[00:00:21] Speaker A: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the final Girl on 6th Avenue podcast. My name is Carolyn Smith Helmer, and I am 6th Avenue's very own final girl.
And today we're going to be doing something a little bit different. Not different in the way that my women in Slashers episode was different, but it is different because we're going to be talking about an animated film today.
And we haven't previously done any episodes that are around an animated film. And so why not do this one?
And you may be familiar with this film. You may not be.
I wasn't super familiar with it other than I've seen discussion about it from criterion. And other than that, I really knew very little about it after having seen it.
This movie is insane. It's so good. Today we're going to be talking about perfect blue.
Perfect Blue is shocking.
It's beautiful.
It's unlike any other anime I've ever seen.
Particularly like film anime and nothing episodic series anime.
This is a japanese film.
When it comes to anime, I never know what I'm looking for. Like, I'm always in the mood for something different. I mean, my favorite anime of the limited ones that I've seen would probably be Sailor Moon. I love Sailor Moon. I'm obsessed with Sailor Moon. I have seen the show season to season two or three times at this point. I've read the manga. I love Sailor Moon. But perfect Blue took everything that I've ever dreamed that anime could be and put it on my screen.
So I feel like I've hyped it up enough. Why don't we just get it going? Let's check with our bible really quick. IMDb a pop singer gives up her career to become an actress, but she slowly goes insane when she starts being stalked by an obsessed fan and what seems to be a ghost of her past. This is directed by Satoshi Kon. I like, I want to say that this is adult through and through.
This is certainly not like an anime that I would, you know, have anybody under the age of probably, like your average 16 year old watch. Like, it's relatively graphic and it's brutal. Like, it's just an assault on the senses in every way.
It is based on a book and it was adopted from or adapted from that book. And so seeing it, you know, in the film version obviously makes it play a little differently. But honestly, I think it might make it play a little more clearly just because the storyline that we're about to, about to get into is like, it's intense and it's all over the place. And you never know what you're watching, if it's real or if it's not. It's very much.
It's everything that, like, David Lynch, I feel, could do, but in an anime.
So anyways, I said enough about it. Let's just get started with it. It was released in 1997. It is not rated according to IMDb, but it is 1 hour and 21 minutes. So it's a relatively short film with a lot of details.
So if you have seen the film before or you plan to watch it, I would like to give you this brief disclaimer that the film opens with something that is going to make you question whether or not you actually turned on the right film.
The opening, like, minute, okay, is about at first, you see these people. It's like a. You know, it looks like a tv show and it looks like the Power Rangers, basically. Like, are the Power Rangers equivalent to what we have in America? But as the camera pans out from it, you see that it's actually like a live show. It's a live performance.
And so after, you know, the performance is over, there's, like, an area around this performance center. It's like an outdoor performance center and, like an amphitheater, basically, where people can congregate and chat and whatnot. So these Power Ranger adjacent performers were the opening act for a very popular J pop group called Cham.
And it's crazy to me, this scene alone, just because of how much is in the opening sequence, that sets you up for the rest of the film.
So outside of the amphitheater is only Mendez.
There's no one other than men. It's men and, like, maybe 14 year old boys and up, like, there's no women.
And they're all talking about, like, the anticipation of this. This J pop group performing cham that they've been waiting to see. And somebody is walking around selling, you know, magazines about them. Somebody is talking with his friends about how, like, he has a recording of Mima, one of the performers in the group. He has a recording of Mima's voice from, like, when she was an amateur and not, like, you know, fully part of the group. And, like, he covets this because, like, no one else has it. And everybody's like, no way. I can't believe you have that. Why you would even want that is beyond me, but that's whatever.
And they're all talking about how Mima is going to announce her retirement from the J pop group, basically at this show, which is probably why a lot of them are there.
So the show starts. Everyone is, you know, watching, and.
And we immediately get the title screen. Two minutes and 45 seconds in, we get a title screen. Said it once. I'll say it again. You're a coward if you don't put the title screen at the beginning. Okay, fuck off with that. Put it at the beginning. Now, the weird thing is that the movie's called perfect blue. There's nothing blue on the title screen. It's white, and the lettering is also white, but it's, like, raised. So cool.
Artistic choice.
Not blue, though. Not blue.
And so then the next immediate sequence after that is kind of like spliced scenes of Mima. So Mima, she is immediately after the title screen, she's on a train, and she's headed to, like, a supermarket. She's running errands. She's wearing her normal clothes. And the next sequence that gets cut with it is her performance on that day. And so she goes to the grocery store, and she's doing things that normal people do, right? She's a J pop idol, but, like, look, idols are still people. Like, they still have to fucking eat. And, like, she has fish, so she has to buy fish food. Like, she's doing normal people things in normal people clothes.
When the group gets to their, you know, right before their last song, mima takes the time to announce that, like, this is gonna be her last time performing. Thank you for all the love and support, XYZ. Well, there are security guards, you know, in the front of the amphitheater that would basically be like, you know, the barricade that you would see at the front of any pita at a concert venue. And there's one who, while she's performing, is.
He's kneeling, but he's like, has his hand up in a way that visually, from his perspective, makes it look like Mima is dancing in the palm of his hand.
And this man is very easily identifiable. He has, you know, these particular characteristics about his face that make him identifiable. And somebody who stands out and a group of younger boys that are, you know, towards the back of the theater start to cause a ruckus. And this man, immediately, this, you know, security guard gets up and goes to confront them, and a fight ensues. And it's really unfortunate, but that's just how it plays out, right? So meanwhile, though, while all this is going on, there's some behind the scenes talk in a film studio about how Mima needs to be doing tv.
She's an actor and a singer, so it's a twofer it's a two for one. And this is exactly who these executives or, you know, the people that are working for her, I, that's what they're negotiating. This is what they're looking for. They think she's gonna be great at it.
When Mima and the rest of her j pop group and their, like, crew go to presumably leave this venue or an appearance, like, it's kind of unclear, but again, a herd of men are waiting for her outside of the door from the building she's exiting. And they're saying, mima, don't leave us. How could you do this? And she's kind of like, okay. Like, this is kind of nice. This is, like, kind of sweet and heartfelt. And so somebody gives her an envelope and says, I'm always looking at Mima's room.
Even though I know what I know about the rest of the film. That statement alone is enough to freak me the fuck out. I'm sorry.
You're gonna sit here and tell me you've been looking at Carolyn's room?
Granted, my bedroom does have floor to ceiling windows. Truthfully, it does floor to ceiling windows around, wrap around. And so am I the best at closing the curtains when I change clothes in the morning?
Unfortunately, no. I do try my best.
But if anybody ever was, like, a stranger and admitted to me that I'm always looking at Carolyn's room, I would be freaked the fuck out. What does that mean?
Okay, so Mima, you know, after her day of running errands and doing normal people things comes home and does more normal people stuff by putting her groceries away and feeding her fish. And she has, like, a tank full of tetras and she draws a bath. Like, these are all very normal things. And then she gets on the phone with her mother. And her mother is kind of, like, not criticizing her necessarily for her decision to leave singing in this j pop group she's in. But the discussion that they have is more so that her mom really isn't in support of it. And Mima is kind of like, okay, I know my dream was always to sing, but, like, I'm not. I don't feel like I'm getting the success that I desire or that I need or that I'm looking for to feel fulfilled from doing this.
So sorry, mom. That's just the end of the story. And while they're on the phone, she ends up getting another call.
So she gets on the other line, puts her mom on hold, and she.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Answers, but there's nobody there. So she stays on the phone for, like, you know, as long of an attempt as one can reasonably give and decides that nobody's on the line. So she hangs up, gets back with her mom and then the bathtub is overflowing. She left the bathtub on. So she tells her mom to call her back in five minutes while she goes and takes care of whatever the bathtub situation may be.
So while she's in the bathroom dealing with it, her phone, like, starts ringing again. And she's like, oh, mom, really? Like, I said, wait five minutes. But no, she gets a fax.
And all over this page that the fax machine prints it just says the word traitor over and over again.
So, like, because she stopped singing and stopped wanting to be in this j pop group, she's a traitor, right? Makes sense.
And because one of her fans brought up this mima's room situation, she. I think at first is, like, literally thinking people are looking into my room. Like, people are looking into Mima's room from some viewing point of sale sorts.
And so as the machine continues to print the page, she looks out her window and the camera rapidly pans away. And it's a pretty realistic depiction of, like, what a, you know, relatively urban japanese city or town would look like. And so there's apartment buildings everywhere.
So the camera pans out all the way until you can hardly see her in her window anymore. And we watch her slam her curtains shut.
But Mima's gonna be okay because Mima is getting her big break in acting. And she gets her first role on this tv show called Double Bind. And it's like a crime mystery cop show.
