Paranoia Agent by Satoshi Kon

[1:37 seconds opening sequence of Paranoia Agent]
With the sad passing of anime-director Satoshi Kon [blogged], we take a look back at one of his anime-projects; the made-for-tv series "PARANOIA AGENT" (completed before his 2006-film "Paprika"), which first aired on February 2, 2004 (to May 18, 2004) and ran 13 episodes. CLICK THRU for more info about Paranoia Agent, as well as embedded videos of the first episode (Japanese with English-subtitles).


WHAT-IS: 'Paranoia Agent (妄想代理人, Mōsō Dairinin?) is a Japanese anime television series created by director Satoshi Kon and produced by Madhouse about a social phenomenon in Musashino, Tokyo caused by a juvenile serial assailant named Lil' Slugger (Shōnen Bat, or Bat Boy in the original Japanese version). The plot relays between a large cast of people affected in some way by the phenomenon; usually Lil' Slugger's victims or the detectives assigned to apprehend him. As each character becomes the focus of the story, details are revealed about their secret lives and the truth about Lil' Slugger.'

ORIGINS: 'During the makings of his previous three films (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers), Paranoia Agent creator Satoshi Kon was left with an abundance of unused ideas for stories and arrangements that he felt were good but did not fit into any of his projects. Not wanting to waste the material, he decided to recycle it into a dynamic TV series in which his experimental ideas could be utilized.'

[All above text-description via Wikipedia]


[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]
DVDS: 'A series of four English dubbed and subtitled DVDs produced by New Generation Pictures were released in North America and Europe between October 26, 2004 and May 10, 2005 distributed by Geneon. A UMD version of Volume 1 was made available on October 10, 2005.' [Info via Wiki]