User reviews

A simply stunning anime, "Paranoia Agent" is a thoughtfully thought out trip into psychosis and the darker aspects of the human psyche. With a no holds barred approach to its philosophical and occasionally violent story telling, it highlights the very best that is achievable through the medium of anime with a plot line that is as dark as it is witty and as disturbing as it is intelligent. "Paranoia Agent" is one of those few serial creations that will have you hooked from the very first episode and have your mind salivating for more once it concludes, it is supremely assured from its style to its substance and will toy with your mind in the best possible ways.

Set over thirteen episodes of crisply created animation, "Paranoia Agent" is a paranormal, psychological thriller which charts two men in the Tokyo Police Force investigated the sudden spates of attacks of members of the public by an entity known as "lil slugger". With the first attack having taken place on the creator of popular creator of the sensationally cute dog "Mamori", we discover that "lil slugger" is a metal bat waving, rollerblading teenager. As the investigation progresses and the police become more attached to the case and more victims fall at the hands of this crazed child things take a decidedly more "surreal" turn as things become complicated.

Successfully fusing style, ideas, intrigue and compelling characters, Satoshi Kon has created not just one of the best anime's in recent times, but also one of the most sublime series in recent times. "Paranoia Agent" is a powerful tour de force that will veer from moments of you scratching your head to shocking your eyes, through to putting a knife through your heart. It is a study in humanity and the human psyche, handling characters in difficult positions that would in other programmes feel contrived and forced. It stretches the boundary of its environment and the sanity of your mind as you find yourself falling as deep as the characters into this surrealistically normal construct. Satoshi Kon has not merely created something that every fan of anime must surely possess in their collection, but something that certainly deserves wider recognition and broadcasting than that what is has achieved already. This is thought provoking entertainment that rivals recent animated hits like "Broken Saints" and leaves many others reeling in its wake, but "Paranoia Agent" must be seen to be believed and understood. Rollerblades have never been so scary.

The is so weird as well as amazing. It is rare to find this kind of psychological anime. It has every single thing to blow your mind and keep you wondering. It is hard to guess, is all those incidents are supernatural or delusion?

Though story seems bit complex at first, but all things become crystal clear at the end and put end to my curiosity. The story amazed me that much that I kept googling about it to know more.

I saw the Japanese audio version with English subtitles.

This is definitely a series for mature audiences. It's not afraid to go into unhappy situations and unpleasant characters, and show people battling with their various dysfunctions. Very psychological and surreal. If you've never seen Satoshi Kon's other works before, be prepared to initially go "What the...?". (Actually, I was still saying that more than halfway through this series, but that didn't stop me from watching it almost completely straight through.)

Satoshi Kon has a distinctive style of delving into people's heads and meshing reality with fantasy. After first viewings of his works, I always get the feeling I'm going to have to go back several times and figure out everything I didn't catch.

On the whole, this series is very deep and dark, but there are many humorous moments. Some of the episodes depart from the "main" characters and go off in really creative directions. It's not the best series I've ever seen, and it's certainly not for everyone, but it's good. If you are looking for something really different and are up for the mental stimulation, this is it.

I caught this series by accident on Cartoon Network, but I was instantly hooked. This series tackles more weighty topics than almost any live-action drama on television today, and does so with rare intelligence.

Throughout this parable of a city struck with fear over a (possibly imaginary) serial assailant, the show presents some powerful insights on the terrible price of repression, on the thin line between reality and perceptions, and on the fragility of social order. The inter-twining stories of the victims are both entertaining and thought provoking.

This series does not feature giant robots, monsters, or big breasted magical girls. Nor does this narrative stick to simple, linear story lines with obvious heroes and villains. This is a challenging but very rewarding look at the darker side of modern society. It is unlike any anime series I have seen, and I recommend it highly.

I didn't watch much of the show when it was on Adult Swim, thinking it was too weird to have any coherent story to it. Having now watched the show from beginning to end about three times, I could not have been more wrong. This show is one of the most imaginative and also terrifying shows I've ever seen. It's great at atmosphere, it can be pretty funny when it wants to be, and the entire show is designed to erode your sense of reality. All this with a decent cast of unique characters and a story that is both whimsical and chilling, I definitely recommend this show to fans of horror everywhere. Everyone else, check it out, but don't blame me if it screws with your head too much

Satoshi Kohn has made a lot of great anime film's like, "Tokyo Godfather's" and"Millennium Actress". But in 2004, he created an anime show titled, "Paranoia Agent".

