Reviews & Ratings for
PERFECT BLUE (1997)

Plot Spoil

Mima Kirigoe, a member of a mildly-successful J-pop group named "CHAM!", decides to leave the group to become a full-time actress. She is joined by her long-time manager and former pop-idol Rumi Hidaka, and her agent Tadokoro. Mima's first job is a minor role in a television detective drama called "Double Bind". Some of her fans are upset by her change in career and persona from a squeaky-clean and innocent teen girl, including a terrifying-looking male stalker who goes by the alias "Me-Mania". Mima receives an anonymous fax calling her a traitor, and even a letter bomb that injures Tadokoro. Following directions from a fan letter, Mima discovers a website called "Mima's Room" containing public diary entries written from her perspective, and which accurately discuss her daily life and thoughts in intimate and exacting detail. Mima confides in Rumi about the site, but is advised to ignore it. Her stalker fan continues to pursue her relentlessly.

The perverted fan refuses to accept that Mima has left her innocent idol image. As if that’s not enough, CHAM appears to be going very well without her[8]

Tadokoro lobbies the producers of Double Bind, and succeeds in securing Mima a larger part; however, this involves her character being raped in a strip club. Rumi is distressed by the scene and warns Mima that it will irreversibly change her public image, but Mima accepts the role despite her own misgivings. Though it is apparent that Mima tries her best and is treated professionally, the atmosphere and experience of filming the rape scene is traumatic. Between the ongoing stresses of filming Double Bind, her lingering regret over leaving CHAM!, her paranoia of being stalked, and her increasing obsession with "Mima's Room", Mima begins to suffer from psychosis: in particular, struggling to distinguish real life from her work in show business.

Several people who had been involved in the so-called "tarnishing" of Mima's reputation are murdered. Mima finds evidence which makes her appear to be the prime suspect, and her mental instability makes her doubt her own memories and innocence. Mima manages to finish shooting Double Bind, the final scene of which reveals that her character killed and assumed the identity of her beloved sister due to trauma-induced Dissociative identity disorder. After the rest of the filming staff have left the studio, Me-Mania attempts to kill her under emailed instructions from "the real Mima" to "eliminate the impostor", but Mima knocks him unconscious with a hammer in self-defense and flees. Me-Mania is murdered soon afterwards; Tadokoro is also killed.

Mima is found backstage by Rumi and taken back to Rumi's home, only to discover that Rumi was the culprit behind "Mima's Room", the serial murders, and the folie à deux that manipulated and scapegoated Me-Mania. Sometime in the past, Rumi developed a second personality who vicariously believed herself to be the "real Mima" (her pure-hearted and forever-young idol persona), using information from Mima's confiding in her as the basis for "Mima's Room". Rumi's "Mima" personality attempts to murder Mima to preserve "her" pristine image forever, and following a chase through the city, Mima incapacitates Rumi in self-defense and saves her from being killed by an oncoming truck.

Much later, Mima has become a well-known actress following the critical success of her performance in Double Bind. She visits Rumi, who is alive but lives in a psychiatric hospital with her "Mima" personality dominant. Due to her fame, Mima is mistaken as a lookalike by two nurses; however, Mima confidentially proclaims to herself that she is "the real thing".

کچە گۆرانیبێژێک واز لە کارەکەی دەهێنێت و وێنا نموونەییەکەی خۆی بە کاری نواندن تێکدەدات.

ئانیمەی | شینی تەواو - ١٩٩٧
ساتۆشی کۆن

Another great Satoshi kon film, thrilling, thought-provoking, and melancholic, yet with a sort of twisted sweet ending. I love the general plot of a singer becoming an actress, and how she gets affected by that. The things that happen to the main character are just horrible, the voice acting was great, the animation, even though dated is still beautiful. And the score is hunting and blood pumping. All and all this was a great watch.