsense. Are we at the point after she starts filming this stuff where Cham gets their hit single or not? Is that now?

Yeah.

So my next note is actually, her friends are more successful without her.

I had a note about the hurtful on the nose dialogue that they were like, oh, I guess we're doing so well as a toothsome. And she's like, right fucking there.

And I'm like, that's her script just.

Rude for people who've worked together for, like, years, apparently.

I guess they just never liked her. Or maybe they just don't like her now because she decided to go off and try something new, do important work. But it is at this point she finds out in the show she has to do a rape scene.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Since she only had one line previously, her agents have been fighting for her to get more screen time and more exposure to really transition into an acting career. So that turns into, well, we can have the character be central if she agrees to do this rape scene.

Oh, and right before that, there's actually that part where it kind of plays with the audience's brain because she's walking down the street and a man comes up to her and says, you're beautiful. Have you ever thought about being a model? I can make you a model. And she goes, a model. And I was like, Mima, no. And then they like, zoom out because.

I would have bought then they yelled, cut. And it's like, oh, this is part of the part of the yeah.

And I feel like that's kind of the beginning of like, oh, no.

Yeah. It's the first taste into losing what's reality and what's the TV show and what's going on.

Yeah. rumi is super not into the idea of Mima doing this scene. But Mima is like, hey, we asked for more. If this is what I have to do, I'll do it. It's not like they're actually going to rape me. And I was like, don't jeez yourself.

She also said that very cavalierly. It's not like they're actually going to rape me. And I was like, wow, this is a tone. This is a choice. But I also loved I Not Loved Opposite of Love, how the cinematographer or whoever that was was like, oh, you know, I'd actually prefer to shoot this in a real strip club. But because of what we're filming, the strip club won't let us. And I'm like, bitch. A strip club won't let you film this.

If you're too sketchy for a strip club, then maybe question your filming choices.

Yeah.

And I mean, this was a TV show. Like, what time was this airing? What network was this?

Yeah. What kind of fucking HBO does Japan have that they can air for?

Because Japan we've kind of talked about this in our urian Ice episode about showing just intimacy. It's so hard to get that approved in Japan, let alone this.

That's what surprised me. That's why I thought this was a movie for a long time, because in that scene, it's also a horrific scene, but the guy is also saying, like, fuck and bitch and cursing and stuff. And I was like, Is this TV? This can't be TV. You want to allow this on TV? So it has to be a movie. But then we see that it's like a serialized show. So I'm just like, what is this? Law and order? svu japan is way worse.

This is actually maybe a good time to talk about the context of the scene in the movie. Out of the movie. Yes. So there's, like, a conversation we could have about where this fits into the movie itself and the narrative. And then then there's a conversation we could have about like, is it necessary to have this gratuitous of a rape scene in this film to get this point across as a psychological thriller?

Or is this do you mean in.

Perfect blue imperfect blue itself? Yeah. In the movie that we watched as human beings, like, was it necessary for it to be that gratuitous, to move this plot forward?

Yeah, it it went on for a.

Really long time, and I think no, but I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks, because I also think that 99% of the time, you don't need to show that much of a sexual assault. And the 1% that you do, it should be in the hands of female creators or non binary creators or survivors. Absolutely not. Right. Because it's a male writer and director.

I think in the context of the movie itself, I think it's just more of that whole turning point. And, like, what's reality and how is this affecting nema? Because in the beginning of the scene, she's like, this is fine. This is absolutely fine. But then the more it goes on for us as an audience and for Mima, it just fucks us up more and more.

So it's focusing on her still in this situation, which I think is good.

Yeah. And I do think rape scenes are always gratuitous and never necessary. But if you think about it from a psychological thriller perspective, I don't know. I don't know.

Because there is definitely a way they could have done this scene to make it more impactful and less gratuitous.

Yeah, I think that's what I was trying to get at, for sure.

Yeah. We get shots, like, from her perspective as this scene is going on, and it really puts you in her position of, this is what I need to do as an actor now. And we understand that from just her looking up at the lights and seeing the guy on top of her, and he's like, I'm so sorry. And she's like, it's fine. We're acting.

But it's like, that was way more powerful. That was way more powerful to me than the kind of sexualized shock of the pits that were happening.

Yeah, we didn't need any nudity. We didn't need it to go on for five years.

Yeah. So those little pieces and it's like later in the more actually violent sexual assault scenes, there's still, like, sexy flashes of her body. And I'm like, all right, I'm seeing some voyeurism right now. I'm just going to put that down.

This is supposed to be, like, the horrific peak of the movie, and you're still using it to show boobs. Use every opportunity in this film to show nudity. We understand.

Yeah.

We're on to you.

We see you.

I think for the show, for the double bind show, it was excessive, and they could definitely gone with just, like, implied cut away. And even if they were going to do that in editing, you didn't need to film all of it. But I think for this movie, because it has that explicitly horrific, it's just the assault scene later with the stalker, it's a lot of illusions and cuts backs to that original scene on the movie set. And they needed to show a lot of similarities because we're losing that break in reality where she can't differentiate anymore. So it's kind of like trying to confuse the viewer of saying, like, is this assault scene actually happening? Or is she remembering the movie scene from earlier that she can no longer differentiate reality? Because when that happens, it's pretty far into her psychosis of her brain. So I think that those two scenes needed to have a lot of similarities and parallels. If it needed to be that gruesome, I'm not sure. But they had to be similar with whatever they did in those scenes. But I always thought, like, one note I had is, I don't think anything in this movie is sexy. I didn't find anything sexy about this.