And in this first episode that she's gonna be in, her only line is, excuse me, who are you? And so on the set the day of, like, she's nervous and like, she's repeating her line over and over and over again to herself. Like. Like she's practicing it, but she's only practicing it with herself. So she just keeps saying, who are you? Over and over again.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: But also on the set is her.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Manager and mentor, Rumi. And so she has this note with her. Mima does.
Given to her by whoever, you know, said. And the exit lines of men said, I check Mima's room all the time.
And so in the note that she received, there's also mention of Mima's room. And so she gives the note to Rumi. And Rumi tells her that it's an Internet homepage. So it's like a website. And it's not.
It's not, you know, necessarily meant to be taken literally, that somebody's watching you inside of your bedroom.
Now, Mima doesn't really know what an.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Internet home page is.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: So she, you know, Rumi proceeds to try to explain to her, like, what the Internet is, which, like, I guys don't even stay up at night and think about that question.
It will just make you upset. Like, I've done it. It's not worth your time. Don't do it.
Just know. You don't need to know what the literal definition of the Internet is or how it actually works. Just know that it's something that you use every day. Okay?
So when Rumi is like, okay, like, I've explained this and you have no idea what this is, mima's like, nope, no clue.
And she kind of just laughs it off.
Now Mima is waiting, right, for her, like, scene to come up, for her to go on the camera and say her line. And she's watching, like, the other cast members be taped for their scenes. And in this scene that she's watching, it's two co workers. You know, they're in law enforcement of some kind. And they're talking about the current, uh, the murderer of the current, like, victim's case that they're investigating, which turns out to be like a series of, of crimes. But the two are talking and basically there's discussion of between the two of them. Like, why does the murderer peel the skin off of his victims? And then the guy is like, well, I assume he probably gets some, like, sexual stimulation from doing it because, like, why else would he do it? And then the woman is like, it's because he wants to be them like a woman or anything. Okay. It's very much giving Buffalo Bill vibes.
So Mima is like, super nervous to do her scene basically, even though she has one line. And her manager, you know, Rumi even makes a point to say, like, it's hard to be nervous when you only have one line. And as she gets on the set and is waiting for everything else to fall into place so they can film the scene, she's scanning the room and just kind of seeing who's there. And the last glimpse we get is of the man who was the security guard at the concert that got in a fight. And he was also at the exit way for her last performance. Like he seems to, you know, not that far into the movie, be popping up everywhere.
Some tv execs come in from the network and they bring the leading actress in the show, like her. All of her fan mail and they hold back one letter that is not for her. And so then they approach Rumi, and she also has a mail manager, and his name is Tadokoro. So they're basically begging the tv execs, like, you know, how is she doing? Like, tell us all this information. And they say, yeah, like, she has good reviews even among the station staff. Like, people like her and her managers are literally begging them to just, like, use her for more than one line, which I can't say I disagree.
I mean, she was a J pop idol. Like, people know her.
The tv execs give Mima's management the letter that they got, the fan letter, and then they talk about, you know, how she's done being a J pop idol. So, like, she doesn't have these standards or like, this image she has to uphold anymore. Please, you know what we talked about. Please use her. So then as she goes to start filming her scene and, like, they're actually ready to do it, a loud bang goes off. Like, it sounds like a bomb. And that's exactly what it is. Because Mister Tadakoro opened the letter, this piece of fan mail, and it exploded. There was like a tiny bomb inside of it.
As everybody tries to tend to him and his injuries, a piece of the letter from the fan mail falls and it says, this is a warning.
The next one will be for real.
Now, Mima is still pretty invested in this mima's room situation. And so roomie brings over. Roomie is such a homie for this.
A Mac, an imac, the desktop, and is trying to show Mima how to set it up so that she can look at this website and like, teach her how to use it, teach her how to use the Internet.
And they also have some discussion around the. The bomb that was planted in the letter.
And they talk about how Mister Todokoro is okay, he wasn't injured that bad and that he specifically said for, like, nobody to go to the police. It already happened. He's fine. He doesn't want to deal with it.
So as we're watching them, you know, figure out the computer together, the camera pans away from the two of them almost as like, as if we were there and like we were videoing them. It almost looks like it's made to look like it's for.
To show us that they're filming a tv show. And very bizarre. So Mima feels pretty comfortable with her computer skills. And so now she is going to get on the World Wide Web for the first time on her own and look at Mima's room.
So she gets on there and there's, like, a photo of her. There's just all sorts of, like, odd, you know, she's like, wow. Like, what is this? Why? I really like, it's flattering that somebody would dedicate a page, right?
So then she clicks on this link, this tab, and it says, mima's diary.
So she starts to read it, and one of the entries is like, oh, my God. I feel so bad. I screwed up my choreography and forgot my lyrics. And I'm so sorry to all of my fans. Like, they're writing for her.
The entry goes on to say, like, I got out of the train this morning and when I did, I got out with my left foot first. And I never get off with my left foot first. I always get off with my right foot first when I'm. You know, I always put my right foot first, like, when getting on, on and off the train and getting in the bathtub.
And she starts laughing and she's like, hey, somebody really does know me. Like, what the fuck? Why would anybody know what foot you put in the bathtub first?
Then it starts to get a little weirder.
The entry goes on to say that they had a goodbye party at her agency and that, you know, so the XYZ people were there, like, very specific details and then says, like. And then after that, I went to the store and I got mineral water and milk.
So, like, either she wrote this shit or somebody who's, like, the best stalker ever in human history wrote this shit.
The final entry that really puts her over the edge is the one that discusses her experience on set, you know, the day before and how, like, the leading actress in the show is so good. She's like a different person on camera. And, like, now shit is fucking real for Mima.
Mima finally gets to go back on set and shoot her scene with her line. And that really, truly is the only line she has. And her managers are watching, like, a tape of it, of her scene. And they're like, I mean, good. Cool. But was this really worth leaving cham to do? I mean, she's got one scene with one line. Like, is this really worth it, actually? And so they're having this discussion and the two of them are disagreeing about how they want to market Mima as an actor or an actress in the workplace. So, like, they basically want to, you know, Rumi wants to sell her as a pop idol, like, for what she used to be. And Todokoro is like, look, like, this is where she proves if she can really do this or not. I mean, this is the first thing she's done. Let's, let's, you know, let her prove herself with this role and basically see where it goes from there.
As the two of them bicker back and forth, Todokoro reminds Rumi that she was also once, like, a pop idol. And the times are fucking different now, so that's not gonna work the way that it used to when it worked for you. And you're not in this position anymore, so shut the fuck up, basically.
And Rumi just looks so sad, and she's like, but she came to Tokyo to sing.
Why does it matter what she came to Tokyo to do? Why does it matter if she came to Tokyo to get a fucking massage and go shopping? Like, it doesn't matter what she came to Tokyo to do. People can change very hard for a lot of people to understand.
I get it. But it's not a difficult concept, so please stick with the times here. She came to Tokyo to sing, but now she wants to act.
So the show double bind starts to take off in, you know, popularity. It starts to be more successful, and Mima slowly gets more roles. Herd managers had already talked about how difficult it is to get, like, somebody, a reoccurring role with no experience on a regular drama. And so this is a big deal.
Then. Mima is on the train, and she wanted to get off right at her stop. And so she gets off, but she remembers right before she steps out of the train onto the platform, the fucking diary entry she saw about which foot, you know, should exit the train.
Well, she stops before actually getting off of it and onto the platform, which causes, you know, people to be a little upset. Like, we have places to go, lady. Why are you standing here? And somebody, like, bumps into the back of her. And so she takes off. She takes off, like, a full fucking sprint, like, all the way up the stairs, all the way until she gets above ground, you know, from the platform and from the station itself. And she's panting and panting. So she takes a second to calm down, and as she goes to walk away, she looks to her left and the screen cuts to a series of, like, tvs in a shop that are, you know, for sale. And they all are playing footage of her right now, walking away from this panic attack that she just had above the station on her way to work. Later, she is, you know, greeted with some fans that are waiting outside of the studio to talk to her. And they're like, hey, break a leg this week. Like, do awesome. Be great. We love you. And so she goes into the building, and they all stay outside the elevator, like, faces the exterior door that they're all standing at the. And so she, like, gets on the elevator and she, you know, waits. It's kind of a slow elevator. She reads a newspaper clipping that's inside the elevator about, you know, somebody being in critical condition and, like, kind of freaks her out. And as she's waiting for the elevator doors to close, she's facing the exterior door and sees the same creepy guy who keeps appearing everywhere and it freaks her out.
At the agency office, Mima comes in and sees that people are celebrating, like, with sake, and it's in the morning. And she's like, oh, my God, what's going on? Like, what is there to celebrate? And so Rumi shows her a magazine that says that Cham has been, like, mad successful since she left. And they got like, 83rd in the top 100. And that's never happened before.
Rumi gives her a script for the show that is coming up for filming and that she has more lines, so that's cool.
