Finally got around to watching perfect blue, after many past interruptions (dvd being scratched, getting called for something mid watch, internet going down for several hours while streaming it, etc) and I am incredibly glad I did, absolutely fantastic film. I could speak on the story or execution, but one thing that really stood out to me is how the usage of techniques could drastically affect a film in subtle ways.

Within the first few minutes I was immediately drawn to how it utilizes storyboarding, the story is very focused around the entertainment industry, especially film/TV and it largely shows within its boarding. The influence of live action films and techniques is very apparent, more so than other animated films I have seen, and it works to it’s advantage incredibly well in creating a sense grounding in the story. You can see it at the very start, the way the ‘camera’ pans and tracks between all the characters, the blocking of characters, how it does things that are often taken for granted in live action shoots and that require more work to incorporate into animation. For most productions this kind of realism is not needed and as such you don’t see it incredibly often, more often taking advantage of being in a 2d environment and adhering less to certain live action practices due to being cheaper for the same result. Here however, it’s a fantastic choice to set up the sense of realism early on so it can break it later in the film.

Which leads to the next thing, the transitions. This is of course another facet of the storyboarding but it was so well done I thought I would talk about it on its own. So many of the transitions between cuts are unbelievably clean, but not at the cost of anything like composition, and further more the transitions in general were very clean. The way music would sometimes blend into a sound effect or vise versa, the way actions would mimic each other or continue in different contexts between cuts, the in-film story mimicking the real story, it’s all deliberate to reinforce the disorientation later in the film. Everything weaves beautifully into each other and it begins ramping up to the point where we the viewer can no longer isolate sections ourselves, mirroring Mima in the film. that is also another advantage of it being animated more akin to a live action film in that the blending between the in-film show and what mima is experiencing is less jarring. They get the weight of it being an immersive, fairly realistically shot show, and set up an avenue to better feel Mima’s viewpoint.

The SFX and mixing were fantastic as well, overall I absolutely adored the sound design. Once again it takes a very realistic approach, there’s constant background sounds and noise in many scenes with a depth that could have very easily been ignored for a more standard approach. You might not even notice it, a very small one being the sound of outside traffic remaining at a lower volume when characters enter certain buildings. I strongly recommend listening, even for a moment, to the soundscape this movie goes out of its way to create.

Ironically enough for someone writing a review I’m not the best at story analysis so I will refrain from speaking too much about it as it is my first watch. I thought the story very good, the buildup to the reveal was incredible, although I will say it is certainly dated regarding the mental health aspects (like much of 90s mystery/crime media). Despite this however, Mima falling into a psychosis was phenomenally done, absolutely one of my favorite portrayals of it along with serial experiments lain. This is where I felt the advantages of the choice in making the film feel grounded in almost every aspect truly shone. It reels you in with a fairly very realistic seeming approach to everything, it gets you immersed, and then utilizes that immersion to get the viewer guessing how much seen is actually happening that I feel many media fails to achieve. It’s a fantastic balance of using everything a medium has to offer to create such an experience, I felt it got the benefits of realism that you could get from a live action production combined with the level of expression that could created in 2d, I cannot find the words to praise it in this regard enough.

Overall an incredible watch, it definitely has become one of my favorites and I hope to re-watch it again in the future to get a better view on other aspects of the film that I may have missed.


(Format note: perhaps providing more concrete examples or visuals could be a good addition to future reviews?)