Stalking, Toxic Fandom, and Trauma with Perfect Blue

Warning: This review will contain mentions of sexual assault as it is pretty integral to the plot of the movie.

Perfect Blue is a psychological thriller anime movie from 1997. It is a dark and chaotic look at the journey of Mima, a member of a girl group who is convinced by her agency to pursue acting instead. It is shocking, disturbing, and intentionally confusing as Mima starts to have a breakdown, and we the audience experience it with her. It is also exceptionally well done and ended up being more than a little prophetic. In addition to Mima’s own mental breakdown it deals with obsessive fandom, parasocial relationships, and how the internet makes that all so much worse. Remember this is 1997, so it predates social media. Yet, the movie essentially predicts what the internet would become and how toxic fan culture was going to be driven by it.

The movie is hard to describe without giving away a lot of spoilers, and it is something that should really be experienced, with the caveat of it being extremely distressing so if you want to avoid it, it’s understandable. I will attempt to explain as best I can without giving too much away, but also while warning people of some of the stuff that might be a hard no for them to deal with.

The movie opens with Mima and her girl group performing, they are attacked by some rowdy fans that are ultimately subdued, and Mima announces that she will be leaving the group to pursue an acting career. This incident foreshadows what Mima will be going through in the future. We get a look into Mima’s life and discover she is being pressured to leave the group even though she seems uncertain..

Mima’s acting career is not really taking off, she is a guest start on a crime procedural but barely has any lines. Eventually they write a bigger role for her, but she has to film a graphic rape scene for it. Mima reluctantly agrees, and we watch the filming of the scene (it is extremely upsetting) and see that she is deeply negatively affected by it.

While all this is happening Mima realizes that someone is pretending to be her online on a site where stars post about their days. Not only is the person pretending to be her but they are clearly stalking her because they know intimate details about her life.

Post rape scene Mima’s agency keeps pushing her to do more sexual things while Mima struggles with it. She keeps agreeing but then is traumatized in the aftermath, and it is clear this is not the direction she wants her career or life to go in.

Between the stalking, the sexual nature of her career and her hatred of it, Mima starts struggling mentally and even imagines a different more “pure” version of herself who is still a pop star. Meanwhile people directly involved with the choices to “disgrace” Mima start being murdered. Mima’s part on her show starts to reflect what is happening in her life too.

That may be a bit hard to follow, but I don’t want to give too much away. Suffice to say that the more Mima is struggling with what’s happening to her in her career, the more the hallucinations of a different version of herself take over. She also can’t keep up with reality. She will believe she’s done or said something only to wake up in a different location. We the audience are intentionally kept in the dark with her too, it is rare that we know what is real or not, just like Mima doesn’t.

It is also difficult because while the murders are bad, as we watch Mima breakdown and hate what these men are pressuring her to do, it’s hard to feel too terrible for them? It is also a very blunt look at coercion, and the fact that it does not equal consent. Mima is extremely honest, even if only with herself and thus the audience, that she is not really consenting to any of this, they have just managed to pressure her to say yes. She is extremely traumatized by all they are convincing her to do. She starts to see herself the same way that her stalker/hallucination does, as being too damaged and broken by the things she has done.

The movie is a brutal depiction of how we treat celebrities, trauma, toxic fandom, and stalking. And it’s all wrapped up in the “nice” package of Mima’s own mental health shattering as a result of all of this.

It is a dark and disturbing movie, but also powerful. There are aspects of it that aren’t perfect. Some of the animation is a little shaky as are some character designs. I would also argue that the “fake” rape scene being as graphic as it was felt gratuitous in a movie that is very obviously calling out the gratuitousness of that type of thing. However, the case can be made that because it’s so upsetting and detailed that it serves the purpose of deeply upsetting the audience along with Mima. I would say the attempted one later in the movie is unnecessarily long though.

I also like that it does an excellent job of keeping the audience confused and in the dark. Some people will start to figure out who is behind the stalking before it is revealed but the movie does draw out the knowledge well. Also the constant “what’s happening and what’s not” is excellently done.

And in spite of all the suffering the movie puts Mima through there are some genuine moments of her reclaiming herself and her identity. IF you can handle the scenes and the clear messaging about the trauma of sexual assault and the coercion that Mima is put through this is a fantastic movie. It is understandable if all of that sounds like too much though.

And I will seriously never get over how this late 90s movie so accurately told us that issues like stalking and parasocial relationships were going to get so much worse with the advent of the internet.