Nothing too upsetting in the violence department. There is more disturbing sexual content then violent, including a disgusting man who spies on his own daughter getting dressed. (Still a good series though) But definitely not a show for young viewers. The smartest character in the entire show gets a whole episode devoted to her being.
The Paranoia Agentanime series features an extensive cast of characters created by Satoshi Kon. The series takes place in Musashino, Tokyo, focusing on the serial street assaults caused by an unknown assailant known as Lil' Slugger, and the numerous persons who are affected by them.
Main characters[edit]
- Tsukiko Sagi (鷺 月子, Sagi Tsukiko)
- Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese); Michelle Ruff (English)
- Tsukiko is a character designer who created the popular character Maromi. She is allegedly the first victim of Lil' Slugger's attacks. At the end of the series, it is revealed that she had also unconsciously created Lil' Slugger. When she was younger, the dog Maromi was based on her real dog who was killed after wandering away from Tsukiko-(when she accidentally let go of its leash) and getting hit by a car. Not wanting to upset her father, Tsukiko claimed the dog was killed by a boy on roller blades carrying a bat, which would later manifest itself as Lil' Slugger.
- Lil' Slugger (少年バット, Shōnen Batto, lit. 'Boy with Bat')
- Voiced by: Daisuke Sakaguchi (Japanese); Sam Riegel (English)
- An enigmatic serial assailant who appears to be a sixth-grade elementary student and is identifiable by his golden roller blades, baseball cap and bent golden baseball bat. He appears before people who are mentally pushed into a corner and attacks them with his bat. He is later shown not to be human, but is instead a mysterious entity who grows stronger with the power of rumour and speculation. It is revealed at the end to be the creation of Tsukiko, who imagined him to avoid blame for the death of her dog.
- Maromi (マロミ, Maromi)
- Voiced by: Haruko Momoi (Japanese); Carrie Savage (English)
- Maromi is a character created by Tsukiko Sagi who has accumulated a large degree of popularity among the masses. Maromi was modelled after a dog that Tsukiko owned in her youth. She also serves as Tsukiko's conscience.
- Keiichi Ikari (猪狩 慶一, Ikari Keiichi)
- Voiced by: Shōzō Iizuka (Japanese); Michael McConnohie (English)
- The chief detective in charge of investigating the Lil' Slugger case. He is a tough middle-aged man with a critically ill wife and doesn't believe in the supernatural.
- Mitsuhiro Maniwa (馬庭 光弘, Maniwa Mitsuhiro)
- Voiced by: Toshihiko Seki (Japanese); Liam O'Brien (English)
- A detective assisting Keiichi Ikari in the Lil' Slugger case and doubling as his foil in personality. Unlike Keiichi, he is a lot more intrigued by some of the stranger aspects of the case, often bringing himself closer to insanity in order to solve the case.
Supporting characters[edit]
Paranoia Agent Characters
- Mysterious Old Woman (謎の老婆, Nazo no Rōba)
- Voiced by: Hisako Kyōda (Japanese); Melora Harte (English)
- A homeless woman who dwells near the scene of Lil' Slugger's attack on Tsukiko, of which she is a witness.
- Misae Ikari (猪狩 みさえ, Ikari Misae)
- Voiced by: Kazue Komiya (Japanese); Melodee Spevack (English)
- Keiichi Ikari's wife. She is seriously ill but, despite her illness, she wants to live and remains faithful to her husband. When Lil' Slugger appears before her, she manages to fight him off with her own willpower. She later passes away from a heart attack, but not before managing to free Keiichi from a delusional world.
- Mysterious Old Man (謎の老人, Nazo no Rōjin)
- A senilehospital patient who possesses the ability to predict and identify all of Lil' Slugger's victims.
