A Taste of Paprika

Like its namesake, the latest Satoshi Kon directed anime, Paprika, who also directed Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and TV series Paranoia Agent, happens to have quite a spice to the realm of imagination. The anime was an adaption of a story by Yasitaka Tsutsui which makes uses of his expertise with psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis and dreams are very much the focus in this anime. The story involves the titular Paprika who happens to be spunkier 20-something dream persona of Doctor Atsuko Chiba who makes use of a device called the DC Mini to examine dreams of patients to determine and assess their mental stress and problems. The usage of the device was considered experimental in the time set for the anime. A theft was involved which follows shortly with a waking dream attack on one of the research staff which later spreads to other people. Someone has become a dream terrorist while possessing and exploiting this miraculous therapeutic device. Paprika must do what she can to identify the culprit and stop his tampering with the dreams of people.

Just watched the DVD yesterday and was pretty entertained by its story and the extra features it contains that gives bit moe depth and background regarding its conception to translation into anime format. It was interesting to note that the movie Paprika was considered by Yasitaka Tsutsui as a great piece of metafiction that was derived from his own story. Satoshi Kon went through a long process of building the adaption from scratch without doing a regurgitation of Tsutsui's novel by using the ideas and concepts presented within and let his imagination go to work on it.

The thing about the anime I wanted to note was one piece of music which became quite a fave among the fans of the movie. It was the song used for the opening credits and closing credits titled "The Girl in Byakkoya" (Though on the Soundtrack is called "Parade") performed by Japanese electropop artist Susumu Hirasawa. The music is very upbeat and catchy to listen. It has the right vibe to use with dreams as presented in the anime. It got going enough to download the soundtrack of Paprika to add to my slowly growing collection of MP3s, which I would subsequently migrate to my soon-to-be-purchased Ipod after I saved enough money from my 1st 2 paychecks. The song doesn't get old for me no matter how many times I play it.