Well, yeah, it's not sexy to me. I'm not turned on. But I think it's like when I watch it, when I was watching the arcs of her back and really just kind of putting on my critic's eye and being like, what kind of visuals are coming across here? Just the way that she was positioned and staged. And even when she's running away from somebody at some point, I don't pant in a sexy way when I'm running from somebody who's trying to murder me. And you could say, like, oh, it's not, like, sexual to me, but there's something objectively sexual about and sexualized about it. And I think that there is just like, that ickiness factor for me. And that's like me as kind of criticizing the movie as a watcher rather than going in and saying, like, well, what's actually happening in the narrative? And it's like, well, in the narrative, obviously it's not sexy. But it's like, well, then why is this kind of film of sexiness over it, and that's something that's in every Law and Order svu. Do you know what I mean? Like, every, like, gritty, aggressive cop drama sometimes there's, like, this weird film of sexuality over it, and my question is why? But it's not like a yes or no thing. I'm just always kind of curious about it. And I think this is so new for me because I never watch anime and I'm like, oh, there's so much you can do and so many choices that you make about how the positioning and the animation of the characters, especially the female characters, are. And it makes me think a lot about the women in video game series that we watched anita sarkisian's work on feminist frequency, like, talking about women in video games and how animated women are staged in certain positions in video games. And it just has given me kind of things to look out for in terms of, like, all right, well, what physical positions are people in? How are they breathing? How are they talking? How are they positioned? Like, all that kind of stuff. And I think that that's something that I just kept thinking about as I was watching this movie.

Yeah, that's definitely something in anime, especially anime dubbing is like, as you mentioned, the sexy panting while running is when I'm running.

I'm like, it sounds so horrible.

In, like, every anime, the sounds are never just like it's always like, that.

Was a perfect time.

We just watched a very cutesy romantic comedy, and whenever the girl runs, it's very borderline sexual and it's a little bit disturbing.

Give me your best Daniel pants hat. I want to hear it.

Okay.

I'm upset.

There's another ringtone for you all.

That's kind of what I was thinking, though. If, like, this was bordering on that line of excessively sexualized, I didn't see it. But I was also, like I said, I was very quickly swept up into the story, so I wasn't looking at it with as analytical of an eye, at least for my first viewing of it. But I think this movie did it, unfortunately more tastefully than a lot of anime does.

We're bumped out there.

Absolutely.

So let that be a warning if you want to watch any more anime.

Yeah, it's just like, this is done pretty well as far as an anime movie we go, so unfortunately, there's a lot worse.

Oh, no. Well, let's move on. rumi's crying roomy is crying and leaving, and then the sleazy producer is like, why don't I treat you to a nice meal since you've been working so hard? And she's like, yay, that's right.

That did turn out okay.

I know. I was like, she didn't have a nice meal, but I guess she just did get dinner.

I was really worried.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah. Once she returns to her apartment after this scene, she sees that, oh, no, she forgot to feed her fish, and they died. And this is sort of the breaking point for her. And this is where she flips out and has the delayed emotional response of going through this traumatic scene and just shouting and screaming, I didn't actually want to do it. I needed to do it, and sort of actually showing that this isn't okay. She's not happy having simulated rape on top of her, and she sort of destroys her apartment in the process. And then we see the fish are still alive, and this is just another psychotic break for her.

And I think this is the first time that she sees her cham idol self start to communicate with her.

There's a very quick moment in the train where she's, like, looking at her reflection, and pop idol Mima says, I don't want to do it, but that's super quick. But, yeah, this is where she, like, sees her affection. And her computer, it comes in hard.

At this point, and she's like, I'm a pop idol, but you're just a whore god. And I'm pretty sure that that's verbatim.

I love it.

Yeah, I think that's a nice I.

Think that's a pull quote.

Yes, we see creepy dude in his abode, whatever it is, his closet.

Little Wade closet.

The rape scene has aired at this point, I suppose, because he's very mad about it. He is very unhappy. So he makes a blog post on the mima's Room blog and essentially says that the Mima that's doing double bind is an imposter. I wrote this quote. The real Mima is writing this. No one likes a pop idol with a tarnished reputation.

Yeah. So he's very much disapproving of this career choice. He's writing that it's all the writer's fault for writing this horrific scene. And this is unbecoming that the real mimo would never do this. Only an imposter would do this.

Yeah. And this was the point where I started writing down all of the stuff about the double bind, because he says, no one likes a pop idol with a tarnished reputation. And I think that's when, in my mind, it really starts coming into play, the whole idea of a double bind.

This is the point for me, and I think it's supposed to be this, but as an audience member, I started to get very confused about who was writing the mima's Room blog, because sometimes it's like, mima's reading it, and she's like, no, I didn't write that. But then I want to be like, Girl, you weren't writing any of it, were you? And then sometimes the spooky guy is reading it, but it looks like he's writing it, but is he? And then later, it's like he's receiving a message. And I think it was on purpose to kind of have us all be feeling like, who is like, the Mima in mima's Room? And then that's the big reveal at.

The end his mouth. He'll be reading the blog posts back to himself and they do it in mima's voice. But his mouth will be moving.

Yes.

Symbolism.

Yeah.

It's definitely intentional.

Yeah. I think it's really interesting how they mix up, like, who's doing what because it really establishes to the audience you don't know who Mima is as much as Mima doesn't know who Mima is. And it's just really powerful to just have that confusion and all these different narratives and who's the real personality. Is there an imposter? Are there multiple imposters? What's going on? And it just I have goosebumps. Yeah.

Really good. I really like it.