- Voiced by: Ryūji Saikachi (Japanese); William Frederick Knight (English)
- Akio Kawazu (川津 明雄, Kawazu Akio)
- Voiced by: Kenji Utsumi (Japanese); Doug Stone (English)
- A gossip journalist attempting to cover the Lil' Slugger case. He is indebted to the Old Man's son after causing a traffic accident involving the Mysterious Old Man and is forced to pay his hospital bills as consolation. He becomes Lil' Slugger's second victim while attempting to interrogate Tsukiko Sagi and gather information for his next article. He is skilled in impressions and demonstrates this talent to Tsukiko by flawlessly mimicking her co-workers.
- Yūichi Taira (鯛良 優一, Taira Yūichi)
- Voiced by: Mayumi Yamaguchi (Japanese); Johnny Yong Bosch (English)
- A cool-natured and narcissistic elementary school student who lives near the scene of the original Lil' Slugger attacks. His personal tutor is Harumi Chōno, whom he is emotionally close to. He is initially popular due to his intelligence and athleticism, but because of his golden roller blades and baseball cap, he becomes associated with the recent Lil' Slugger attacks and becomes the subject of ostracism. Following Lil' Slugger's attack on Shōgo Ushiyama (whom he disliked for stealing his popularity), he secludes himself into his room and is reduced to a delusively paranoid state before becoming Lil' Slugger's third victim.
- Shōgo Ushiyama (牛山 尚吾, Ushiyama Shōgo)
- Voiced by: Makoto Tsumura (Japanese); Steven Bendik (English)
- An elementary school student who transferred to Yūichi's school on the advice of his school counselor to positively assert himself. He does so by running for the office of school president. Yūichi believes Shōgo to be a two-faced schemer who is behind the current attacks on Yūichi's reputation to boost his own popularity, when in reality he is a kindhearted youth who seeks to better himself by being positive and helpful whenever he can. He becomes the victim of a Lil' Slugger imposter while on his way home from school.
- Harumi Chōno (蝶野 晴美, Chōno Harumi)
- Voiced by: Kotono Mitsuishi (Japanese); Erica Shaffer (English)
- An office lady who works as a personal tutor for Yūichi Taira. Harumi possesses an alternate personality named Maria (まりあ, Maria), who works as a prostitute. The two personalities communicate via an answering machine. After being engaged and married to her superior Akihiko Kase (voiced by Toshio Kobayashi and Lance J. Holt), Harumi repeatedly attempts to repress the manifestation of Maria, which proves futile. In the apex of her conflict with Maria, Harumi becomes Lil' Slugger's fifth victim.
- Masami Hirukawa (蛭川 雅美, Hirukawa Masami)
- Voiced by: Toshihiko Nakajima (Japanese); Deem Bristow (English)
- A corrupt police chief who often watches his daughter Taeko undress through the use of a hidden surveillance camera. He attempts to have a new house built for his family using illegally obtained money to fund the project. He manages to arrest a Lil' Slugger imposter when an attack attempt is made on him. The house he attempts to build is eventually destroyed in a landslide brought on by a typhoon. He is fond of women and is a regular customer of the prostitute Maria. He later becomes Lil' Slugger's sixth victim.
- Makoto Kozuka (狐塚 誠, Kozuka Makoto)
- Voiced by: Daisuke Sakaguchi (Japanese); Sam Riegel (English)
- A middle schooler under the impression that he is a holy warrior when he is in fact a lunatic unable to distinguish reality from his fantasies. He is arrested under suspicion of being behind the Lil' Slugger attacks, although he soon confesses that the only ones he attacked were Shōgo and Masami. He is soon killed by the real Lil' Slugger, becoming his eighth victim.
- Taeko Hirukawa (蛭川 妙子, Hirukawa Taeko)
- Voiced by: Nana Mizuki (Japanese); Kari Wahlgren (English)
- The only daughter of Masami Hirukawa. She is seen to be very close to her father, admiring him deeply. After discovering her father's disgusting actions, she becomes Lil' Slugger's seventh victim and contracts amnesia as a result of the attack.
