How Perfect Blue predicted modern stan culture and technologic loneliness

Let’s take a trip back in time to 1997. The United Kingdom has just handed Hong Kong to China, a movie rental company called Netflix has been founded, and someone just registered google.com as a domain in this weird new technology called “the internet.” 

On the CRT TV, you watch Mike Tyson bite some dude’s ear off, a trailer for an upcoming movie about a sinking ship starring some guy named Leonardo DiCaprio, and crowds of fans gather in the streets to mourn the recent death of Princess Diana.

They blame the paparazzi and tabloid media who had been chasing and invading her privacy for years. “Why couldn’t they leave her alone?” the public yelled, as they waved fashion magazines, postcards, makeup products, and newspapers — all plastered with her face.

Meanwhile, Japanese film director Satoshi Kon releases Perfect Blue at the Fantasia Film Festival in Canada. Through its dream-like animation, experimental editing, and magical realism, the film exposes the same predatory hunger of the media and the public’s obsessive consumption that fuels it.

The story follows Mima Kirigoe, a J-pop idol leaving the music industry to pursue an acting career. Many of her fans are angered by this shift, and one person calling himself “Me-Mania” online begins to stalk, impersonate, and harass her as she starts questioning the authenticity of her persona.

The invention of home video and the onset of the internet in the mid-1990s heightened the collective importance of individualism and media consumption. 

So it’s no coincidence that Mima’s identity crisis kicks into gear once she buys a computer and reads a fake blog impersonating her. As Mima begins to explore a more mature, sexually active public image, Me-Mania regards her as “fake,” and his attitude shifts into aggression as he vows to “take care of her” while sitting in a dimly lit room, surrounded by pictures of the J-pop idol.

This dynamic analyzes the gap between the manufactured image of celebrities versus reality and is a warning of the dangerous capacity of parasocial relationships. Mind you, this was in the ‘90s, where only celebrities had their images everywhere.

Let’s come back to the present where we are all incentivized to share and display ourselves, and predatory algorithms are designed to track our every tap and click to figure out how to make us stay online longer. 

You can stream a movie on Netflix, log it into Letterboxd, and search the name of that one cast member who impressed you. The algorithm is already tracking your patterns, so, one day while scrolling Instagram, you see their profile pop up in your suggested, then on YouTube, maybe a fan page on X. The algorithm feeds you more of them until they are plastered all over your feed. All in the name of shareholder profit.

Through this lens, we’re not so different from Me-Mania. We are all surrounded by pictures of the people we admire — the difference being the physicality of the images. Me-Mania must go outside into the real world to get updates on Mima, but for us, the images are endless, updates are live, and they come to us.  

Does this make us creepy murderers? No. But it does isolate us in a bubble, which can be dangerous for our self-image and social connections.

As the film goes on, we see Me-Mania speak with a ghostly, idealized version of Mima, who encourages him to murder. It’s portrayed as a mental mirage fueled by delusion, but how different are their interactions from an AI chatbot? 

If I wanted to, right now, I could go create an AI version of Dua Lipa that agrees with everything I say (as most do), create fake pictures of us with ChatGPT and make videos of her with Sora saying how much she loves me and how perfect I am. 

At what point does the real Dua Lipa even matter? Why bother looking for real connections because how can the real world be anything other than disappointing in comparison? Situations like this sound far-fetched until we look at cases like Sewell Setzer, a 14-year-old boy who tragically took his own life after a Character.AI chatbot whom he had a romantic relationship with encouraged him.

Did the late Satoshi Kon know any of this would happen? Of course not, but it’s hard to argue that the writing wasn’t on the wall. Perfect Blue is a warning of the dangers of losing yourself to images on a screen.

The film ends with Mima looking at herself in the mirror and proudly proclaiming, “I’m the real thing.” That’s the thing about reality — it is imperfect, random, and difficult. But from that adversity comes true self-knowledge. Like Mima, we must turn to reality to build a genuine image of ourselves based on experience, not illusion.

In the spirit of this, I invite you to go see the movie and build your own conclusion. A remaster of Perfect Blue is now available on Prime Video, Apple TV,  and Google Play, in addition to an ongoing limited theatrical run.