I think it's when the waking up all of a sudden starts to kick into high gear. And I wrote down the what was yesterday quote. And at first I was like, lol. And then I was also feeling like, she doesn't know. She doesn't know. She's like you were here. I don't even know anymore. And I have an audience member. I'm like same girl. I have no idea where we are. So I think from a filmmaking perspective, I really was with her.

Yeah. I thought there was, like, a glitch in the video yeah.

With the cake.

Because the exact same thing happened. And I was like, Wait a minute. Hold on. And then rumi was like, I was here yesterday. And I was like, okay, we are also going crazy. Cool.

Yeah. This is a very good point where it shows that this isn't like, a mystery movie where it's like, oh, try and figure out who the killer is before it's revealed at the end. This is kind of like memento or Fly Club where this is a psychological movie where you are kind of in the perspective of the main character and all of your information is tinted in this bias from their point of view. So it's as inconsistent for us as it is for them. I know. For me, I always try and figure out the ending before it happens. And in the movie like this, there's really no way you can or reasonably should because the information you're getting that would hint at who the killer is. It's skewed, and you're not getting the right information. It's slanted in some way. And this is where it's just like the movie is supposed to be very jarring and confusing and disorientating because you're supposed to be in the position of Mima. Like, you're supposed to be in her shoes and as confused as she is. As hard as it was to follow, that was their intention, and they did it well because it was hard to follow.

But I think this is also around the time we get our first murder. We love murder. Love a good crime.

Yeah. So the screenwriter pulls up into the parking lot and there's blood all over his parking sign and he's like, what the hell? And then there is ominous jp, which is lasting an aesthetic ominous jpop.

I assumed that was Cham playing. Is that wrong?

It was yeah.

I'm following the movie.

Yeah, you're catching on. So he goes to the elevator, and the elevator doors open and the boom box is in the elevator. And I really like how loud it was. I was like, oh, damn.

Distorted.

I was wearing my headphones while watching it because I was just watching it on my phone. And I was like I thought that was such a cool choice to actually make it distorted and not just loud.

And I think it's a sign that the killer's worst crime is playing music loudly in public.

Agree.

Everything else is, no one wants to hear your music.

Don't do it.

Yeah. So he decides to go in the elevator or gets dragged in. We don't really see. But then we do see that he has been murdered and both of his eyes have been gouged out.

Yeah. My last note on a page, it says, lol, goodbye, eyes. We watched it together and she was like, yikes. Goodbye, eyes.

It was at this point that I was like, things have gone from, like, spooky to horrifying real fast. This is now terrifying.

And I like that the TV show just keeps on shooting. They're just like, all right, let's wrap scene. I'm like, hey, the writer was just not, like, died in a car accident, like, horrifically early murdered. I would be out of this project immediately.

Yeah, it's not great. And mima's in the car with is it the agent she's with?

Yeah, I think her male agent.

Yeah. And they're like, oh, it's fine. They'll sort it out. There's no way it's related to, I don't know, the bombing that was directed towards you.

The fact that they said that this was just a taste of what you're going to get and basically told you this was going to happen. Yeah.

That changes this. Especially knowing that.

And he even says, oh, don't be sad, just smile. And it immediately looks pretty when you smile.

And then how quickly does the second murder happen? I feel like it happens pretty quickly afterwards. No, something in the middle there, is there's? The nude photoshoot happens. Oh, yes. Yes, that happens.

That's what I was going to mention, which I was to do. Who talks about it? Is it her former former Chance Girl group? They say, like, oh, he's notorious for getting girls clothes off. And while it was happening, I was like, no. If you feel empowered by it, okay, mima, if you feel pressured into it.

No, but that was my whole question, was like, it wasn't like, nude photos that she took for herself and then kept them on her phone or something like that. She was very clearly in, like, an editorial nude photo shoot. And then when they came out yeah. And then when they came out, she was like, no. And of course, I don't want anyone's naked body to be somewhere without their permission. But it was, like, so clearly an editorial photo shoot. And I'm like, what was this for? Was this just an editorial nude photo shoot for you to have private nude photos of yourself, or did you not?

Who was this guy?

Of course they would be published somewhere if it was a photo shoot. So that confused me, I must say. But I'm on her side if she didn't want them out there even afterwards.

Sure.

Because, like, there are, like, the tasteful nudes that you'll see and just Big Magic, vanity Fair. Yeah, everything's covered. But you can tell they're not actually wearing clothes. But these were just straight up, like, porn shots kitties out. Also very gratuitous for this scene.

Yeah. Long shots of just her getting photographed naked. But it's like, even today, even if you were trying to rebrand Mima as like, mima is a sexy actress now. She's no longer a pop idol. Why would her full vagina be in the shot? You don't need to go pussy out to react. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I just read a book, actually, where in one of the chapters, the author covered, like, Disney stars and their transition into not being a Disney star anymore. And it was around the time that miley cyrus was having her transition.

Ooh.

So they talked about, like, when she was 1516, she did, like, a nude photo shoot with vanity Fair. And when it came out, she was like, oh, I didn't know it was going to be like this. Oh, sorry. She's Southern.

I didn't know.

But I guess that's kind of a similar thing as to what happens with Mima. Like, when it comes out, she's like, oh, God, yeah.

Could you make the case that it's for the double bind of they get the new photo shoot out there so they can promote it as sexy for this very sexualized show where they had a race.

Exactly.

But then she's on. How could it be like this? Like trying to faux pretend to be embarrassed.

We're sociologists.

Mima is actually fine with it. She's like, my tips look amazing.

So she gets real upset. And that's when she screams in a bathtub.

Which big mood I respect.

A huge mood.

Oh, and we see Spooky guy.

He buys that was so crazy.