- Kamome (かもめ), Fuyubachi (冬蜂), and Zebra (ゼブラ, Zebura)
- Voiced by: Miina Tominaga, Kiyoshi Kawakubo and Yasunori Matsumoto (Japanese); Stephanie Sheh, Doug Stone and Patrick Seitz (English)
- A trio of people, a young girl, an old man and a tall gay man, who meet up from the internet to perform a suicide pact together.
Mellow Maromi Staff[edit]
The production staff of Mellow Maromi, an anime that features Maromi as the main character.
- Nobunaga Oda and Naoyuki Saruta
- Voiced by: Daiki Nakamura and Hiroyuki Yoshino (Japanese); Frank Dallas and John E. Breen (English)
- The two most prominent members of the staff who are the production managers. Saruta is an incompetent and clumsy slacker who constantly causes problems for the production, resulting in a highly stressful work environment, while Oda is a short-tempered man who frequently assaults and humiliates Saruta whenever he makes a mistake. The two gradually become unhinged as production goes on, and after Oda angrily fires Saruta, Saruta beats him to death and takes the finished copy of the first episode, planning to drive it to the studio, only to be pursued by Lil Slugger, who suddenly appears in the back of his car and beats him to death. Saruta’s corpse is later found outside the network station.
Other characters[edit]
- Masashi Kamei (亀井 正志, Kamei Masashi)
- Voiced by: Akio Suyama (Japanese); Jonathan C. Osborne (English)
- An otaku and a regular customer of Maria. He makes short appearances in the first and third episodes, as well as the twelfth.
- Junji Handa (半田 順次, Handa Junji)
- Voiced by: Daisuke Gōri (Japanese); Howard Clarendon (English)
- A Yakuza member affiliated with Masami Hirukawa.
- Shunsuke Makabe (真壁 俊介, Makabe Shunsuke)
- Voiced by: Keiji Fujiwara (Japanese); Kirk Thornton (English)
- A sadistic lackey of Junji Handa who attempts to collect 2,000,000 yen from Masami to give to Handa as a token of congratulations for his engagement. When Masami is unable to provide this amount within the given deadline, Makabe increases the debt to 5,000,000 yen.
Paranoia Agent Behind The Voice Actors
References[edit]
| Synopsis: | |
Tsukiko Sagi is the young and reserved designer of the latest mascot to take Japan by storm: a little pink dog named Maromi. Her already anxious life is thrown in to complete chaos when she is attacked by a mysterious figure in the middle of the night, a boy on golden roller skates who strikes his victims with a bent baseball bat. As Detectives Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa investigate the seemingly random assault, people all around Tokyo begin reporting similar attacks by the boy, who the public comes to call “Lil' Slugger.” A victim of schoolyard bullying; a sex worker with a fractured psyche; a wannabe mobster with big ambitions – people from all walks of life soon find themselves in Lil' Sluggers path. As the mystery grows more sinister, and the connections pile up, our detectives must begin to reckon with who – or what – Lil Slugger is, and what the consequences will be once the entire city is consumed with the chaotic fever of paranoia. | |
| Review: | |
It's been years since Paranoia Agent has been legally available to watch or own in the West, what with Geneon's original DVD release being out of print since the mid-2000s. Given that this is the one and only television series to come from the mind of the late, great Satoshi Kon, it would be an understatement to say that Funimation's acquisition of Paranoia Agent is kind of a big deal. While it'll be some months yet before we can get our hands on the upcoming SteelBook Blu-Ray set, all thirteen episodes of the show can be streamed via Funimation's website and app, so newcomers and old fans alike can learn just why Paranoia Agent has been so well-loved and remembered in the decade-and-a-half since it originally released. Anyone who is familiar with Satoshi Kon's cinematic filmography – specifically Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika – will immediately recognize the director's signature vision and style all over Paranoia Agent. In fact, it wouldn't be entirely unfair to describe the series as a kind of grab bag of Kon's favorite visual motifs and thematic obsessions. As an anthology series, it has the benefit of being able to throw in all manner of disparate moods, plot points, and themes. One episode will be a moody, psychological thriller about a woman whose various identities are starting to come into violent conflict, and the shades of Perfect Blue will be obvious to any fans of that movie. Just a couple of episodes later, then, you'll have the series' two detectives running