The story is about a kid named, Lil Slugger, that goes around Tokyo assaulting people at night with his golden Baseball Bat. Now, the Police have to stop Lil Slugger.

The story is great and what make's this show really great is that, in each episode, the people that get assaulted are facing problem's in reality. Like the character, Tsusiko, she's struggling to make the perfect stuffed animal and sometime's her talking stuffed animal, Maromi, help's her. Also, some episode's have good scare's.

The only problem I have with this show is that episode's 8, 9 and 10 were mostly filler episodes.

But overall, "Paranoia Agent", is a great anime show to watch. Even if you're a fan of Satoshi Kohn's work.

This anime started out very interesting, the first few episodes will leave you wanting more to find out what's behind the mystery. Is there a little boy with the bat, is his story all made up, are we all crazy?

By the middle of the series you will start caring less, and the ending with the reveal has to be one of the more anti-climatic ones I have seen. In the 2nd half of Paranoia Agent it just felt like this show tried to be deeper than it really is. This seems a bit of a shallow criticism, but I think one might agree this is the feeling you get when watching it.

The good: the anime looks great. There are original characters with premises you don't see a lot in other shows. I personally really liked the episode with the 3 people who were trying to commit suicide.

The bad: the story and resolution. By the end of the series I didn't think a lot of it made sense. The whole reasoning behind everything which happened was just plain weird. And not the good kind.

Insanity, violence and paranormal activity. This is what we've all come to expect from the late great Satoshi Kon creator of such lovely films as Perfect Blue and Paprika. In this event we have a whole anime series called paranoia agent which is a playground for sex, violence and insanity.

The story starts out with a girl that is attacked by an unknown assailant and then the story goes along to reflect the minds of society's 'victims' leading to a very odd but spectacular climax.

The voice acting is well done on both ends. I preferred the English dub on this one as the voices were well done and I liked the translations better. The sub was very well performed but nothing new for me. I feel that you will be happy weather you are a sub or dub fan.

the story starts off very well drawing you in and maintains a very high level of intensity that stays with out throughout. The individual stories are unique and for the most part very interesting not allowing for you to take time and lose interest.

Of course there are down sides...Sometimes it can get confusing and you start to think "eh? what was that about?" The story also starts to flow off on a rather odd tangent that I feel was a tad unnecessary.

In the end Paranoia Agent is a masterwork with minor but noticeable flaws.

The first half of this series is very engaging, like a David Lynch Anime could be. The second half completely derails and becomes too incomprehensible, with a thrown away ending that doesn't explain anything and doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I like the filler episode parodying the online death seeking cults, however.

Paranoia Agent starts out okay, but then spends the rest of its time spinning its wheels in the mud, arriving nowhere. It has an interesting style to it, and the way it's presented almost makes you feel like there's going to be a crescendo especially considering some of the heavy subject matter it deals with, but that triumphant moment never arrives. So it ends up sort of like a nice little drawing, done on a cocktail napkin.

I began watching Paranoia Agent when it premiered on Adult Swim late night a couple of months ago. Needless to say, this show has freaky moments and it will leave you questioning the sanity of the characters, as well as your own.

The story begins with a doll maker named Tsukiko, who constantly feels pressure at her work place from her boss, her fellow co-workers, everyone. Then one night, Tsukiko is attacked by an evil-grinning kid with gold Rollerblades and a baseball bat. Tsukiko wakes up in a hospital and it seems the attack has changed her. But did it change her for better or for worse? As two Japanese detectives are brought in on the case, they discover a rash of other assaults from various other people who range from a snobbish elementary school kid, a nosy tabloid reporter, a crooked cop, a teacher with a double identity disorder and so on. Besides almost suffering from nervous breakdowns and strings of paranoia, they all have one other thing in common: their assailant is the same person who attacked Tsukiko, Lil' Slugger, the kid with golden Rollerblades and a golden bat. At first, the two detectives can't find any connection to the attacks, but as they dwell a little deeper, one of the cops starts to see a pattern of behavior between the victims and their assailant. As more and more clues start piling up, the cops begin to realize that the suspect could be anyone and it can be no one. The suspect is right in front of them or he could be somewhere down the street.

