Satoshi Kon: Who Is He & What Anime Did He Make?

Satoshi Kon began working at the turn of the century and died in 2010. He made four full-length films in ten years, and critics called him the David Lynch of Japanese animation.

Kon was indeed fascinated by the same topics as Lynch: show business and its influence on the personality of stars, the intrusion of the stage image into private life, and dreams into reality.

1. Perfect Blue, 1997

The main character of the movie is a young J-pop star, Mima, who leaves a pop group and tries to start a new career as an actress. The change of profession is difficult, Mima is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and soon she begins to suspect that she has developed an alter ego that commits murders.

Kon's debut thriller had a huge response in Western pop culture.Madonna used excerpts from Perfect Blue during her concert tour, and Darren Aronofsky was inspired by the animation when making Black Swan.

In the scene from Requiem for a Dream where Jennifer Connelly sits in the bathtub, screams, and lowers her head into the water, Aronofsky, with Kon's approval, copied Perfect Blue frame by frame.

2. Millennium Actress, 2001

Millennium Actress tells the story of Chiyoko Fujiwara, a 70-year-old woman who was one of the greatest actresses of her time. The movie begins with an interview with the legendary actress about her childhood, how she got started in film, her past work, and her tragic personal life.

As the story unfolds, the lines between reality and fiction begin to blur. Chiyoko's tangled memories eventually intertwine her real past experiences with the roles she played in her movies. The result is a surreal and heartbreaking tale of a love that was never meant to be.

3. Tokyo Godfathers, 2003

Miyuki ran away from home and now lives on the streets in the company of two homeless people: Gin and Hana. The strange trio finds a baby on Christmas Eve and can't leave it unattended. Thus begins the unusual adventures of the homeless as they try to figure out how to find the baby's parents.

Tokyo Godfathers is an unusual movie for Satoshi Kon. It is unusual in its normality: the author created fantastic works at the intersection of reality and fiction, but Tokyo Godfathers turns out to be an absolutely down-to-earth work.

But not without a Christmas miracle: by trying to help each other, each of the trio will find their own way and finally come to terms with their demons. And the journey will remind them (and the viewers) that it is never too late to get up after life has dealt you a blow.

4. Paprika, 2006

Paprika is the pinnacle of Satoshi Kon's work. The film was in competition at the Venice Film Festival and its screening ended with a five-minute standing ovation.

Paprika is set in the future, where a brilliant inventor creates a device that allows one to enter other people's dreams. Psychotherapist Atsuko uses the device to work with the unconscious of patients, appearing in their dreams in the form of her alter ego – the red-haired girl Paprika. But unknown people steal the device and start to give healthy people strange dreams.

Kon admitted that he does not like stories that are 100% understandable to the viewer, so you will definitely have to watch Paprika at least a couple of times.

The intricacies of its plot influenced Christopher Nolan 's Inception: the films are similar not only in the idea of dream control, but also in certain shots, when Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character runs along the walls of a rotating corridor, or when a seemingly realistic cityscape crumbles under the hand of Elliot Page's Ariadne.