around in a suspect's farcical fantasy RPG mindscape, which will make anyone who loves Paprika as much as I do very happy, indeed. As in Millennium Actress, many of the episodic stories in Paranoia Agent deal with the recursive and fragile nature of memory and experience, with Lil' Slugger's rampage affecting its victims on just as much a psychological level as a physical one. This is also a uniquely Japanese story, like Tokyo Godfathers, where the lost and culturally disaffected are painted in broad but nevertheless human strokes. To be clear, Paranoia Agent's willingness to plumb the wells already explored in Kon's other work is not a weakness. The fact that these stories take the form of a television series allow for the show to be playful, experimental, and diverse in a manner that isn't often possible in a single feature film. Not every character's story is going to hit with the same impact for each viewer, though, and that lack of consistency may prove frustrating for folks who prefer a more uniform viewing experience. Some episodes try to walk the razor's edge between existential horror and humor in a manner that is often beautiful and heartbreaking, but that dissonance can be hard to parse. There is specifically one episode that I had completely forgotten about, for instance, wherein the attempted suicides of two adult men and a young girl are played for very dark laughs, a kind of Waiting for Godot in anime miniature that sticks in the craw of the mind. I loved it, and I think viewers that are willing to play along with Paranoia Agents multiple trains of thought and purpose will be greatly rewarded, but the show is just as much an acquired taste now as it was back in the day. It helps that the show's sterling direction and generally impressive production values hold up to this day. The art style that Studio Madhouse is working in might be considered a bit old fashioned compared to glossy, modern anime, but few shows in the last fifteen years have achieved such consistent and compelling feats of atmosphere and tone. Many stories stick purely within the realm of realism, or they at least make gestures towards realism, where other head-trips devolve into phantasmagorical nightmares to supremely entertaining effect. Susumu Hirasawa's music also cannot be overlooked as a key ingredient to Paranoia Agent's success; at turns eerie, hilarious, and weirdly infectious, the score perfectly captures the different faces of Paranoia Agent that manifest throughout its episodes. The Geneon dub is just as good as I remember it, too. There's just the right amount of mid-aughts cheese to balance out the genuinely well-done voice-acting, and the English script manages to be faithful without getting too mealy-mouthed in the translation. What is the most important thing to remember about Paranoia Agent is that it is a mystery story where the answers to the mysteries are not as important as the questions they raise. There are answers there for those that seek them, but they exist like the spider-web fissures that spread when one makes a wrong step on the surface of a frozen pond. For every satisfying splinter of truth that splinters and cracks out from the epicenter of the Lil' Slugger attacks, it only becomes easier to see how dark and murky the depths below really are. If each individual human heart represents a world unto itself, Paranoia Agent is about what happens when those worlds are given up to their own little apocalypses, where the predictable malaise of life can suddenly swell up and strike with the catastrophic fury of an atom bomb. Whether it's the struggle to make ends meet in a world ready to swallow you whole, the crises that come with shaping together the jagged shards of a broken personality, or the simple, everyday terror of being pursued by a shadowy figure brandishing a crooked baseball bat – Paranoia Agent understands that the most evocative and haunting stories are borne from the tiniest pinpricks of suggestion: A rumor whispered in the dark; a half-forgotten dream; a pang of long-buried shame and panic that spreads across the mind like a fever. The virus of our collective fear is right there just waiting to be released - to be indulged - and all we can do is bear witness to the ones responsible for putting their worlds back together in its aftermath. |
| Grade: | |
Overall : A Overall (sub) : A Animation : B+ Music : A- + A haunting and deeply felt fable of human experiences told with Satoshi Kon's signature flair, eerie and funny in equal measure, visuals that will stick with you for years to come | |
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