They film the scene that, you know, takes place and it's kind of like a city center. And there's, like, people in the city, right, obviously. And so it's kind of hard to get, like, private. A private block to, like, film on. So everybody's just kind of, like, standing around watching, being like, cool. This is a tv show. Like, I love that.
And then the creepy guy is there standing with the rest of the crowd with a video camera.
The tv execs talk about how they have a really drastic idea for Mima's character in the show. And they really want to, you know, explore this. And it's an interesting storyline and need to see how she feels about it.
So, of course, when Mima's managers get the fucking script, they're like, okay. I mean, Rumi is like, absolutely not. Like, she's not doing that. That's not happening. And todokoro is like, I mean, they're already behind scripts as it is. Like, why are we gonna change things? We're gonna make it worse by arguing. And then Mima chimes in and she's like, look, guys, I'll do it. Like, she seems pretty enthusiastic about it. She seems to understand that, like, this is going to be a consensual environment that she's going to place herself in, but she's not actually being raped, so she's comfortable to do it and she wants to.
When it comes time for, you know, Mima to shoot this scene, the director is a little upset because he would have much preferred to film in an actual club. But the one that they've designed on set must be good enough because nobody would let them actually film inside their establishment if they found out what they were filming.
So the scene is basically gonna play out like this, right?
She's playing a stripper, so she's in a room full of, you know, men that are, like, pretending that they're acting like they're at a strip club. And in this, you know, room full of extras is the fucking creepy guy in the back again. I mean, seriously, he needs to get a grip.
And so basically, she starts dancing in her scene. And then the manager, the club has to intervene because, like, people are trying to get on stage and people are grabbing at her and they end up all ganging up on the manager and, you know, fighting him back. And then she's all alone, and she basically gets held down by the men surrounding the stage while one of them rapes her. And it is one of the most horrifying rape depictions that I've seen in film. Even though it's animated, it is like, for me, it's like, right up there with irreversible. Almost. Like, it's like. It's very disturbing.
Not that all rape scenes aren't disturbing, because they are. I'm just saying the way this one is filmed is fucking insane.
So, of course, at, like, the time of, you know, this taking place, she's still under the. She's under the understanding and, like, everybody is on the same page that this is a consensual interaction.
They're. They're not actually performing this act. It's. It's acting. It's not real. It's simulated. And even before, like, they start the scene, the male actor tells her, I'm sorry. And she says, like, it's fine. I. It's not a big deal.
So after she's done, Rumi just leaves because she's so upset and disappointed and, like, whatever. And so Todokoro gets to have the pleasure of taking Mima home. But, you know, he's like, for your efforts today and how well I thought you did, like, I'm gonna take you out to dinner.
When she gets back home, she goes to feed her fish, and all of them are dead.
I don't know how many were in there. I would estimate ten or higher. And every single one of them is dead.
This sends her into an absolute breakdown. Okay? And she's, you know, throwing things and smashing things and tearing apart her room and, like, the fish set her off. But the thing that she's actually crying about is the scene that she did earlier that day. She's saying, like, of course I didn't want to do it.
Like, okay, well, girl, you told everybody you wanted to. She's like, of course I didn't want to do it. Like, I just couldn't disappoint the people that have brought me this far. Like, I didn't want to disappoint them, but of course I didn't actually want to do it.
Enduring her spout of rage and tears and sadness, she looks into a mirror, and in the mirror, she sees a. The j pop, you know, version of herself. And it talks to Mima, and it basically says, like, is this the job that you wanted? Is this all that you thought it would be and then vanishes. And then she's still, you know, obviously still looking at herself in the mirror.
And then it pans over to the fish tank, and two fish are alive and swimming around, and none of the other dead ones are in there anymore.
Things are getting real, y'all.
Then we get a, you know, quick scene change to the creepy man who's been showing up everywhere, and he is writing and posting on the mima's room website. He's writing, like, a diary entry that's like, I don't want to be in drama anymore. I want to, you know, I don't want to work on the show because, like, the producers are total pervs and I should go back to being in J pop. Like, being a pop icon was the best job that. That I have.
Mima gets to go on, like, a series of press tours and interviews about this, you know, scene that she participated in. And, like, she's getting all the love, all the rave you love to see a woman succeeded, and then everything starts to go downhill again when she gets on Mima's room, she has to get off this website. Like, when people tell you to, like, not read hate stuff about you on the Internet, if you're, like, famous, like, girl, just take their advice. Like, it's fine. You don't need to know all this shit.
So the creepy guy who we now know is the author of the website has been posting on the website. You know, these diary entries or, like, journal entries, and it's saying, like, somebody please help me. I don't want to do this scene. Like, everybody's. The producers and the screenwriters are scumbags and, like, I need help. And then a next post just says, like, help over and over and over again. And then this video pops up on her screen, and she's like, I didn't fucking write any of this. Like, this isn't me.
When the video on her screen pops up and starts playing, it's her.
Like, it looks like an AI version of her or something. It's a video of her and her J pop group, you know, outfit that they wore and talking to Mima.
The video is saying, of course the real Mima is writing this.
Don't lie. You want to be a pop idol again.
When she responds back to the video, like, I'm not a pop idol anymore. And the video version of her is like, yeah, you're not anymore because you're a tarnished woman. And, you know, nobody wants to see their pop idol be impure. I don't know. Like, very odd.
And then things get really crazy because Mima is, like, in her pajamas and, like, sitting on her bed, and she sees herself dressed in her J pop group outfit in the room with her. Like, she's actually there. So there's two of them at the same time in the room.
And the J pop version of Mima is saying to the regular mima, you know, from now on, I'll be in the light, and you'll be in the shadows.
J pop Mima, you know, is about to leave and reminds Mima one more time that she's tarnished. She's filthy. You can never be in this spotlight again. And I goes to the open window and jumps out of it.
Well, when Mima gets up to go, like, catch J pop Mima falling out of the window, she gets to the window, and it's closed, like, it was not open.
So she opens the door and then goes outside on her balcony and is just freaking out. I can't say I blame her.
Shortly thereafter, because the devil never sleeps, the screenwriter is parking his car in the parking garage, and, you know, somebody pranked or vandalized his parking spot by putting, like, the tv show name double blind over it and splattering it with, like, fake blood. And as he gets out of his car and starts, like, walking, you know, to enter the building, he hears a song playing. And it's Mima's song. It was the last song that she performed with Chase before she left. And the overall message of the song is if you love something, be aggressive with it, go after it. And also that the angel of light is the angel of light is love, and it's with you. So it's a cool, cool message. I like the vibe. But anyways, that's what mister screenwriter can hear and is caught off guard. Bye. When the elevator to the parking garage arrives, it opens. The doors open and he sees that the music was actually not coming from somebody's car in the garage. It was coming from a boombox that was playing at like Max volume in the elevator.
So when the elevator arrives, you know, at its original destination, the doors open.
But Mister screenwriter has been murdered and his eyes have been taken out of the socket.
At a, you know, cham performance, there's a group of guys talking about how there's this website called Mima's room and another guy is like, yeah, I know, but we don't even know if that's actually her. And the guy is like, okay, fine. But according to that page, if it's correct, Mima is going to be on stage today at the Chan performance. And then he's like freaking out and he's so excited. And the creepy guy is there with, you know, binoculars and stuff like waiting.
And so then the remaining members of Cham are like talking about how Mima is going to go do this, you know, photography session. And like, the photographer is noted for getting people to appear naked on camera. And, you know, they kind of make fun of her for having been in that rape scene and talk about how she's basically gross and that, you know, she should have the part of showing off her private areas, like on camera that, you know, that's not going to be surprising. So, yeah, she's not going to be on stage at the performance because she is, in fact, getting her photograph taken while Mima is like, you know, getting from fully clothed to, like, partially clothed. And then like, to the naked part.
She goes into the bathroom to have a moment with herself and her manager is banging on the door like, hello, are you gonna come out? Everybody's waiting for you. And she's kind of nervous, but, and like, who wouldn't be? And while she's in the bathroom, J pop Mima shows up and is like, see, I told you you would have been better off, like, if you still were doing J pop. And, you know, how is this going for you, basically?
And Mima asks her, like, why are you doing this? What is this?
And J pop Mima is like, well, I'm gonna go perform now. Cause I'm a pop idol. I'm not like you.
Back at the chan performance, fucking Mister weird guy who was previously recording with his video camera, the entire concert has now stopped recording and is tearing up watching J pop Mima actually appear on the stage. Like the whole crowd sees it.
Mima's room, of course has to post about it. And Mima's room says thank you all so much for coming out today. It was such a pleasure to get to sing in front of you again. And Mima is just like face down, soaking in the bathtub like she's not having a good time anymore.