One, I couldn't tell if it was I think it's twofold, I couldn't tell if it was like, nobody gets to see this, or if it was like.

I want no, it still felt like the former. I feel like what makes it scarier is that he was like, no, nobody look at her. Nobody look at her.

That feels I must keep you safe.

Because you're my perfect level. pristine.

Well, that's what's kind of creepy with the obsessed fan of bjork that I mentioned earlier. When he decides on this, he starts recording himself and has, like 22 hours long videos, like a bunch of videotapes where he. Films, like an off video diary. And he says in it like he's explicitly not sexually attracted to bjork. It's not a sexual relationship. He doesn't dream of having sex with her, he's just in love with her. And it's like, oh, that somehow makes it crappy.

In the documentary I watch. It's called Tokyo Idol. It was on Netflix. I don't know if it still is, but it's really good. They follow a guy who he's like in his fifty s, and he is obsessed with this one girl in this one idol group. And he fully knows he's not delusional. He knows that he's never going to be with her, but his devotion to her is so strong that he got a divorce.

Yikes.

Or maybe it was either he got a divorce or he was in a very serious relationship of many years and they broke up.

Sounds like somebody out there dodge a bullet. I have to say.

Yeah, I was going to say goodbye.

But so that is part of it. They know they're fully cognizant of the fact that they'll never be with them, but they're just like so devoted to them that they just devote their lives to it.

Yeah. And going into even the creepy dude just buying all these magazines. In the video I watched, there was a clip of a fan who was saying, I've spent thousands of dollars buying presents and concert tickets and all of this. I could have bought my own apartment. Not rent, but bought it. But I chose to spend all my money on this group that I love so much.

That's kind of like stan culture now. I follow a girl who is a trixie mattel stan, and I see all these tweets that she likes, and these people, they say, like, oh yeah, trixie mattel messages me on Twitter and stuff, and they'll respond to trixie mattel's tweets as if they're friends. But when it comes down to it, he would never hang out with them if they weren't paying for it. They pay to go see his concerts. They pay for the meet and greets.

It's weird. When we were covering you did this segment too, sam Jake and Logan Paul. We talked about their fan base and how you have these 13 year old girls who would comment in the morning, in the evening, like, good morning, baby. Like, good night, baby, like, miss you so much. Like they were their girlfriends. Yeah. Which like, what big what?

It's kind of like in line with the massive amount of advertisement and getting people invested in something. And that's why there's so many reboots and remakes of movies and stuff. Because it's like, oh, people are already fans of this, already invested, so we can make more money off of this. But now we're seeing, especially with social media, it's transitioning into people into their lives, and not just fictional stories. But people have always been weirdly obsessive with the worst kinds of people. The Boston bombing, two kids, the one that got sent to jail, there was a bunch of teenage girls sending in letters saying, Release them.

And that conversation is a Rolling Stone cover, too.

Yeah, there was a guy known as the Beautiful Prisoner, where he was, like, in jail, I think, for, like, attempted homicide or some pretty brutal crimes. And women are writing in saying, like, he's too beautiful to be in prison and all this. And he actually got a modeling job once he got out of prison.

I know about that guy. He's like a lie now. Exactly.

And he's got, like, teardrop tattoos saying, like, yeah, I murdered someone in jail.

Like, this is too much.

He's a bad boy and I can fix him.

We could go so old school, though. Like Jeffrey dahmer, certified babe in some people's minds, right?

Yeah.

People love that.

Charles manson had, like, a 25 year old wife. So he died.

Yeah.

So I think there's always been this, like, with stan culture. I still don't understand what stan means, but it just seems like obsessive fan.

Or just very passionate fan.

That's how I think of it.

I thought it was stalker fan.

Yeah, stalker fan. It's based off an eminem song.

Then why do people call themselves like we do?

Oh, my God.

So I think that's been an issue. It's always been a problem with people and being clinging to something and making a part of their identity and being obsessed with it. But now we're at this new level with social media and youtubers.

You can have it every day.

Twitter, Storm. Like, people are famous for just being themselves or this personification of themselves. And now people are much, much more being obsessed with this avatar people curate and customized to fit the exact need and mold.

Right.

So like I said, with more social media, this movie is getting much, much more relevant with every passing day. And it's terrifying.

Well, like, if somebody's daily vlogging, tweeting, instagramming, they have a Facebook page, I would interact with them more than I interact with my mom. Do you know what I mean? Like, if I'm following yeah, I would have way more interacting with them than anyone else.

Yeah, they feel very available.

Yikes.

They're not actually. They're never going to talk to you, but you can imagine that they will. And that's what you hold out hope for.

Or get a hobby. Take a nice brisk walk outside. knit a sweater.

Do knit.

Anything else? Yeah, anything else. Can we talk about the second murder? Can we talk about the pizza murder? Now?

Let's just wrap up the narrative because it gets so non linear, so distorted between fantasy and reality. Let's sort of just briefly summarize the end just so we can talk about everything together, so we're not trying to.

Get back to it.

This is an enigma of a storyline, so I don't want to spend eight more hours pretending to know how.

Give us a clean wrap up.

She goes to the radio station where the cham girls that are still in the band are doing a little radio show saying, hey, come to our show. And this is where we get a full fledged delusion of fantasy. mima sort of taunting her and saying, oh, there's so much better without you. To the point where real life mima needs to chase her out of the building as she skips away, taunting her about how she sucks now. And we get lots of flashes with the TV show and how the narrative of that is starting to influence life or vice versa.

The pizza murder.

Oh, yeah, that's the pizza murder. Yeah, we get the pizza murder where the male agent of mima is stabbed many times. I know.

