Currently Watching Perfect Blue By Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki Ôkura, Michael McCarty (III) see related

Friday, June 27. A Conversation with Satoshi Kon.

Satoshi Kon is the legendary anime film director. His films are proof that some anime definitely aren’t for children. Kon’s works blend dreams and reality, hallucinations and fantasy until you’re lost in a sea of nightmares. I highly recommend his films to everyone, not just anime fans.

And on Friday night, he made an appearance at Lincoln Center! OMG SATOSHI KON IN PERSON!!! And he revealed some veeeery interesting tidbits ;)

The night started with a screening of Paprika, which is an absolute visual treat. Then came an hour and a half of conversation with Kon, along with some highlights of his works. They first showed a clip from Perfect Blue (the rape scene), and Kon admitted that looking back now, he feels really sorry for putting Mima through all of that (“kawaii sou”). He also talked about perspective, and watching the watchers. For example, in Perfect Blue and in Millennium Actress, people watch the cameramen film the actors. At this point, Kon pulled out a camera and took a picture of us. Suddenly, the audience and the watchers had become the watched. Of course, someone in the audience just had to take a picture of Kon taking a picture of us..lol.

The conversation shifted over to Tokyo Godfathers. For those who haven’t seen the film, one of the main characters is a transvestite named Hana. Kon admitted that when doing the research for the film, he himself dressed up like Hana! HAHAHA

Kon also admitted that while making Paranoia Agent, he didn’t know how it would end, because if he did, then the audience might also get a sense of how it would end. The problem came by episodes ten or eleven (the entire series is 13 episodes). The scriptwriters didn’t know how to end the story, so they asked Kon..but he was also befuddled! Now, in the story of Paranoia Agent, this boy called ‘Shounen Bat’ goes around whacking and killing people who are stressed out and want to die. Kon said that while trying to finish Paranoia Agent, he himself was so stressed with all the pressure that he felt like Shounen Bat was actually going to get him too!

Someone asked Kon about the Akihabara killings, and he said that apparently, the perpetrator didn’t care about who his victims were. He just wanted to kill people. If so, then maybe the identity of the perpetrator doesn’t matter, either. The perpetrator could have been anyone, and this was highly disturbing.

Kon was asked about the otaku subculture. He said that he could have been characterized as an otaku in middle school, and he encouraged being passionate about things in life. Kon did warn us about keeping balance in our lives though, heh.

Someone asked Kon about being an animator. He replied that animators in Japan are poorer than you could possibly think, lol.

To sum up, Kon was really friendly and funny. He told us that when meeting his fans, most fans tell him ‘I thought you would be much scarier!’ But he’s actually pretty cool irl. I even got his signature! ^^ (to be precise, he signed my Death Note. I hope he wasn’t thinking of his face when he signed it…)