Sure enough, Mima's photos are really good. She gets posted in a magazine. She's fully nude. And when Mister creepy weird guy, you know, goes out the next day he sees a group of men all reading this magazine and he starts ripping the magazine out of this dude's hand because of the naked pictures of Mima in it. And so he goes to the shop that everyone's buying the magazine from and gets. He takes all of them like all of the issues and is keeping them in his apartment. Like he didn't want anybody to ever see these.
So the creep goes to get on Mima's room and his room is an apartment or whatever this is is literally a shrine to J pop Mima. Like his entire walls are covered in photos of her. And then the, you know, the photos and the posters start to talk to him and through this, you know, dialogue we understand that this man's name is me mania.
So it's literally a play on Mima me Mania.
And the posters are saying like I, you know, want to be forever. Like I want to be here forever. Like I.
But this imposter, you know, this imposter, this woman who poses naked in magazines, she is getting in the way. What do we do?
So he decides to make a promise to the posters of JPop Mima that he will get rid of the imposter Mima.
Back on set, Mima has gotten a another scene with the leading actress and they're having a conversation about how you're not confined to one Persona in a way. So you know, how do you know that the person that you were a second ago is the same person that you are right now?
You never know.
Mima tells the leading actress like look, I'm scared.
What if this other version of myself does something really bad and the leading actress in the scene tells her like look, it's alright. Illusions cannot come to life.
Which sounds like record breaking news for Mima who just had, you know, illusions and hallucinations of her j pop self you know, for the last couple days.
But her scene is interrupted whenever she looks at onlookers that are observing the filming because they're outside and she sees me mania.
She looks away, and when we pan back to the same position, he's gone.
Terrifying.
Tadokoro decides, like, hey, maybe I'll bring Mima to this, like, radio station because the girls that are still in Cham are doing, like, a radio show. And, like, I just thought you might like to see them because you haven't seen them in a long time. And so she's excited and they finish up, you know, doing the radio show. And instead of just the remaining two members of Cham, she also sees J pop Mima sitting at the table with them recording this radio show. And immediately she's freaked out.
So she starts, she leaves the room and she starts running down the hallway, this building. And she's, as she's running, she's chasing after J pop Mima. So they're sprinting. They go all the way down the stairs, like, they literally ran for what, you know, looked like 4 miles. And Mima gets to the bottom of the stairs and she trips. And so she falls. And when she looks up from her fall, she sees that there's a mirror. And who doesn't walk by a mirror without looking in it? If you say you don't look at it, you're lying.
So she's looking in the mirror, and out from behind her comes JPop Mima, who says, I told you I'm the real Mima.
I told you I'm the real Mima, y'all. What would you do in this? I, like, I I would probably break the mirror. I don't know. This would freak me out so bad. I feel like she's actually handling all this very well.
And then the chase continues because they go outside and, you know, nobody pays attention when they cross the street. So of course Mima's not paying attention. So she's chasing after JPop Mima. And she basically stops in the middle of the road and like, a brinks truck looking vehicle. Okay, this thing is huge. It's speeding and hits her. And the driver of the vehicle is me mania.
But don't worry, guys. It was just a dream room. Rumi comes over, you know, after being absent for like, 30 minutes of the movie to Mima's apartment. And they have, like, tea and cakes and they're chatting, and Rumi is like, so how are you getting used to acting? And Mima is like, well, you know, it's really hard, but I chose to do it. And I, you know, that's pretty much the end of it. Like, she looks really sad, but there's really nothing more she can say because she did choose to transition into the role.
And she confides in, you know, Rumi about this. And Rumi, out of nowhere, suspiciously, I might add, brings up Mima's room, the website again.
And so she's like, look, some of the things on there are kind of crazy. It's probably better if you just don't look at it.
And Mima, you know, kind of thinks about it. But she ends up saying, yeah, I mean, what if, like, she is the real me? What if she's like the my other self that I buried deep within my heart? Like, what if JPop me, the one that is portrayed on Mima's room? Like, what if that is the real me?
Ruby also asks Mima if someone has been harassing her.
Again, a mighty suspicious question for somebody who's been Mia for 30 minutes of the movie, which is probably like, I don't know, three months in movie time.
So back on set, they didn't get to, like, finish filming the scene for Mima because it was raining. Like, it was raining really hard. So they had to stop. Well, now it's sunny out and she just can't get her lines right. And, like, she is really upsetting everybody on the set because she just can't get it right. And she pans to look over at, you know, onlookers that are watching the scene being filmed. And she sees me mania again, looks away, turns back, and he's gone again.
But don't worry, because that was just a dream too.
And between, you know, in the last 0.25 seconds where she's had two dreams back to back, each time she wakes up from the dream, the same thing is playing on the news, on her tv about, you know, an economic planning agency.
Rumi comes over again and they have tea and coffee again and cake and snacks.
And Mima says, Rumi, it's been so long since, like, we've seen each other.
Thank you for coming over. And Rumi goes, what do you mean it's been so long? I was here yesterday and Mima's like, wait, yesterday? So that was real?
She's so visibly upset and, like, shaken because she really is so confused at this point with what is real and what isn't. And she has like, a, you know, her mug in her hand and she basically pushes her hands in together until it shatters and her hands are all cut up and bleeding.
And she looks at the blood and is like, Rumi, the blood is real, isn't it?
Rumi is not a real one Rumi, doesn't she? I don't like her. Okay, we'll get into more. Why? I don't like her later, but. I don't like her.
But Mima's room is live and active, of course, because the devil never sleeps, like we already said.
And they're. It's detailing like how Mima when shopping in Harajuku and she got like, some good items that were on sale.
And at this point, like, Mima is actually starting to believe it. Like, she's like, oh, my God, I'm so.
I'm so unsure that I guess if I'm reading this, I guess it's true. Like, I guess I did go shopping in Harajuku today.
Meanwhile, back at the studio, the two main, you know, original actors of the drama double bind. They're talking about how in the show the storyline is that the murderer was all an illusion created by, you know, Mima's imagination.
The guy actor is like, okay, cool. But, you know, illusions don't kill people, so this seems kind of weird. And the leading female actress is like, but what if the illusion found somebody to possess?
What say you?
But because nothing is easy here, folks, or straightforward in any way at all.
It just looks like the two actors are talking about this in a dressing room. But actually it is the photographer who did the tabloid shoot with Mima watching it on his tv.
And then he gets a knock at the door from a pizza delivery person and comments on how, you know, you're a weird pizza delivery guy.
The pizza delivery guy ends up stabbing him in the eye and in the back and anywhere he can and stabs through, you know, a glass door to get to the photographer again and just, like, brutally murdering him. While a slideshow plays a, you know, on the wall in the background of the scene of what turns out to be not a pizza guy but Mima herself stabbing him over and over again with a screwdriver. And the montage of photos, you know, on that are coming from the projector on the wall behind her are, like, her nude photos.
But I hate to do it a third time.
She was dreaming again, so she obviously starts to cry like she thinks she's had a bad dream, right? And she gets a phone call from, of course, her agency freaking the fuck out, right? Because what else could possibly happen to this girl at this point? And Tedokoro is calling her to ask her if she's okay and, you know, that the photographer is dead. Died from multiple stab wounds. It was the same weapon of murder and the same, like, method as the one before it of the screenwriter. And so, like, now people are suspecting that there's a common motive. And if you haven't figured it out yet, the common motive is that they're all men that work with Mima.
So her manager tells her, don't move. Just stay there until I can get there.
And so they get off the phone, and Mima goes to open her closet, and she sees a bag, like a grocery bag with clothes in it. And she's like, God, that's weird.
Especially when the rest of her closet is, like, immaculately organized. And she's like, oh, okay, I'm gonna open this up. So as she does, she pulls out of the bag the pizza delivery costume that is all bloody blood all over it.
Wow. Okay. It's like she really can't. She really doesn't know if she did this or didn't do it. But the evidence obviously makes her think it's more likely that she did it than didn't do it.
Mima and Rumi talk while they're on set waiting for Mima to shoot her next scene. And, you know, everybody's joking about making comments about, like, oh, who's gonna be next? You know, like, if it happens twice, it's gonna happen three times. And she's just, you know, beside herself. And so she's talking with Rumi, and she's like, Rumi, am I alive?
Maybe the truck in my dream did hit me. And maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I'm already dead in the final scene of the series. Okay, so she worked for a good amount of time. Good for her. But in the, you know, series finale, it's revealed that the character that she played was basically experiencing trauma induced dissociative identity disorder. And so the defense, right, with law enforcement is that she was under a different Persona when she was doing these things and she wasn't, like, consciously aware that she was doing them.
And, you know, they make it a point to make her character say that she's a model or she's an actress. She's a pop idol, like, all the things that she's been talking about in real life.
After the shooting wraps, you know, the network people are happy with the show and happy with the outcome. And so they let, you know, Mima's managers know that they want to talk at the rap party, and they part ways. So Mima goes to change out of her outfit, and they're gonna go home. And she runs into the leading actress from the show in the hallway, like, quite literally runs into her. She's in a haze. And she calls the actress by the name that she was given in the show but not her actual name.
