- Accidental Aesop:
- The whole film can be seen as a deconstruction of Fanservice and how a series should never rely on it to gain viewers. Because at the end of the day all you've done is objectify and humiliate a human being.
- Given that all of the movie's problems are caused due to characters' adverse reaction to fanservice, it can easily be seen as the opposite message too - being obsessed with ideals of purity and expecting others to live up to them can drive one bonkers. What one person considers an average day at the job can be seen as degrading and humiliating by others, and the problem only comes when the latter try to reign in the former.
- To a lesser extent, getting a driver's license and a car invites freedom to your life. It also means you won't get driven by someone who may want to kill you.
- The whole film can be seen as a deconstruction of Fanservice and how a series should never rely on it to gain viewers. Because at the end of the day all you've done is objectify and humiliate a human being.
- Adaptation Displacement: A comparatively mild example; it's fairly frequently mentioned that it's based on a novel, including on the DVD case for the anime... but you'll be hard-pressed to find a Westerner who has heard of the novel outside that, or knows anything about it. In fact, you'll be hard-pressed to find much English information regarding the novel at all. From what little we do know, though, the movie's plot is more of an original story than an adaptation. In 2018, the novel was relesed in English by Seven Seas Entertainment.
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- There are several hints in the film that leaving Cham and becoming an actress was not Mima's choice in the first place. Tadokoro keeps talking about how Cham is not doing well and how the agency needs to change Mima's image so she's profitable. It's frighteningly common in Japan for idols who aren't sufficiently popular or who have gotten too old to carry off the Purity Personified image (say, around 20 or so) to be shoved into product endorsement, game show appearances, or whatever. It's possible that Mima was just making the best of a bad situation. As enthusiastic as she appears to her agents and the public, when no one else is watching her behavior indicates that she's not completely happy with her change in career, at least in the beginning. This is especially evident in her reactions in private after the faux rape scene and the photography shoot. And the most ironic part? Even if she wanted to go back to being a pop idol, she can't—because the two remaining members of Cham are far more successful now that she's gone. That's right, she was actually holding them back.
- With the implications that Rumi was behind the website Mima's Room, since she was the only one with access to Mima's thoughts and musings, what was her purpose in helping Mima learn to use her computer? Was it still her being helpful to Mima, or was it a means to show her what she should be?
- Awesome Art: In spite of the film's visibly low budget, it's filled with interesting visuals, especially when the movie blurs the lines of reality. Darren Aronofsky went as far as to recreate the
bathtub scene in Requiem for a Dream. - Awesome Music: "Virtua Mima". If this song does not make you want to crawl under the bed and hide, nothing will.
- Catharsis Factor: Everything for Mima after the climax. Mima hitting Me-Mania with a hammer, her standing up to Rumi to be herself — and subsequently saving Rumi from being run over by a truck — and then being shown at the very end as a successful actress.
- Common Knowledge:
- A frequent misbelief regarding the ending is that Rumi speaks the final line as a last-second Mind Screw. However, when discussing Perfect Blue in a lecture series, Kon states that Mima speaks the final line and doesn't even bring up the possibility of Rumi saying the final line. That and the fact that it's clearly Mima's voice speaking at the end.
- On a meta note, it is often believed that Darren Aronofsky got the remake rights to Perfect Blue so that he can recreate the bathtub screaming scene for his own film Requiem for a Dream. However, Kon stated in an interview that Aronofsky never properly secured the rights.
- Epileptic Trees: There is an amazing fan theorynote out there that suggests that both Mima and Rumi are actually delusions of a third person who is mentioned in passing. Long story short, a woman named Yoko Takakura is in an insane asylum for murdering several men, along with her sister, a model whom Yoko has assumed the identity of. From the asylum, Yoko imagines the entirety of the film's story, with Mima as her ideal self, Rumi her actual self, and the actual doctors around her recast as actors on the Double Bind TV show. She imagines her own murders as actually committed by a disfigured man (Me-Mania) and her own rape as a scene in the TV show. By the film's end, her delusion continues as her perfect Mima personality is allowed out of the hospital to pursue her own life. The evidence for this theory lies in the dialogue of the Double Bind actors.
- It should be noted that this is the actual plot of Show Within a Show Double Bind; Yoko Takakura is the name of Mima's character on the show.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Often mentioned in the same breath as AKIRA and Ghost in the Shell as a gateway title for adult anime fans in the West, but took a little while longer to earn mainstream attention compared to those two. The rise of parasocial celebrity culture in the West (providing a sort of analog to Japanese idol culture, which Perfect Blue is steeped in) and renewed interest in Satoshi Kon’s work after his death are likely contributors. Conversely, at home in Japan, the novel is far more well-known than the film.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- The lyrics of the song Mima performs with CHAM at the very beginning:
If it means you're loved in the end,
Be much more aggressive, because you will get a chance.- The nightclub gang rape scene is eerily and horrifyingly reminiscent of a similar event that took place in Tel-Aviv 18 years later.