At first, I thought this show would be a waste of time, but I was wrong. It had me on the edge of my seat as I wondered who Lil' Slugger was and why he has a tendency to clonk people on the heads who are mentally and emotionally depressed. It seems that no matter how hard I tried to figure it out, I just couldn't get a possible answer behind the mystery of the show. Kind of like a detective trying to solve a murder. Paranoia Agent is more like a Japanese version of the Twilight Zone, where nothing is what it seems. This show is not to be missed and it will definitely have you on the edge of your seat, from start to finish. But remember, before you pop this movie into your DVD player, check your sanity at the door. The person that you would least likely expect to be the culprit is possibly the one you should be watching out for.

In Paranoia Agent, a mysterious boy starts attacking people with a baseball bat, to put it simply. To put it complexly, it's more than that. It is the greatest anime series I've seen, although I didn't know it at first.

Yes, I was very skeptical at first. The first episode was...well, weird and a bit disappointing to me. It had little point, and just didn't seem to matter that much. But I decided to give this a chance. So I watched the second episode.

Suddenly, all the questions come up. Who is Lil' Slugger? Who will he attack next? Then, the third episode. And by this point, I was hooked.

And director Satsoshi Kon knew I was hooked. With a reality-blending tale not seen since Perfect Blue, he takes you in. He takes dark themes: schizophrenia, suicide, and murder. But he presents them in such an everyday way that it's not disturbing, and, at the same time, it is.

And every episode is different. You could take each episode by itself, and they would stand alone well. But when you put them together, it's incredible. It's mind-blowing. It will have you guessing until the very last second of the very last episode, and even then, you may not know everything.

It is amazing. It is the best. It is a must-see.

10/10

While I admit I found the concept of the series rather odd and pretty weird especially since I am not really into these type. But found this one pretty addictive and interesting as the series went along.

Lil slugger a elementary school kid is murdering and attacking victims in every corner and it is up to the police to stop him. Meanwhile, this japanese writer is creating her own character which has taken over life.

Despite a few episodes that didn't seem necessary to the plot at all the story was pretty good.

The music was great.

Apparently it is the same guy who created Paparika did this movie. If you liked that movie I am sure you will like this series.

It's a mystery to me why Satoshi Kon's animated Dolmio puppet designs get such a positive reception. His reasoning for making half his characters look like disturbing cast offs from glorified passatta adverts is anyone's guess, and for me personally his stories lack the depth that is so often accredited to them. Paranoia Agent is a good example of this kind of over-hype.

A similar thing occurred to me when I watched Perfect Blue on its release. For the life of me I couldn't work out exactly what it was I supposed to think was so very good about it. The story didn't add up, was impossible to substantiate in a believable universe without attributing dementia to everyone within it, and had character designs far more disturbing than it's own leanings towards controversy. This is exactly the same as Paranoia Agent.

Story 5/10

The series starts out rather promisingly. The albeit very bland (frankly pathetic) main character gets attacked by what becomes know as "shounen bat" or "lil' slugger", or various other things. Struck down whilst under severe pressure at work (she is a character designer who has only had one idea since she was a little girl), she begins a trend for such attacks on similarly distressed people. There is some promise there, and I admit to having been intrigued enough to have higher expectations than before starting the series. After that it completely falls apart. The series is barely held together through its loosely connected and tiresomely formulaic middle-episodes which ultimately amount to an "etc" to what has gone before.

I read an interview with Satoshi Kon which described the 'budding idea' of Paranoia Agent as a collection of ideas left over from his films. Well, that explains a lot. A lot of disjointed concepts in one place, in quick succession, lacking, in my view, any charm or appeal.

Characters 5/10

The characters introduced in the first half of the series are interesting despite their looks. They have at least some level of on- screen charisma, unlike the leading lady whose unspoken pondering on self worth is tedious to the point of embarrassing. The shounen bat character itself is one of the big letdowns of the series. Visually unappealing and lacking in personality. The diversion into preposterous fantasy that his arrest leads to is also one of the worst writing choices made in an anime, from my perspective. Later characters have little to offer. Some are even as boring and faceless as the lead (can you tell I didn't like her?).

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I'm completely sick of this kind of pathetic female anime lead. The limp-wristed, downward looking mute. Rei Ayanami's with no moments of relief. And this character in itself is supposed to carry the series into the brackets of "psychological", or "mindf___". It is far, far too readable to succeed.