And the actress is like, look, illusions are not real. They cannot be real.
That's not my name. I'm not that person anymore. That was a character that I played in show.
And you should stop dreaming soon.
And after this interaction, Mima's a little shocked. And so she's kind of stuck in the hallway paralyzed by what was just said to her because, like, everything is just seeming so strange.
Went out of nowhere. Me mania comes storming up the other end of the hallway and he takes Mima.
Her managers are waiting for her in the parking garage. And they're like, man, I wonder what's taking her so long. Cut back to inside, you know, with Rumi being the only manager waiting outside because Todokoro went back to the office.
Mima is inside, back at the setup, the stage setup for the scene that she shot in the strip club. And me Mania is on top of her with a knife, tearing open her clothes. Like he wants to rape and murder her is what he wants to do.
And he was like, I bet you didn't know it was me. I'm me mania. I am doing this because I am, you know, you're a disgrace. Like, you're not the real Mima. How could you do this?
All things that, you know, healthy people say to celebrities.
He tells her that, you know, she's not the real Mima because the real Mima emails with him every day and talks from the posters and his walls. So she's obviously not the real Mima. And what ensues from here is a series of attempts by me mania to stab Mima and her getting out of the way and him, you know, putting the knife in the wall.
So after that, it's just hand to hand combat, okay? And eventually he does overpower Mima and he, you know, he throws her down on her back. She's already. Her clothes are, like, opened and, you know, it very much looks like the previous scene that we saw that she filmed for the tv show about the rape is what we're about to see again. That's what it feels like.
So he ties up her feet and so she can't, like, kick him or run away. And he gets on top of her, rips off, you know, her undergarments. And she is hanging, like, with her head and shoulders, like, over the side of a piece of the set that they had broken when they were fighting that she's now laying on top, on top of. And she sees, like the director's like a tool belt basically behind her on the floor. Could be the directors, it could be anybody on the cast. But there's a tool belt. And so in it, she finds a hammer and she grabs it very carefully, but then swings it and hits him right in the side of the head.
And he gets up and he walks over back to the stage that, you know, she was raped on in the scene that she shot for the show and collapses.
So in her completely tattered clothing, she leaves and she goes, you know, back to find somebody, anybody, because seemingly there's nobody left in the universe except for her. And Rumi finds her and is like, oh my God, what happened to you? Why do you look like this? I've been waiting for you in the car. And Mima is like, okay, I gotta go show you what happened.
So they get back to the room where they filmed the stripper and rape scene where Mimania's body is supposed to be.
And it's not there anymore.
So she's shocked, obviously. But Rumi is like, are you sure you weren't just dreaming that this all happened?
Mima and Rumi, you know, not. It's not even worth arguing over. It doesn't matter. So Rumi drives Mima, you know, home. And Mima is like, not there. She's confused, she's disoriented. She's like, just not having a good time anymore. And Rumi says, I'm gonna take you back to Mima's room.
So fade in on scene with Mima sitting in her room, or what she thinks is her room.
And she calls out to Rumi to ask if she's there. And Rumi's like, yeah, of course I'm here. And Mima basically tells her, like, I have to call Mister Todokoro.
And so when she picks up the phone to dial it, we get this angle that's just perfect, where we're looking at her right side profile, and she's putting the phone up to her ear. And the camera pauses and zooms in on what's going on behind her, which is that there's a fish tank with like 20 fish in it.
When we know that the fish tank at her apartment has like, two fish in it.
But the phone rings.
Mister Todokoro is not able to come to the phone right now because he too has had his eyeballs stabbed out of his face.
Brilliant scene here. Crazy, like, camera imaging. Okay? So he's leaned up against a wall, bleeding out of his eye sockets because he doesn't have eyes anymore. And he falls to the side, you know, instead of supporting his weight against the wall. And when he does that, he hits another body.
The body of me mania.
So till he's not gonna be a problem anymore, it appears.
And Mima looks at the fish tank after she hangs up the phone because obviously he wasn't answering.
And she notices that, you know, it's full of fish. And she kind of was like, okay, like maybe I dreamt that. Maybe I imagine that. Who knows? But then she stands up and she sees a chan poster. The wall.
Subtle, subtle thing to notice. But it's a big deal because right after her last performance with cham, she goes into her room and she rips the cham poster off of her wall. So her bedroom doesn't have this poster anymore.
Just to double check though, triple check. She goes to open the window and notices that that's not the view that she has from her bedroom window. So, you know, three times. You're nice. She checked like, she's for sure that this is not her room. And she calls out to roomie, who says, this is the real Mima's room.
Like, what the fuck does that even mean at this point? And so when Mima turns around, she sees J pop mima standing there. But instead of wearing the white and pink outfit that it's been wearing this whole time, it's wearing a red outfit. Now, another really interesting camera angle here.
We're looking at the right, you know, profile pretty much of J pop mima. And in the mirror, in the mirror behind her is actually roomy, dressed up as mima and J pop mima.
So we're just telling the truth. The mirror or what she's seeing.
The camera pans back to Mima, who is like, what in the fuck? Like, why would you do this? What is this? Okay, this is weird.
Pan back over to who is now in front of us, Rumi, who is, you know, singing a little song. And she's like, look, a pop idol has to sing.
When Mima asks, you know, why are you doing this, roomie? Rumi goes, oh, Rumi isn't here right now.
Rumi had to go home because she's overworked. She's been very busy and she was deprived of sleep.
Even though this is fucking roomy right here. But that's, you know, that's neither here nor there.
Rumi then steps further into the frame. And then now it's actually Jpop Mima again instead of roomie. And you know, she's like, I'm. She just keeps reiterating like I'm a pop idol. Like, my, like, pop idols are protected by their fans. This is what they do. And she was like, you know, and mister me mania, he did everything that I asked except for, you know, one thing. Because you just keep getting in the way, but you reap what you sow, which is such an insane burn at a time like this.
In an effort to escape the situation, Mima has decided she's going to scale the balcony outside of the apartment to try to get into the one next door.
And she is prevented from doing so by Rumi dressed as J pop Mima, who I will now just call Rumi because that's who it is.
Even though in the film, her appearance alternates back and forth between Rumi and J pop Mima, um, what continues to occur is a series of events in which, you know, they jump across buildings and, like, they fall together into a pile of trash off the roof of a building. And then, um, J pop mima Rumi, you know, gets an umbrella and tries to fight or use it as a weapon against Mima. And they're causing destruction and chaos. And I don't know why. I don't know why, but I don't think that's what J pop idols do. But according to Rumi, who has, you know, now achieved to get Mima into a chokehold with this umbrella is, you know, telling her, like, you can't be the real Mima because the real Mima is a pop idol. You're not a pop idol. You're an imposter.
And at this point, Mima is, like, really sure of herself. She's like, I am who I am. I am the real Mima. Like, this is. This is me. I am her.
In what actually might be the most lighthearted part of the film, it appears that all that Mima has to do is rip the wig off of Rumi to, you know, expose to her that she actually is not J pop Mima.
And she takes the wig and she throws it into a storefront through a broken window because roomie, in her rage, trying to kill Mima with the umbrella, you know, shattered an entire retail storefront window. And so Rumi doesn't really care about, you know, anything other than pretending to be Mima, it seems. So she actually puts her stomach onto one of the shards of glass as, like, support to reach through the window to grab the wig.
When she stands up, she's not looking good. She's covered in blood and she puts the wig back on.
She seems to return back to JPop Mima and she sees that a truck is coming on the highway, you know, kind of like it did in Mima's supposed dream.
And so she stands in front of the headlights of the truck as it's, you know, coming on, speeding, like it's gonna hit her is what it looks like. And she throws her arms up like, as if she's using or pretending that the headlights of the vehicle are like her giving a performance as Mima. And she's being applauded by the audience with all these bright, shiny lights.
But Mima's too good of a person to let Rumi get run over by a car. So she runs and jumps in front of the car as well. And she throws roomie across to another lane of traffic.
They both kind of lay there for a little bit, but she didn't get hit by a truck, so, you know, that's something.
What do you know? Next scene, Mima looking through a glass window at a community room of a mental institution where Rumi is currently living.
How nice for roomie. Worked out very well, didn't all this.
She carries a bouquet of flowers to a mirror nearby. And Rumi is looking in the mirror. And the reflection in the mirror is none other than J pop Mima. The doctor tells Mima that sometimes she resumes back to her original, like, roomy personality. But Mima kind of is just like, look, I'm not really expecting a lot. Like, it's just one of those things. I kind of just came by to see what was going on.
Two nurses are talking outside when Mima goes to get in her car. And one nurse says, well, mima, like, she's here. And the other nurse kind of is like, there's no way she would be here of all places.
The other nurse says, well, then maybe it was just somebody that looked a lot like her.