It's the photographer.

Oh, the photographer. Excuse me.

Because her nude photos are, like, spliced through the whole thing.

Yeah, that's right. My bad.

Get with him.

Yeah. He is stabbed all over, including I needed to note he was stabbed in the dick.

Yes.

I enjoyed that as some revenge.

Good for her.

But was it her? Who was it?

It's hinted. Did she do it? Did the character in the show do it? Did she get her revenge for being exposed? Was it just the narrative plot of the show and she can't tell what reality is anymore. And they start to talk about on the TV show, the character has disassociative identity disorder where they have multiple personalities and cannot differentiate what is real, what is fake, which personality is what. And all that fun stuff, juicy stuff.

Yeah, I made a quick note. So she's an idol trying to be an actress, trying to be a normal girl on a show who is trying to be an idol who's trying to be an actress. It's her real life is her character in the show. But then her character in the show also has this personality disorder. So, like, no wonder she's so fucking confused because she's playing, like, two versions of her life but then a third version, which is just her public life. So, like, my God.

Yeah. A hard day for mima.

It gets rough. It's hard to separate work life and personal life sometimes. But this is a new degree.

This is ridiculous.

Then they eventually wrap the TV show.

It is wrapped, and she's still having these delusions even though she's not on it. And we have the creepy dude finally attacks and it sort of comes out of nowhere. It seems. This is at the point where my notes are very sparse, but, yeah, it seems to be very out of the blue. The parallels between the film drape scene and this attempted attack. It's also the finale of the show. Yeah, it cuts to her, like, hitting him in the head with a hammer. And he goes down and dies with a very comical chuckle as he just collapses happening there. Yeah, but then they cut to the set and everyone's like, that's a wrap. We finished the show.

So it happened in school.

You got the murderer. Yeah. It's not made clear. Did that actually happen in real life? Can she not separate work from her real life anymore? Was she actually attacked? It's not super made clear. And then we get to she's back at her apartment, and the pop idle fantasy mima attacks.

I'll say after the assault attack against her, like in the finale of the show, rumi takes her back and says, I'm going to take you back to mima's room.

Yeah. And you're like what? And then also, it quickly flashes to an office in the building, and both her male manager and spooky Guy are there, like, stabbed with screwdrivers. So then the question is, well, then it wasn't spooky Guy masterminding all of this then, because he was busy trying to rape and murder somebody, so he couldn't have murdered this other guy. And then Rumi takes her back and the room looks exactly like hers. But she opens the window and sees, no, this is just a room that's designed to look exactly like her room.

Because the poster is still up and.

Her fish are still on. Yes, because at the very beginning, she takes down her Chan poster because she's like, guess I'm not a pop idol anymore. And when she wakes up, the Chan poster is still up. And moreover, she opens the window and it's a different view.

Okay, I thought it was like a tile thing.

She opens the window and it's a different view. This is confirmed on wikipedia that she gets to she gets to of her own room. Her apartment didn't have a train going past that. Who has made for their own purposes? Anyone? yay.

So I don't know if I missed it earlier, but it's now established that Rumi was also a former pop idol.

Wait, what?

They mentioned it.

I saw that on wikipedia, but I didn't get it in the movie. How is that established?

They say it. Someone says it to her. They're like, I know you were a failed pop idol. So I think the male agent says that.

I noticed it at the very last scene. But seeing mima, she attached her failed attempt to be an idol onto her. And when she moved on, she snapped and decided, no, she can't do this. She has to be the pop idol. And sort of takes on that persona and becomes her. So she attacks and tries to take her rightful place as pop mima. And they have an extended sexy breathing chase scene through the city.

Even when she stabs herself, like, impales herself on a piece of glass, her ass is fully out. I love that. She's like, oh, her ass is tilted out like a comic book heroine, even though she's currently bleeding all over the ground.

Hot.

Yeah, great. Exactly. What we needed in the climax of this movie is even more tits and ass.

Thank God.

This gave me solid goosebumps and is my favorite shot. After she impales herself in glass trying to kill mima, she staggers into the street and a truck is coming to hit her. And the way the two headlights of this truck, she puts her hands up as if she's going out on stage for the last time and it just a good shot. That's one of my favorite things I've seen in such a long time because it also bookends. It with the opening where they go on stage for the last performance and mima pushes her out of the way so she isn't hit by the truck and she's institutionalized for disassociative identity disorder. And I want to talk about this last scene because it sort of just abruptly ends.

It's very jarring.

I wanted more.

Yeah.

I was like, hold on. You can't do this to me. I just went through something.

Mima visits Rumi in this mental institution to just I think she brings her flowers from her quote unquote adoring fans because she still believes she's pop idol mima. And she leaves and just looks at her reflection in the rear view mirror of her car and she's like, I know. That's me.

Haha.

And then the movie ends.

Well, you did leave out a little piece where the nurses were kind of chatting about her and they were like, oh, well, that can't be the real mima coming to visit this looney tune. So it must be a mima look alike because she's much more famous now, I think. And so the nurses say, like, oh, she must be a mima lookalike. And then so she gets in the car and she says, no, I'm the real thing. Like a heart joke. So still more I need but I get it.

She was so chipper, being like, I'm not delusional. And it's like, but you were for, like, the last hour. I know time has passed, but for me, it's been 30 seconds. And I need more time than that for you to already be chuckling about the trauma you put me through.

And the music is so happy at the end, she's already like, So it's me. And then it comes to black and music. Like I was like, Where am I?

