Perfect Blue: take a random episode of Paranoia Agent, remove all traces of humour whatsoever and extend the result into a ninety-minute movie. I originally thought that this series would be more like Tokyo Godfathers, but instead we get a story about paranoia, schizophrenia and hallucinations. And While I liked Tokyo Godfathers better, Perfect Blue is a very capable movie as well.

Satoshi Kon knows how to build up his story, and this is even apparent in his first major movie. It starts with a simple case where an ex-idol is being stalked by an obsessed fan, and the series turns more and more into a psychological horror-series afterwards. Like expected, the biggest purpose of this movie is to dive into the mind of its main character, and it succeeds pretty well at this. Mima is a terrific character, and even though she may freak out, she’s far away from an emo teenager in the middle of puberty.

This movie does have its problems, though. It feels like a few of the side-characters weren’t used to their full potential. While I can understand why Satoshi Kon decided not to show much of the background of the major bad guys, it would have been interesting to see more of the reasons behind their actions, and their backgrounds. The ending also felt a tad too abrupt, and an extra minute would have done wonders on it. A little more involvement with the police would also have been desired. Quite a few people get killed, but you hardly ever see the cops.

Overall, I agree with the general opinion for this movie: Perfect Blue is great, but it’s not Satoshi Kon’s best work. Still, if it’s paranoia you want, then you should definitely give it a chance. With a terrific soundtrack and a gritty, realistic setting, away from the usual idol-stereotypes you see in anime, this movie won’t leave you disappointed.

So, after this, there’s just one movie and one OVA left that I want to check out. I think it’s pretty obvious which ones I saved for last, but I’m not going to say which they are just yet. ;)

By request of Chris, I’ve decided to write full and detailed summaries for Porfy from now on. It’s the least I can do for this series.

The episode starts with Porfy, thinking back about the previous episode, and more specifically Alecia. Ever since she left, she’s been on his mind, and this is getting on Mina’s nerves. She then shows Porfy a letter that just arrived from Alecia, and she starts teasing him with it. Aneke then tells both of them to go outside because of the fuss they cause. In the end, the letter tells Porfy and Mina how they’re the first friends that Alecia has ever had, and how she had a great time with both of them. She also invites both of them to come to Italia once, so that they can play. Porfy is so caught up in this that he hardly notices how one of the goats is about to eat the letter. :P

Porfy then leaves Mina and runs to Christopher, wanting to show the letter to his father. Then a customer arrives who mistook the service station for a gas-station, and believes that there should be gasoline at a station like this. This has a really big impact on Porfy, seeing a customer leave his father disappointed like that. He then suggests his father to also install some kind of gasoline tank for his customers. The sooner the better.

That afternoon, the family makes another trip to the city. Christopher is going to try and get his hands on a gasoline pump, while Porfy, Mina and Aneke go to a movie while they wait. Christopher borrowed another car for the trip, and he picks up his family. On the way to the city, they come across Zaimis, who is running errands with who looks to be his mother, and Porfy tells him how they’re going to see a movie. Mina then says that she’ll bring a small souvenir for him.

When they’re in the city, Porfy gets distracted by random cars as usual. Then the cars arrive at the theatre and Christopher drops Porfy, Mina and Aneke off. The movie was… cheesy. Remember that this is Greece in the 1950s, and apparently even then the movies weren’t what you’d call top-notch. What’s interesting is that it was an actual live-action movie. Did the creators actually go and film it, or did they just grab a random Greek movie from the shelves? I suspect the latter, though I do admit that it’s an interesting way to save budget. The story is about a rich boy who falls in love with a poor woman, but they break up in the end due to their differences in social status.

In any case, Porfy and especially Mina were really impressed by the movie. It was probably the first time they saw one, and I can imagine how awesome it must look if you’ve never seen it before. Mina also starts comparing the female heroine with Alecia. *wink wink*. When they exit the theatre, Christopher also comes back from his errands. He didn’t succeed in buying a gas pump, but h tries to keep this hidden from Porfy. Afterwards, Mina buys a red pencil for Zaimis as the souvenir, after which all four of them have dinner at a local restaurant.

Mina notes how the food is delicious, but it’s nowhere near as good. Of course, after hearing this Porfy just has to say the same, even though he had his mouth full at the time. When the dinner is over and Christopher is probably washing up or something similar, Aneke runs into an old friend of hers. Apparently, this friend didn’t yet know that Aneke married someone as poor as Christopher, and once she finds out, she quickly tries to find an excuse to leave.

Mina then starts comparing her parents to the couple in the movie, as Aneke too married a poor guy, even though she belonged to the upper classes. The last thing that Christopher needs to do in the city is refill the gas of the car that he borrowed, and during this process Porfy looks like a small kid in a candy-store.

During the drive back to Simitra, Porfy and Mina fall asleep on the back couch of the car. Porfy then has a dream of how he in a cool costume refills the gasoline for all the different cars (after all, it looked like a very simple task for him to do). He wakes up just early enough to overhear Aneke and Christopher talk about how the gasoline pump will be impossible. It’ll just cost too much money. Porfy clearly becomes upset, and even tries to suggest that Aneke’d borrow some money from her rich family.