Mima gets in her car. She takes off her sunglasses. She looks in the rear view mirror and she says, nope, I'm real.
Roll credits. I mean, what the fuck is that ending? I mean, seriously, that. Ugh.
It's kind of like the ending of, like, the Sopranos where the screen, sorry if you haven't seen it, just goes black. And you don't know if, like, your tv stopped working or something.
It feels like that ending to me.
[01:15:03] Speaker A: So it's time, once again, dear listeners, that we have to ask ourselves, well, what the fuck did that mean?
Okay.
And I want to get into just, like, a couple thoughts I have, okay?
And I promise that I'm gonna go about this in a way that makes sense, but just, like, stick with me on what I choose to address and when. Okay, just hang in there.
So obviously, the film is intentionally disorienting. I think I have made a really good case for establishing that so far.
The camera. And it's like, it's, so to speak, right? Because it's.
It's an animated show, so, I mean, it's animated. So it was made on a computer.
So I hate to call it like a camera, but it is because that's what's framing what we see on screen. So I'm going to continue to refer to it as a camera, even though it's not actually a camera, but the camera will focus on, like, a specific scene, right. And then pull the camera back for us as the viewers to realize that the scene that we just watched is maybe not actually happening to Mima, but rather to the character that Mima is playing in double bind.
I mean, this. This is meta in ways that I never imagined an animated film could be.
And there's also times when, like, something is depicted on screen, but we later find out that, like, it could have been a hallucination or an illusion or a dream.
As the audience, I think we're told pretty early on that our perception of what is actually occurring on the screen simply can't be trusted. And setting that tone or, like, establishing that sort of rule, so to speak, early on in the film, all it does is it works to disorient the viewer and puts us in the same position or, like, mind that Mima is in herself, right? So she's confused. We're confused. Everybody's confused. Like, it's fine.
Nothing bad ever happened to anybody when they were confused. Okay?
But really in the first, like, 60 seconds is, you know, we think when the movie starts that we're watching, like, a japanese Power Rangers adjacent, you know, show, only to find out that it was a live performance on a stage, but, like, it looks like it's a tv show. And honestly, like I said, I thought I turned on the wrong movie.
And that's, like, the opening act before Cham comes out for their, you know, final performance with Mima.
And throughout the film, it just becomes less and less apparent which scenes are actually happening and which scenes are part of a performance or a hallucination or a dream or, like, some sort of paranoid projection.
It kind of is like inception in that way where, you know, things kind of start slow and then everything picks up really fast and, you're like, if there was any pattern here, I must have missed it.
And thinking to, like, the fact that they talk so much about, like, the pop idol, the way that people discuss their, like, music idols or pop idols has always been troubling to me, and this became extraordinarily apparent to me at a recent concert that I went to. So my husband and I went to go see falling in reverse in New Jersey, and we took part in the meet and greet prior to the show. So I was really excited to just, like, be in the same room as the lead singer.
I never once thought to stop and, like, critique anything about him.
When I met him, I told him, thank you for making music. We took a picture, he gave me a fist bump, and I was on my way.
But, like, later in the evening during one of the opening acts, I was walking to go get a drink, and I overheard this, like, loud, obnoxious group of women talking about how they don't think that Ronnie Radke, the lead singer of falling in reverse, cute anymore because he blacked out his tattoos and they don't think that that is good or an attractive look for him.
Like, they were very passionate about this, and all I could do was, like, stop and tell my husband that. I really could not understand why it was so important for these people to be talking about an artist and, like, what they choose to have on their body. Additionally, do these people really think that he gives a single fuck about what these random people have to say about his blacked out tattoos?
Like, do they think he would actually care and be hurt and upset that someone did not, like, a choice that he made with his personal style? Like, literally, the way they were talking about it made it seem like they had some sort of, like, monetary investment in his style and were, like, taking it personally or that, like, they're so important that he should be willing to change his appearance and aesthetic to, like, please them? Like, it was so bizarre. You don't even know this man.
And you can see this in perfect blue too. Right from the very beginning, like, literally right after that Power Ranger esque show, there's, like, the boy that he's talking about how he has a super rare recording of Mima's voice, like, when she was an amateur, so it makes him feel like he has this sort of, like, possessive power. Like, he's able to, like, possess her because he has a recording of her voice.
And pretty much all the fans. You know what? I'm just gonna say it. I think they're all. I think it's 100%. All the fans in the crowd for the chan performance at the beginning are men.
They're literally men.
And this sort of obsession is characterized by Susan J. Napier. In her essay, excuse me. Who are you?
She describes it as psychotic over identification.
I tend to agree with that.
Basically, those around Mima are viewing her.
[01:22:46] Speaker B: Decision to leave this J pop group and embark on an acting journey to be taken more seriously, like, as a betrayal.
[01:22:57] Speaker A: Like, it's something she has done to.
[01:22:59] Speaker B: Personally hurt each and every one of them.
[01:23:03] Speaker A: And while it's true that your work can be part of your identity, it's not entirely your identity.
[01:23:09] Speaker B: Like, it's not the only thing that defines you.
[01:23:13] Speaker A: And I think some people really seem to forget that.
[01:23:16] Speaker B: Like, so what? Even when Mimo was in J pop, right, like, at the beginning.
[01:23:24] Speaker A: She'S not just a J pop performer that, like, appears on stage and then, like, vanishes. And, like, doesn't eat or sleep or drink water. Like, she's also a person.
No matter how much you, like, make these people out to be God.
[01:23:40] Speaker B: Like, they're not. They're also just regular humans.
[01:23:45] Speaker A: So, like, the person that she is on stage is obviously not actually her. Because we also see Mima when she's wearing normal clothes and she's sitting in her house or she's on the train.
Like, Mima, the J pop star, is.
[01:24:02] Speaker B: Not the real Mima.
[01:24:04] Speaker A: Like, who was Mima before J pop? That's the real one.
And although, like, we know that even Mima begins to question her identity throughout the film as she becomes increasingly more and more confused.
[01:24:18] Speaker B: But it really doesn't help anything when me mania and Rumi start to question her identity and confuse her even further.
[01:24:25] Speaker A: Which we know they did on purpose.
Our first real, like, in your face hint about Mima's descent into this uncertainty is when she gets her first tv role in double Bind.
And her only line is, excuse me, who are you?
And it's almost like she's talking directly to herself. She practices this line over and over and over again with herself in a way that you have to wonder, is she practicing her line, or is she actually asking herself that question?
It also kind of implies when you think back on that line later in the film, that questioning herself of her own identity is actually a dangerous thing to do because she opened that can of worms, right?
And after, you know, the traumatic experience of filming the rape scene, Mima begins to hallucinate. Like, actually hallucinate. And I'm not sure if it's the first time she actually does hallucinate in the film. But it's the first time that it's made explicit, you know, to me that she could be hallucinating.
And we know later that me Mania is the one writing the blogs and entries on the website. But at this point in the film, you know, Mima can't differentiate if she was the one that wrote the stuff on there or if somebody else is writing on there on Mima's room.
And it's almost no wonder at all, you know, how she's begun to slowly lose herself over time. Because everybody, it seems, is obsessed with possessing her in some way.
Like, her agents and managers want her so she can make money for them.
Young men brag about having recordings of her voice. Male fans at performances videotape her so they have heard of you at their leisure, like at home.
Rumi wants to be her.
The wish to possess it becomes so severe that Mima actually begins to question if me mania is Mima. Since me mania seems to know more about Mima than Mima does or does it. Like, we don't know.
And obviously, like, we couldn't talk about anything about perception, identity, being an idol if we didn't talk about voyeurism.
Like, mi Mania is one thing, but Rumi is like an entirely different animal in this game.
Roomie's obsession with Mima is that.
Well, it involves, I should say that she refuses to see Mima as anything other than a j pop idol.
Like, even when Mima ditched all the singing performances, you know, and. And torn down the chan poster she had hanging on the wall in her apartment, Rumi presents herself as, like, a mentor. And I'm sure in many ways, she was a mentor, like, she was previously a pop idol as well.
But her mentorship and management only led to the obsession and violence veiled under protection later in the film. I don't know for certain, but I tend to agree with Susan J. Napier. Rumi, I feel like, definitely orchestrated the murders of the men surrounding or working with or involved in Mima's life. And it's literally no coincidence that all of the eyes of each of the men have been removed.
With no eyes, you can't see anything, dead or alive. Now, what is interesting is that whenever Todokoro's murder is shown and he falls to the side like I talked about, and he falls on top of mi mania's body. Me mania still has one eye. So me mania died with one eye.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Interesting.
So no eyes in the murder victims though, equals no looking or fantasizing. Or sexualizing over Mima's appearance. When Mima eventually, you know, poses in those sexy naked pictures for the magazine, Napier theorizes that roomie could have been the one that orchestrated me mania's quest to tear up the magazines, like, to protect her image, because fans are supposed to protect their pop idol's images, right?