I think it's probably supposed to be that unsettling where she just kind of figured her shit out and we're just kind of like, Hold on. Did she? Or is she still kind of nuts? But during the final chase scene, there is, like, a moment where mima looks into the reflection of a window on a building and she sees herself. And I think that's supposed to be a kind of moment of like, okay, this is me. I know this now because I know now that the pop idle mima was just Rumi trying to make me crazy.

Yeah. Then we see roomy behind her, looking like idle mima. But then in the reflection, it's rumi, rotting and sweating, like panting. But what we see is the idle mima, like, bouncing around, floating. So, yeah, I think that was her way of saying, like, the one in the reflection, like, mima is now it makes sense to mima. So now she's gotten a hold of her own mental stability.

So I truly believe it's actually pretty straightforward, quote unquote happy ending for her. But I call bullshit. I wish it was way more fucked up. I wish she got into the car and then pulled on, like, a fucking pop star wig and the glass shattered or something. Like, I wanted more. I wanted more. I was like, I'm already brief. I just want to go out on a full crazy note. That's what I'd prefer.

Yeah, I think they kind of knew that's where a lot of people were expecting it to go, because the last, like, 40 minutes of the movies were just so disorienting and just, like, unsettling. And they're like, how do we subvert expectation even further? It's like a hard cut with very upbeat, happy music and just like a one liner. It's like no one's expecting it. And now I feel, like, teased. I feel like I was promised something and it was just yanked away from my hands. I get the last thing, and it's.

Just like, here's a shot out of left field. Everything works out.

Yeah.

If the whole movie wasn't enough, here's this.

This is me speculating wildly. But I guess it may be a comment on idle culture of like, even though we know all this fucked up shit is going on, at the end of the day, it's an upbeat, poppy song. It's a happy girl smiling at herself in a mirror. And it's just quick and easy. So I don't know what they're going for.

I like that.

Yeah, I'm going to go with that, because that's more satisfying than just, it's over. I win.

The thing that I noticed that gave me some narrative satisfaction is throughout the movie, mima is driven by her male and female managers. She's always having to like, oh, I'll go get them to drive you home. Or like, oh, you drive mima home, and all DA DA. And in the final scene, mima gets in the car and she's driving herself. So I thought maybe that was a metaphorical thing about, like, she was letting.

She has her own agents.

Yeah, she was letting all these people control her. They did end up all dead, but.

So it worked out.

She now at least feels like the confidence to drive herself both literally to see this old friend of hers who went crazy and metaphorically drive herself to the next thing. She feels confident in who she is, all that good stuff.

Yeah, she literally had the patriarchy that forced her to do stuff killed, and now she can take control of her own life.

And you know what? I'll take her.

Actually, now I can answer why it's called perfect blue. If you notice throughout the movie, there's not a lot of blue. It's a lot of red, a lot of tanks. Like, I was watching a video, literally, it's called the Use of Red in Perfect Blue. And throughout the movie, red is used more and more and more and more. And there are parts where the best example of it is it's after the creepy guy attacks her at the studio. After the rap, mima is, like, all disheveled and stuff, and Rumi comes up to her and the background is entirely red. Like, the wall they're standing in front of is just bright, bright red. And it's kind of supposed to be, like a symbol of where mima is at with her insanity and, like, how deep she is in her psychosis.

Yeah, because I saw that pointed out with the first scene when she's in the TV series where she has that one line of, like, oh, it's you, or whatever, and she's sitting on a bench and it just near glowing white background behind her, just almost blindingly so. And white is usually a sign of, like, innocence. This is before she had any breakdowns and stuff. And then yeah, it transitions into this dark red by the end of it.

Yeah. So at the end, when she literally just the shot of her looking in the rear view mirror is, like, kind of the first time we get, like, this perfect, pristine blue sky when she's, like, finally herself and she's like, I know. This is me.

Just clarity.

So perfect blue.

Okay. I love a good metaphor.

I'm a big fan of color and the use of color to evoke metaphors and feelings and moods and stuff.

We actually did an episode about that. We had a guest star, our other roommate come on and talk about color theory. And I'm horrified. Yeah, it was fun. It was very fun.

Lovely.

We talked about how red makes you hungry, so now I understand why I need a snack after watching this film.

Yeah.

It'll do it to you.

Yeah.

So in the theme of making things even more horrifying, I learned this this morning. I want to say that, yeah, this was a fun animated movie. You can tell everything's going to be okay because it's all animated. But what if this was a live action movie? Because that's what this was supposed to be.

Original.

Really?

Oh, my gosh.

In my research this morning, I saw that this was supposed to be the adaptation of a book called Complete metamorphosis, and it was supposed to be live action, but there was a devastating earthquake that destroyed the film studio that was supposed to make it. So in order to that was God saying, no. Yes.

Strike it down.

In the spirit of finishing the movie, even though they didn't have the resources to make it live action. They decided to make it animated instead.

Wow.

And they sort of hint at this because I wrote it down thinking it would be important later, but it totally wasn't. It was sort of a meta call. When she first gets to her apartment in the beginning, they talk about how a devastating earthquake destroyed a bunch of cities and stuff. And that's sort of a nod to the acknowledgement that this movie exists because of this devastating earthquake.

Okay.

I didn't write down exactly what the newscast was, but I was like, It's too clear. This is definitely in there for a reason.

Yeah, it's the typical horror trope of the important information is in, like, a news broadcast in the background that the character doesn't pay attention to. So I was like, this will definitely be important.

Yeah, it's like monsters are being released as that person's, like, drinking a latte and living through the New York Times.

Oh, mad cow disease is breaking out everywhere.

Yeah.

Wasn't this a huge inspiration for Black Swan, though, too? Parts of it were like, oh, I see it.