When they reached back home, Porfy is still disappointed. Aneke tries to comfort him a bit. She also explains how she and Christopher decided that they wouldn’t depend on the money from her family after they married. It really had it coming. Porfy had a huge imagination, so it was only a matter of time until this would go out of control and he’d start demanding unreasonable things like a gas pump. It was Christopher’s dream to own a local garage, and something tells me that he’s already happy enough with just that, while Porfy’s ideals are a bit bigger than that.

I must say, though, that the creator went really into the mind of a child for this production. That’s one point where this series is already better at than Les Miserables. In terms of drama it may be very light and all, but the amount of realism is overwhelming. Porfy and Mina behave just like how real children would in this situation, and even Ghibli doesn’t come close to the level of realism for this series.

Yes, you’ve read the rating right. I hardly ever give a movie a rating above 90/100, because of the limited time they have to work with, and this is the highest rating I’ve ever handed out to a movie. I knew that this was going to be a good movie because of the stories I’ve heard about the original novel, but I never expected that it would be THIS good. The Dog of Flanders has left me in an emotional wreck, and I honestly say that it’s been the best movie I’ve ever seen.

The people from Nippon Animation are true gods when it comes to adaptations. They always remain faithful and they always get the best out of their source material. If the source-material is such a tear-jerker as this one, the results really turn out amazing. This movie is heart-wrenching, from start to finish. It never shows any moments of weakness, and when one grievingly sad scene ends, you can be sure that it’ll be followed by an even sadder scene next.

The story makes perfect use of the amazing characters. No character feels incomplete, they all have their own subtle backgrounds, they all well-developed characters with their own well-defined roles. Even the small side-characters have a personality, and they work so incredibly well with the main characters. The only thing that isn’t absolutely stellar about this movie are the visuals. After all, it has been animated by Nippon Animation, and it dates back from 1997, so the art style does look simple.

But that should be no reason to not check out this movie. Over the past few months, I’ve watched a lot of different movies, and I kept nitpicking on how they always came out flawed somehow, and how each movie, despite its good points, didn’t quite make it to become truly memorable. This is why I often prefer TV-series. But a Dog of Flanders is different. It’s a true masterpiece, and it’s a real shame that so little people seem to have watched it. Both AniDB, Anime News Network and MyAnimeList have just thirty people who voted for it. If you’re looking for a sad story, then The Dog of Flanders should be the first on your list to check out.

This episode was meant to build up for the next one. But with Shion no Ou, this isn’t a bad thing at all. This episode was yet again awesome, and now that this series is nearing its finish it’s getting more amazing by the minute! Seriously, this series has some of the best character-studies in a long while, and at the moment, I’m certain that it’ll end up being one of my favourite series of 2008, even though we’re only half past February.

And really, the animators were on fire for this episode, after the really weird shots of the previous one. It’s really interesting to see that the creators too have realized that the animation needs to be better, and they’re actually improving themselves. I’ve only seen this phenomena in one other series: Mahou Shoujotai. I don’t think I need to say anything more. It’s not like the animation this episode was really crisp or smooth. It’s even messier than usual, but it’s detailed and imaginative. Those were some really interesting poses, where you can see that the animators put some thoughts into them. Some were exaggerated, but others looked SO natural, like how Satoru tilted his head when Shion approached him.

And boy, the story. I’m getting more and more the feeling that Satoru is some kind of huge red herring, standing in front of the real killer. The amount of depth that he and Shion got in this episode is almost unbelievable. This episode starts with Hani-meijin winning over Hisatani, and the second half of the episode is dedicated to the match between Shion and Satoru.

It actually turns out that Shion met Kazuki, when her parents were alive. She hears this from Satoru, during the match. In exchange, she starts crying for her, wondering who it was that handed her her first shougi-pieces at such a young age. I don’t think that Satoru could have expected that other people cared about Kazuki apart from him.

That’s not the only thing that Satoru tells her. He also tells him that she actually once convinced him to stop playing Shougi, and that because of her, he organized the tournament in the first place. It also seems that she died, the day after Shion’s real parents died. Also, for some reason, Satoru also tries to make her remember the incident, and because of this he also shows her his memorial, the same as Shion’s.

Shion then recalls another part of her memory, where she’s playing shougi with her father as a child, where he actually inspires her to keep playing shougi. Shion then realizes that that was the reason why she became a pro in the first place. After the match progresses a while, Satoru leaves the room to eat a bit of lunch. Before he leaves the room, he asks Shion about the night of the murder. Apparently, it took a while before the police arrived, but Shion never screamed for help. She just cried for her parents, if I understood things correctly.

This makes Shion recall that night a bit more clearly, and the night with her father as well. Guess what? It turns out that these two nights were the exact same night. The reason why Shion kept playing shougi was BECAUSE OF WHAT THE KILLER SAID to her! In her mind, she changed this image to be her foster-father. One interesting detail is that Shion held the other king in her hand that time, and she didn’t want to give it up.

Seriously, the potential for the finale for this series is overwhelming. Hands down, Shion no Ou has become my favourite series of the Autumn-season, and Ghost Hound is going to have to be amazing if it wants to have any chance to change this.