And with none of the magazines floating around, nobody could look at Mima's pictures. So voyeurism, it appears in this film, is not intended for everyone. It's only intended for a select group. And if you violate this, you know, non specified rule, then you get what you get.
And I think the second most important thing, because we haven't talked about the most important thing yet, but the second most important thing in this movie is the fucking tv show double bind. Not double blind, double bind.
You might be asking yourself, what is a double bind?
Well, I would love to tell you.
The double bind is often misunderstood, which kind of makes sense when you think about what it actually is, because it's not a simple, you know, contradictory situation or like a simple communication dilemma.
The term was actually coined by Gregory Bateson in the 1950s, who was an archaeologist through discussion of complexities. You know, that complexities with communication as it pertains to schizophrenia. So Bateson and his colleagues have defined the double blind as follows.
Stick with me. I'm going to give you an example.
The situation involves two or more people, one of whom is designated as the subject, and the others are people who are considered superior to the subject. Think along the lines of authority figures, maybe like parents.
It has to be a repeated experience.
The double bind is a recurrent theme in the experience of a subject, and as such cannot be resolved as a single traumatic experience.
A primary injunction is imposed on the subject by others, generally in one of two forms.
Example a, do x or you will be punished.
Example b, do not do x or you will be punished.
The punishment may include the withdrawing of love, expressions of hate or anger, or abandonment from the authority figure's expression of helplessness.
A secondary injunction is imposed on the subject, conflicting with the first, at a higher and more abstract level. So, for example, you must do x, but only do it because you want to.
It's not necessary for this injunction to be expressed verbally. It can also be expressed through body language if necessary. A tertiary injunction is imposed on the subject to prevent them from escaping the dilemma.
The complete list of the previous requirements may be unnecessary in the event that the subject is already viewing their world in double bind patterns.
The general characteristics of their relationship are as follows.
When the subject is involved in an intense relationship, that is, a relationship in which the subject feels it is vitally important that they discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that they may respond appropriately.
And the subject is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message, and one of these denies the other, and the subject is unable to comment on the messages being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to.
So the subject cannot make a metacommunication statement.
So with all this in mind, the double bind is boiled down, essentially two conflicting demands, and each of the demands is on a different logical level, but neither of them can be ignored or escaped from the essence of the double bind. Never.
You know, it basically just leaves the subject completely torn, because whichever demand they try to meet, the other demand then cannot be met.
And this is what makes the double bind pattern different from a simple contradiction. Because the conflict is completely internal.
Because the subject desires to meet the demands of the primary injunction, but will ultimately fail every single time, because they cannot then meet the demands of the secondary injunction.
This would typically lead to metacommunication, which. Metacommunication is communication about communication. So, for example, if I say, the sky is blue and you say, what do you mean that's metacommunication? You're asking me to communicate to you about my previous communication regarding the sky being blue.
So now that I've filled your brain with the poison that is psychoanalysis, let's look at an example of a double bind. Okay?
So let's talk about the case of child abuse. And I have an article, obviously, with all of this in it that I'm going to link for you. So if you're more interested in, you know, learning even more about this, like, please feel free to do so.
But let's take the case of child abuse, because, you know, we're just keeping things light hearted over here. It's no big deal.
An abuser begins the double bind relationship through grooming.
So the primary injunction might be, you should appreciate the things I do for you.
Then, as the child begins to go along with the grooming process and begins to, you know, enjoy the small concessions or gifts or even sometimes, like, special privileges that are granted to them from their abuser, here comes the secondary injunction from the abuser.
I'm punishing you, child, because you made me do this. You made me angry.
This is your fault. It could be any number of things.
Now the child may begin to show some resistance to the abuser, right.
In this situation, the tertiary injunction comes, well, you should have tried to tell someone sooner or escape sooner because now no one will believe you or help you, which essentially it just makes you feel trapped.
I fucking hate to use, like, child abuse as an example, but, like, it really is one of the better examples that, like, I feel like is the easiest to apply here.
I hate pedophiles anyways. So how does this tie in with perfect blue? Well, for one, as we discussed, the name of the show is, you know, called Double Bind.
And I do think double Bind is an awfully strange name for a murder mystery crime show, cop show.
But I think a great example of the show living up to its name and the impact that it's had on the cast, particularly Mima, is when she agrees to participate in pivotal rape scene.
She agrees to do it overtly and positively and explicitly, like, almost like she's trying to convince herself that she wants to do it at the same time that she's trying to convince everybody else.
But after the filming of this scene is over, she goes home, has obviously an emotional breakdown, like, one that I can say sufficiently I. Yeah, probably definitely would have had as well.
And she admits then that she only agreed to participate in the filming of that scene so she wouldn't upset anybody.
And so for Mima, the double bind is that if she rejects her, you know, the pop idol portion of herself, then she can be an actress, but she can't, you know, accept both at the same time. She can't be a pop idol and be an actress. She can be a pop idol or she can be an actress when in actuality she's both like Mima, regardless of who Mima is on the actual screen.
Mima, the name of a person on the screen was both a j pop idol and an actor.
And therein ties the actual horror of the film, which is that not being able to differentiate between what's real and what is not real is terrifying. It's like, literally the fear of your own self because you yourself have become unreliable in the experience that is your life.
And, like, literally, how terrifying is that to think about?
But with this. Okay, now we've come to the most important part of our discussion, which is the end.
Okay?
So there's obviously different theories about what, you know, what actually happened on the screen. Like, how am I supposed to interpret that?
And what does that mean for the end?
So the Wikipedia page for the film describes the plot as this. Okay?
Rumi experiencing dissociative identity disorder, creates the webpage mimasroom and convinces the stalker to kill people for her by emailing to him as the real Mima, the pop idol Persona.
Mima's room ends up making the actual Mima doubt herself, her identity, and her memories, leading to her mental breakdown.
By the end, the stalker fails in killing Mima and gets clubbed in the head with a hammer, after which Rumi finally reveals herself as the antagonist and chases after Mima.
A truck hits roomie. She ends up in a mental ward, and the real Mima is now a successful actress with complete, complete faith in her realness.
Um, that doesn't make sense.
Like, it does, but it kind of feels, like, too simple.
Like, as if we didn't just watch an entire film of Mima questioning her reality and beginning to doubt herself and, like, going into this, like, form of psychosis where, like, she literally cannot hardly function like, as she normally would. And, like, it just feels really weird to have done all of that. But then for roomie to just have been the crazy one the entire time and, like, none of us new, like, that just seems so weird. And also, why then at the end, would she be so content with, like, her reality?
Like, it just, like, I guess I kind of understand, like, on a basic level, like, where you would get this from, but, like, it just doesn't really make sense because there's no way we could have just watched an entire movie about this and for that not to have been the plot at all. And if it really is that simple, I would just be so interested in learning, but, like, I just don't believe it.
And in my, like, research to find out, like, or to even just, like, think more about what reality maybe even actually was or wasn't in the film. Like, I stumbled upon this, this Reddit.
[01:44:13] Speaker B: Thread and the user, and I'm going to link this because this thread has a bunch of amazing comments of discussion, and it is posted by kill code.
[01:44:27] Speaker A: Two on r truefilm. And I'm just going to read it to you and we'll go from there. So this is what they believe is the alternate reality to the Wikipedia version of events. Okay.
The crime mystery tv show Double Bind seems to parallel Mima's life a bit too closely, so much so that it's uncannily realistic for this tv show. Mima acts in a rape scene, after which the idol Persona of Mima appears before her to call her tarnished and an imposter. This same trauma is reflected in Double Bind, where the role Mima plays as Yoko is revealed to be the serial killer, a rape victim who creates a split personality to deal with her trauma.
The character of Yoko falsely believes she is an actress named Mima, and the trauma rape that she experienced was an acclaimed scene she performed for tv.
Maybe double Bind is not a tv show that is coincidentally mimicking Mima's life, but rather it is reality or Yoko's reality.
For all we know, Mima's life as an actress might all just be imagined illusions inspired by events from Yoko's real life.
Perhaps the rape scene in the club was real and happened right.
It felt a bit too real watching the acted rape scene for the show, despite being a simulated scene for a supposed in universe tv show. Throughout the scene, I felt nauseous. However, I had the opposite experience when watching the other sexual assault scene, the one where the stalker tries to kill Mima. While watching that scene, I was unable to suspend my disbelief at the unrealistic depiction of the struggle. We see Mima gradually getting more and more undressed without taking so little as even a tiny scratch or her makeup getting ruined. Despite being weaker than her stalker, Mima easily kicks him off. Conversely, the stalker consistently misses every strike. It was like watching a b movie slasher flick intended for the male gaze instead of a real life assault.