Yeah, I haven't seen the other two. Now, is aronofsky is that the director.

Of Black Swan who also did requiem for a Dream, which reminded me of this film a lot.

Yes, he is a big fan of this film because requiem for a Dream, he directly took the bathtub scene from this of just laying down, face down, screaming underwater. That's a direct reference to this film. He was so inspired by this movie for Black Swan that he bought the rights for it. I think originally was going to make an adaptation of this movie, I'm not positive, but ended up incorporating many elements into at points like seen shot for shot remakes into Black Swan.

Well, I honestly think that Black Swan because the question that you asked earlier that we didn't really answer, of what if this was a live action movie? I think that I can kind of see how a lot of the more traumatic elements contribute to her personal narrative, which, if anything's going to happen that's that traumatic, it should feed directly into the ownership that the character has over their own self and their own understanding of themselves. So in that way, I'm like, okay, I kind of get it. But live action. I feel like it would just be too overwhelming. I honestly just think it would be too upsetting for an audience member to deal with. But Black Swan deals with sort of natalie portman's characters breakdown in a kind of different way. Like, her breakdown comes a lot from her sense of individuality, her sense of childishness as being living in this really centered, like, self centered, sheltered lifestyle and this breakdown of her trying to please her mother and please herself and trying to get to this place. And it's kind of a different breakdown of her psychosis than mima's in a way that I think is a lot more appropriate for live action, and especially with the powder keg culture that is ballet. So I think that it really lent itself to that, and I think that he did. I liked Black Swan a lot, personally, and I think that it's kind of the perfect remake. If they're going to do a live action version of this, that's much better.

Yeah, I think if this movie itself was live action, it definitely wouldn't have been as surreal. And I think just, like, the stuff they can do with animation and melting.

Of seats together, because you can't get the imagery of fantasy pop mima, like, skipping along the light post, because the second you take this story and add, like, special effects to it, you go, okay, this is fake. This is the fantasy.

Because if it was live action, that kind of thing would feel silly.

Yeah.

I don't know. I think, too, like, the style is more realistic for anime, and I think that's probably a choice that they made, knowing that they wanted it to be live action. They probably wanted you to be able to be like, okay, I can see this in the real world. Like, she seems like a real girl to me.

The video I watched pointed out that they make it feel more realistic by having pretty much everyone in the movie kind of look pretty, like homely or ugly. But then the idols and the actresses are beautiful, and it's that way of showing, like, there are beautiful people in this world, but 90% of them are ugly and, like, unimportant or something. And that's, like, a subtle way where you don't really pay too much attention to it, but it does fill in a lot of pieces in your head that's real.

I I found myself thinking that because usually when you watch a cartoon, everyone's just kind of generically hot, and that's just, like, the background world is just and that's true. Also, like, if you watch TV shows on cw or any of that, it's just like, yeah, there's a lot of generic hotness happening, like the janitor's hot, the light lady's hot. It's fine. But this was a movie where I kept thinking, like, oh, their eyes are weird, their teeth is weird. I also found it very interesting that Rumi was very purposely, like, fat. Do you know what I mean? Like, that was that was kind of visually, like, she was stuffing herself into that costume. And I think that there was this element of, you know, like, just because society has indicated to us, like, oh, that is not young and beautiful, that is a departure from the norm of beautiful social standards. And so I feel like there was definitely, like, a contrast there between her Rumi trying to be mima. How much I like that choice. Can't say I don't really, because it just seems so tired. But that seemed like a choice that was along the same veins. And I think that's that's like a symptom of this movie being made in the 90s. Too draft, you know what I mean? Like, nowadays we're having way more and better and more interesting conversations about what people look like when they're bad or good or in between. Yes.

I mentioned this at the beginning, but I do like how blatantly ugly we find out. We call him Mimania.

We just call him creepy dude this whole time.

Like how blatantly ugly he is. Because everyone else yeah, they're like homely and normal looking, whereas he is just.

Wanky disheveled hair. He's got like a glassy fish eye, bad teeth, like very gray and gauntlet.

But I also got a very, like frankenstein's monster vibe from him. And not just because we watched Young frankenstein yesterday, because honestly, he wasn't the antagonist. Rumi was the antagonist.

No.

And so he was the ugliest. But I feel like he was more of a childish pawn of Rumi doing because Rumi was the one who was saying and that doesn't negate the fact that he tried to rape her and is a bad person objectively. But I definitely think it was an interesting choice for the greater evil to be not aggression or desire, but jealousy and envy. I thought that was really interesting.

He's the physical manifestation of the dark side of idol culture. Absolutely. He's the fan. This is who idols are marketed towards. And this is the person representing just how savage the reputation of these idols and their scorn when they change is going to be.

When he speaks.

We were so daunted by that.

When he spoke, I was like, is that him? And then I was kind of like, that's a choice. But then as the scene went on, I was like, oh, that is the choice. Because I was thinking about in my mind, I was like, could they have gone deeper? Like, what else could they have done with his voice? But that's it, you know, like that's. Like as the scene went on and he spoke more, I was like, oh.

My skin is crawling.

The most intimidating thing is the most unintimidating thing. Like it's subverting your expectations because if it was a deep, huskier voice, you would kind of expect that to a degree. But the fact that it's kind of a higher register just like, oh, no, this is more unsettled.

Yeah, he's not this big, scary bad guy. He's this scary, closeted, nerdy, obsessive freak who lives in a basement thinking about you on the Internet all day. Yeah, literally. Yeah. That's such a good he's a fedora boy.

I was going to say almost like physically prepubescent of like a child obsessive teenager who doesn't know what to do with their emotions or hormones. And the voice hasn't dropped as much as it would normally.