Animation 7/10

Apart from the hideous cross between the Wind in the Willows and King of the Hill that are the character designs, the animation quality is generally very high, if (contrastingly) nondescript. Nothing in the mes en scene makes it stand out from other recent series. In later episodes it does experiment with more interesting (though not wholly original) concepts such as animating the backing sheets minus cells, and using a version of puppet theatre to describe a man's ideal world. Whether I am just a sceptic or they were solely used for budget reasons rather than anything artistic I don't know. In any case it has been done before, though I did like the puppet world.

Sound 6/10

OP is nice the first few times (as is the sequence), but gets old. Incidental music is nothing special. Not good, not bad.

Overall 6/10

There's nothing here to bring me back, or anything much that I will remember. Having said that the scenario with the disgusting toad-like old man and his daughter was well put together.

In sum it was not much fun to watch this. In fact in places I wanted to just delete the damn series (relentlessly bad swordplay episode anyone? ). In a way I am glad I finished watching it, though perhaps not so glad that I started it.

To be fair, the last episode was a lot better than I had expected. The story was not surprising in contrast to what several reviewers have said (sorry!), nor was it powerful or did it carry an important message. BUT, if you liked Perfect Blue and similar series/movies, you may well like this too. Plus, it is only 13 episodes long. You could do worse things than watch this.

Ignore those low reviews saying this anime is stupid and messy. The plot and hidden messages are extremely difficult to understand so if you are one that prefers straight- forward anime, do not watch this as you will probably just put this anime off as a messy drama about a juvenile assailant like those who rated this show poorly. There is a filler that is fairly out-of-place, but if you are one that pays close attention to details, this will be the best filler you have ever seen, even better than a mainstream anime's canon episode. I rate this a ten because of its deep, hidden, meaning, how it messes with you psychologically, and also because of its complexity. So, once again, those who rated this low just don't understand what this show is about, and you probably won't unless you are an intellectual human being (Or just search it up).

In short it's the sum up of 4-5 stories Tangled with each other and obviously it will take 2 ep each to reach to the end itself. There are moments when you get curious and want to know more but sometimes it takes you off the hook from main story and gets little boring but as there are only 13 episodes you'll able to watch it.

I'm not consider myself to be a "shallow" audience who only like simple, thoughtless movie. I enjoy sciences of sleep, pan labyrinth, meeting John Malkovich, and other absurd imaginative movie. And I also consider myself to be anime appreciator, Cowboy Bebop is one of my most favorite I already watched it for more than 5 time.

But Paranoia agent is too much for me, not because it is too deep, or too thoughtful,or too intelligence but because it is too stupid and ridiculous. I'm confuse after watching this movie not because the complexity of its meaning but because it have no meaning at all in conclusion. Early episode seems promising but when it is reach to episode 5 things going too nasty from there, my mind is tired not because I feel the author playing with my mind or blow up my mind hardly, but because I feel the author actually fooling my mind with his over wild yet childish imagination.

However the early episode seems stunning and solid yet very very very disturbing (but I'm alright with that as long as it have something to offer), it seems fruitful and promising, but as the series goes I know it all just a pseudo it just a fake impression of intellect. The author lost his creativity and ruining whole of it. I really feel that I already waste my life time by watching this film. Don't be fool with the appreciation of the fan boy regarding this movie, because this is the very reason I watch this movie with high expectation.

But it really ruin my mood, my time and energy. Unless you want to do experiment on watching a weird illogical movie, don't watch this especially if you want movie that at least have a thin ground of logic as its foundation, but it have everything inside it except logic, it totally absent on it. If I have to picture this movie with one word it will be: sick!

PA is a wonderfully beautiful and mind boggling trip into the minds of people.

People who deal with real problems. There's no alien invaders, no demons, no ghosts, no monsters. Only themselves. There's no gratuitous nudity, no fanservice, no sexual innuendo, no awkward teen hero.

We are given one Miss Tsukiko Sagi, creator of Moromi, a popular dog character that everyone loves and has merchandise of in one form or another (think Hello Kitty). One night walking home, she is attacked by an unknown assailant, to be forever known as Lil Slugger, a boy on rollerblades with a baseball bat.

So begins a series that will make your eyes bug out and go "Huh!? I don't get it?!" Don't worry, its like that. Its a great 13 episodes with an emotional and powerful climax thats a metaphor for life itself.

A MUST SEE for anyone in general, even if you don't like anime, this is a masterpiece.