Perhaps the rape scene in the club was real and happened to a powerless Mima Yoko, thus traumatizing her. And the stalker's assault, which we thought was real, was something she imagined after watching a pulpy tv show. Perhaps the truck really did hit Mima Yoko the first time. And the second truck, which was about to hit Rumi, was a rewriting of her original traumatic memory.
Double Blind was Yoko's real life events. Perhaps who, sitting in her mental ward, is dreaming of being Mima and powerfully fighting off her attempted rapist like the heroine from a horror movie would, while at the same time telling herself the rape she was a victim in was only a scene she acted for a tv show.
The human mind is capable of finding strange methods of erasing trauma. In the ending, when we see Mima looking at her car's rearview mirror and proclaiming herself as real, we're actually seeing Yoko, who has fully convinced herself that reality is the one where she's a successful actress named Mima and not the tarnished Persona of Yoko. Rumi and the stalker were never real. She did not fight off her psychosis, and she became consumed by it, fully confident of her delusion.
Thank you, kill code two for that phenomenal, phenomenal post. I mean, I couldn't have said it better myself, I really could not.
[01:48:22] Speaker B: Now I want to run with the theory surrounding the dissociative identity disorder.
Here's the deal.
I don't even know what to make of Rumi. I mean, in my opinion, she is someone that is orchestrating all of this.
[01:48:49] Speaker A: From behind the scenes.
And I believe in my heart of hearts that me mania and Rumi were the same person.
[01:49:05] Speaker B: Truly, that's how I feel.
[01:49:07] Speaker A: I don't believe they were two separate entities. I believe they were the same.
[01:49:12] Speaker B: Especially when you consider, you know, the fact that takedoro left while waiting for Mima after they finished shooting the final scene for the show. And it was just roomie there. Like, there's nobody there to like, kind of fill in these gaps.
And even if. Even if I think there might have been like one.
One instance essentially where Rumi and me mania were different people.
The only instance that would make me question that would have been the scene where we see Mi mania as dead.
But he still has one eye.
That is what leads me to believe that he's not actually dead. Every other male that died lost both eyes. Why did he only lose one?
So it almost feels like roomie knowing the fragility of the state that, you know, Mima was in mentally.
Was taking advantage of that by maybe hiring or like, purposely including this me mania man.
To think that he was the one that was actually doing all this. But like.
But really, I think Rumi was paying.
You know, playing on his.
On his darkest fears or like, deepest desires at the same time. Like she was pretending to be Mima. And chatting with me mania on the mima's room. Pretending to be Mima.
And basically playing on this man who was not previously a danger. And making him a danger by feeding him all of these lies.
So that's my two theories about Rumi. Either she was real and she played on the desires of me mania to get him to commit these crimes.
Or that me mania dying and still having one eye open means that he's not actually dead. Or that his spirit lives on symbolically. Maybe even in Rumi. And that Rumi has been behind this whole entire thing.
Those are my two theories on her. But let's talk quickly. Just, you know. I know that this is getting long and I'm really sorry.
The dissociative identity disorder. Of course, the Cleveland clinic.
They just. They always have my back. So what is dissociative identity disorder? Did. Formerly known as multiple personality disorder and split personality disorder is a mental health condition where you have two or more separate identities.
Dissociate means to separate or disconnect. People with dissociative identity disorder may experience several different personalities, usually referred to as alters. Each 1 may have different behaviors, memories, thought patterns, or expressions. Their identities might have different gender identities, ethnicities, and ways of interacting with their environments.
These personalities may control behavior at different times. Memories may not transfer from one identity to another, which can cause amnesia or gaps in memory.
The presence of amnesia is often an important symptom that raises concern for diagnosis.
Okay, dissociative disorders affect your ability to connect with reality. Okay, who was questioning reality the whole entire time? Amima.
Okay, so Wikipedia. I don't know what you're on about. You're making it sound like, no, it was not that simple. Now that I've sat more with it, it's not that simple.
So there's two types of possession, in which identities present as if an outside being or spirit took control of their body. They might speak or act differently in a way that's obvious to others. It's an unwanted identity, and the personality switch is involuntary.
Non possession is when identities are less known to others. You might feel a sudden change in your self identification, as if you're watching yourself in a movie, an out of body experience instead of being in control of your speech, emotions, or behavior.
It is important to note that possession is a common belief of different cultures and religions around the world. But these voluntary spiritual practices are not associated with did. Thank you, Cleveland Clinic, for even feeling the need to write that down. I mean, seriously.
Symptoms of diddeenen having two, at least two identities.
These affect behavior, memory, self perception, and ways of thinking.
Amnesia or gaps in memory regarding daily activities, personal information, and traumatic events.
Different identities affect your ability to function in social situations or at work, home, or school, other mental health symptoms can, but will not always be found along with did, which include anxiety, delusions, depression, self harm, substance use disorder, and thoughts of suicide.
What causes did well, the causes of did may include stressful experiences, trauma, and abuse.
Okay, what are the risk factors for did physical or sexual abuse, neglect, multiple medical procedures during childhood, war, or terrorism?
What does a person with did feel like?
Detached from reality. Your emotions and your sense of self. Confused by what others may tell you about your behavior.
Frustrated about gaps in your memory.
Stressed about not being in control, feeling like a bystander, watching yourself from the outside. It doesn't feel that like you are you with did. This can look different and feel different for each person who experiences it. If something doesn't feel right or your experiences and memories aren't lining up. Please reach out to a healthcare provider for an evaluation. Okay.
Now, with all of that information in mind at the beginning, prior to the rape scene.
Okay.
It very much felt like you could almost easily tell the difference between what was reality and what wasn't.
I quite enjoyed that state. However, after the rape scene, that is a pivotal moment in the film because you can no longer easily differentiate beyond that point what is reality and what is not.
Like, the, you know, part of the film where she has these horrible quote unquote dreams and she wakes up three times from these nightmares. How can they possibly all be nightmares? How can they possibly all be something that she woke up from and, like, that didn't actually happen. It doesn't make sense. Especially when, as we've discussed, the things that are happening in the show are so crazily similar to what are happening to her in real life.
Like, too, too similar.
And I.
That plays into feeling like you're watching yourself on tv. Like, you're literally not seeing yourself. You're seeing a different version of you. Like, a third party version of you. And from day to day, Mima loses, like, her memory right at times. So she starts to think like, oh, my God, I did go to Harajuku today. And I did go shopping. Like, I guess I did that because it's on Mima's room. It's like somebody wrote that. So I guess I did that.
Like, girl, what? I mean, if you didn't do it, it's okay.
But she starts to question these things and, like, at the end of the show, when they wrapped up the series, everybody was clapping and, like, very excited. And they were like, great job, mima. But the look on her face was not happy at all. It almost felt like she wasn't as excited because she was, like, actually telling the truth and that everybody was clapping for her because she finally admitted something was wrong rather than it was because of the performance that she gave.
So I really am not gonna go with this Wikipedia idea that we watched an entire film about Mima and her perception of how things are and that, like.
[02:00:00] Speaker A: Like, Rumi is the one that has the problem the whole time.
[02:00:03] Speaker B: Like, I just don't believe that now. What I do think is that Rumi, having previously been a pop idol, really tried to enforce those, like, morals and whatnot into Mima. And when Mima wasn't playing along basically anymore, Rumi was hurt by that and decided to make her life what it is. Because, you know, like, with all the confusion and the paranoia and the just complete disorientation.
She worked to, like, make that happen specifically because she was upset with Mima for taking a different path.
That is what I truly feel like is the story.
Mima was already, like emotionally and maybe.
[02:01:06] Speaker A: Psychologically not in the best state. And Rumi just took that as an opportunity to inflict this kind of pain on her and punishment on her. And I think that's the end of it.
[02:01:21] Speaker B: So as far as the ending, I think what we're supposed to infer, based on my theory of what the film is about, is that Rumi ended up.
[02:01:36] Speaker A: In the, you know, mental ward, mental hospital because of her unwillingness to let.
[02:01:44] Speaker B: Go of the fact that Mima wasn't going to be a pop idol anymore. It was almost like she was so.
[02:01:52] Speaker A: Not willing to let it go that she literally became so obsessed with the idea of it that she literally started to see herself as the pure version of Mima, the one that is still a j pop idol, the one that never got naked on a camera, the one that never did TV XYZ.
So she is like appearing as like.
[02:02:16] Speaker B: A morally.
[02:02:20] Speaker A: A moral version. She sees herself as the moral version of Mima. So anyways, after 2 hours, I have so enjoyed talking to you all. So thank you so much for listening. I'm very anxious to hear everyone and anyone's thoughts on this film. I would love to discuss with someone.
Thank you so much for listening. And I will be back in two weeks with another episode for you. Of course, before I let you go, I have to tell you that you can find this podcast on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and Pocketcast. And if you enjoyed the show, it would mean the world to me if you left me a five star review and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. For any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions or requests, you can email
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