- Some fans comment on Mima avoiding them that former pop idols aren't as friendly. With how more personable celebrities are expected to be in the 2010s, she's getting off pretty easily.
- Jerkass Woobie: Rumi. She ends up delusional and tries to kill Mima to take her stardom as a result of being completely emotionally broken from exploitation from the idol industry.
- Me-Mania too. Yes, he was a serial killer and attempted rapist... But that's because he was a deformed, barely-functioning schizophrenic who lived only for his perfect image of Mima. The scene where we see his apartment is an enormous Stalker Shrine and that all he wants in life is "the real Mima's" affection was genuinely sad.
- Mis-blamed: Some fans have blamed the English dub for screwing up the ending by having Mima state "No, I'm the real one" instead of Rumi. However, as noted above, Kon confirmed that Mima says the final line, so the English dubbing team got it right.
- Nausea Fuel: Let's see, there's...
- Mima's rape scene.
- The scenes where Mima is being photographed naked.
- The corpses that have their eyes gouged out.
- The photographer being stabbed in his eye and his crotch and then repeatedly stabbed over and over by the supposed "pizza deliverer".
- Me-Mania's physical appearance and his attempted rape of Mima.
- The final battle between Rumi and Mima.
- Nightmare Retardant:
- Me-Mania was extremely scary, especially in the scenes were he was partially shown. But it's rather hard to take him seriously anymore when he starts talking, showing that he has a rather ridiculous-sounding voice. And then, he makes that sound when he gets hit by the hammer.
- Rumi getting impaled by the glass while trying to grab her wig and the pop song at the end.
- Paranoia Fuel: Could be retitled "Paranoia Fuel: The Movie."
- Slow-Paced Beginning: The first third or so is quite slow, with a few freaky scenes tossed in between a bunch of scenes filled with dialogue, exposition, and foreshadowing. Moments of creepiness aside, you may find yourself wondering what all the fuss is about... then people start dying, and that's where the real fun begins.
- Spiritual Successor: Perfect Blue can be easily seen as a spiritual anime from Brian De Palma when compared to his works like Phantom of the Paradise, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out or Raising Cain that feature a lot of similar topics such as a look into the entertainment industry, erotic exploitation, insanity, eerie and mysterious villains and for having an off-the-walls climax.
- Technology Marches On: Mostly involving computers/the internet. The scene where Mima admits she finds browsing the web to be terribly confusing, and Rumi has to talk her through it comes off as quite funny nowadays.Rumi: It's an Internet home page.
Mima: Oh, that thing that's been popular lately! And what is it? - Unintentional Period Piece: Mima is a 21 year old who doesn't know how to use a computer. This was plausible during the film's release in 1997, when the internet as we know it now was still very new, but the very concept is unthinkable twenty years on.
- Values Dissonance: When Mima discovers that there is a website posting entries in her name and writing about her day, she is more creeped out by how accurate the details are. Considering how fast the Internet and communications have become, the bigger question her PR team would have is that someone is impersonating her online, which means she has a stalker and it presents a rather different image.
- Values Resonance: In many ways, Perfect Blue is actually more relevant in The New '10s and The New '20s than it was when it first came out. With the rise of internet celebrities and influencers—and the intimate way they communicate with their fans via social media—parasocial relationships have only become more and more common. The idol industry is also still huge in Japan and South Korea, both attaining international success and attracting fans from all over the world (especially in South Korea's case). Like with internet celebrities, these idols often attract parasocial relationships with their fans cultivated through social media. The result is that Perfect Blue still feels like a biting critique of fan entitlement and celebrity culture even decades after it came out.
- The Woobie: Mima. After leaving her singing career to pursue becoming an actress, she gets stalked by an obsessive fan, who later attempts to rape her. Her first acting role was to be a rape victim at a bar, much to Rumi's protests. The more she delves into her acting career, the more she loses the grasp of her identity and what reality is. The climax brings Mima fully into this trope when her own agent and friend, Rumi has been posing as her, replicates her room perfectly, and attempts to murder her since she is a "fake". Cue Rumi chasing a defenseless Mima who can't do anything but run and scream for help. Thankfully, she does get better at the end.
Complete Metamorphosis, by Yoshikazu Takeuchi
- Complete Monster: The stalker known only as "Darling Rose" fixates on "saving" pop idol Mima Kirigoe from her increasingly adult-oriented career path by skinning her and wearing it as her biggest fan. To practice, he murders a little girl, skinning her leg to graft onto himself. Finding the flesh of the dead useless, Darling Rose captures, rapes, and flays another idol alive before kidnapping Mima's assistant to lure in Mima and trying to kill them both.
