marionjoensblog

Based on a unfamiliar by Yoshikazu Tekeuchi, this unusual animé follows Polanski’s Repulsion into some fairly grown-up areas: the vulnerability of one’s sense of self, the flimsiness of a common persona, the honorarium to be paid owing female complicity with male fantasies. Mima, lead singer with a teen-idol group which has had its statutory 15 minutes, as expected submits to her manager’s instructions by going individual and attractive a ‘bad girl’ position in a TV soap. But then she finds her private journal posted on the Internet, imagines herself stalked by a slasher movie monster and is harassed by her own blight double, a malign version of her popstar self. The old Diaboliques question arises: is she ‘merely’ cracking up, or is someone really out to get her? The denouement isn’t very surprising or enlightening, but at its unsurpassed this works as both a critique of Japan’s bang culture method and an effective woman-in-exposure psycho-thriller. (The energy leader was Hideki Hamazu.