[merylsilverburg]

Originally posted by ZeroSniper

Perfect Blue is part murder mystery with plot twist that will have you on the edge of your seat, as well as much graphic content.
Unfortunately, the first couple of minutes do not lead on to the great anime this really is. In other words; it's somewhat boring, at first. It's unimaginative characters are also another drawback along with the rather bland music.

Actually, it's part murder mystery and part psychological drama (as many say it really is). The whole point of this movie was to show how obsessive and "deranged" a person can become.
The characters are unimaginative for the reason that it's trying to aim for the realistic setting. Since pop music is pretty popular in Japan and pop idols/icons are groveled and obsessed over, this is why they chose to use a pop icon and music in this movie. I'm pretty sure this anime wouldn't have the same uneasy aura and realistic qualities if the characters had been more "anime" and the music punk rock or something else.

This story is very realistics, and had the character feelings and thoughts not been carefully inspired, this would have been a disaster.[/color]

I agree. This film was a huge shocker to me after I saw it because of the way the characters were so realistic and this was something that was unique to me at that time. The crew who did this anime has created another film called Sennen Joyu (Millennium Actress) which came out on DVD Feb. 25 in Japan. If this ever comes over to the US, don't expect the same thing as "Perfect Blue" because I heard it's much different.