Paranoia Agent (TV)
His 2004 TV series, “Paranoia Agent,” has been the most glaring blindspot for me in the filmmography of the late Satoshi Kon. I happened to find it on YouTube (albeit in an English dub, without subtitles), and, since I wanted to discuss his work on the podcast, the convergence of events led to me finally being able to watch this final, major piece of Kon’s output over his cut short career. It was well worth the wait.
All of Kon’s most significant works deal with a complicated nature of reality for their characters, and “Paranoia Agent” is no different. What does set it apart from his previous work is how he has about about 5 1/2 hours to explore his concepts rather than just 90 minutes, as he had in his features. That means he has time to flesh out his world in a way that allows less for the complicated surreal nature of “Paprika,” and more of a sense of detail like “Tokyo Godfathers.” The result is one of the most uniquely visionary pieces of long-form storytelling I’ve ever seen.
Part of the issue with giving an iconoclast like Satoshi Kon an extended amount of time to tell a story is that sometimes, they might lose focus of the narrative and throw caution to their whims to get as surreal as they want, resulting in some episodes that don’t really succeed as much as we would like. Even at 25 minutes a piece, 13 episodes feels like too much latitude for a narrative as complex as “Paranoia Agent.” That said, I will probably rewatch the series at some point, because even if the story feels out of sorts at times, it’s hard to take your eyes off of it, and Kon always managed to stick the landing, in the end.
The first episode centers on the creator of a beloved cartoon character. Her name is Tsukiko Sagi, and her creation is a pink dog named Maromi. She is struggling to come up with a new creation, and the anxieties are getting to her. She is the first of several victims over the first few episodes of a mysterious individual called Lil’ Slugger, who looks like a teenager, and he attacks his victims with a broken gold baseball bat. Each of the first few episodes looks at a different character, and while they all find themselves connected beyond them being attacked by Lil’ Slugger, maybe there’s something more that connects these characters, and it’s not necessarily something that you might expect, at least from one point of view.
I’ll be honest- episodes 7-10 really lost me. This is where I was questioning Kon having over five hours to tell this particular story; so much of it feels like surreal filler before he finally makes his way to the endgame of this saga. Don’t get me wrong, I loved watching and listening to it (the score by Susumu Hirasawa is fantastic), but from a storytelling standpoint, this part of the series feels like overindulgence rather than necessary parts of the story. When I do rewatch the series, I’ll be focusing intently on these episodes, and seeing- knowing how the series ends- where this fits in. Episode 10 is when the series starts to snap into focus, though, even if it seems to really go for breaking the fourth wall, at times. This is why I kind of love watching the series, nonetheless, and why Satoshi Kon is one of my favorite filmmakers- even if I’m a bit lost, he always manages to keep me riveted to the screen.
Once the last three episodes of this series played across my eyes, I could see how he was altering reality to explore the notion of personal anxiety, working through it creatively, and how it can sometimes bring out something that impacts others, as well. For my final, pure hit of Satoshi Kon, it’s kind of exciting to see that he never backed away from his vision and ideas, especially when given (maybe too much) freedom and time to explore them.