I think that's true.

Not a good time.

I want to watch it again. I want to watch it. With somebody who hasn't seen it and.

Just watch their feet.

Don't drag anyone else down.

After I watched Gone Girl and Get Out, I was like, I need to watch these with people who haven't seen it.

That's so true right now.

Oh, God. This fucking movie.

Yeah, man.

I enjoyed it very much because I love a good scary movie.

It was done extremely well. I think it was everything and it was a very conscious effort. There was no throwaway of like, oh yeah, we chose these fish because fucking whatever the fish, I think everything was very intentional. Even her room is very cluttered and full of stuff. She has like a PlayStation under her TV in her room. And it's full of things that aren't plot relevant, but it fills out the world. And I think everything about this is a very well done movie. It's a very good movie. I do not ever want to watch it again.

Yeah, this is normally the point of the show where we would say, would you continue watching this series? But since this is a movie, we can't really do that. So we're just going to say that this was good gratuitous and too much of it. But yeah, it it was very interesting, very deliberate. And just rumi standing in front of that truck is going to be with me for a long time.

I will say it's not a series, but if you would want a series from the same creator he's got I mentioned before, paranoia Agent, which is, oh, boy, it's a lot of these same themes and a lot of these same feelings for better for anime.

Twilight to blacklist it on everything I can online.

Yeah, for a first for Ray into anime, I think this was an extreme choice. Ali and I were saying this. I was like, I don't know if it was good or bad, but it will definitely stick with me. Like you were saying, Pat, some of the images and the themes and the stuff that we've talked about here today, that really stuck with us. I'm definitely going to be thinking about it for a long time. Whether or not I liked it or not, I don't even know. Yeah, I feel definitely torn because it has the trappings of everything that I would really like. Like I said, I really like erenovsky movies. I like subversion of a protagonist mental state. I like when the conflict is happening internally in any narrative. I think that that's really interesting. And I really love when films or novels or what have you play with that. But for me, so much of the blatant misogyny rape, just so much of the things that I found to be like jeez, which clearly are because it's from the also, as you were saying, unfortunately, it's handled even more gently than a lot of other stuff in which that's a huge bummer for me. But I think for me it's like, well, I don't want to watch that again, but I want more of that world. But I want that world now. Like, I would rather than redo it all and just take out the things that I didn't like.

Yeah.

They did this now with social media.

Being yeah, I would love to see them do it now with a little more wokeness and a little more of that social media currency. I think that would be just slamming because I like so much of how it was set up.

Yeah. idols are even bigger now because of social media. There's international reach where you can have American fans sending you creepy packages that.

Will explode on your hands.

Yeah. That's why my favorite idol is Lady beard. He's like a six foot five Australian wrestler who's in a lolita outfit and sings with two Japanese girl on a jpop.

And I'm into it.

Perfect.

Beautiful.

He does like a heavy metal.

He protects them.

He's a monster for regular guys. Let's little Japanese girl.

The only person we will proudly stand.

The one true hero, the only pure person in all of media. All right, well, thank you. Thank you for going on this fascinating bummer.

Or was it yes.

Is it really a pleasure? Was it a pain? Which one's real and which one's fantasy?

Oh, no.

Where are we?

That's this podcast, but yeah. Thank you, Ali and Sam, for joining us. Would you like to direct people to where they can find you online?

Absolutely. Let's do it. So we run I'm Horrified podcasts, available every Monday on itunes, spotify as of recently. soundcloud. Thank you. It was a lot of work. It was fucking work.

Yeah.

Really? Anywhere you get your pods, we'll be there. We are online at I'm horrifiedpodcast.com. Our Twitter is at I'm horrified. pod. And if you want to drop us a topic of something you are horrified of, you can email us at I'm Horrified podcast@gmail.com. So, yeah, tune in. We should have talked about this. I know. For people who like this podcast, you might be interested in the episode where I talk about a K pop group. You might be interested in the episode where we talk about a lot of murderers in various ways. Take a look through our back catalog, see what intrigues you.

Something a little bit similar is the one on the North Korean cheerleader.

Yes. Thank you for having us. This was so fun and awful. Like, we prefer. Yeah, thank you.

It's been an absolute joy.

I'm glad I knew the way to appeal to you was too horrifying and I figured that this would be a great choice. Yeah. You can find us. We are weeb there yet on Twitter and Instagram. We are now available on Spotify. Yes. This is new. It's new as of, like, yesterday. I saw we were up.

I didn't know.

Exciting. We're up on stitcher. itunes spotify. Anywhere you need to find us or get your podcast.

Need to.

No one needs this. Yeah. You can find me on Twitter at Mr. Patrick dugan.

You can find me on Instagram at Queen.

Period.

Weibo. And Twitter is Queen underscore weibo.

I'm on Twitter at abts Brendan. It's not great, but instead, I will also plug. Super eyepatch Wolf was the guy who made the video that I was constantly referencing throughout this episode. And real quick scrunchy movies S-T-R ucci movies I haven't watched it yet, but they have a series of videos about parasocial relationships. And it's very much about this idea of, like, an avatar, people obsessed with this cultivated persona of an online personality that people get very enamored and obsessive with and can't separate the idea of, like, I'm their friend, but we've never met. I feel like it's very in line with the skin crawling feels of this movie. So if you want more of that awful feeling, check out scratchy Movies.

I will definitely steal that as a topic for our podcast because I didn't know that there was a word for it. But now that I do yeah.

And that's when you can plug. Absolutely.

All right. And thank you all for joining us. And we hope you will join us next time as we learn to live with anime.