Kon Satoshi only got to direct four movies and a television series, but was a legend already during his lifetime, a fantastic storyteller with a unique realistic visual style. The day after he died I wrote a eulogy for this site, in which I stated:
It would have been more than twenty-three years until he was seventy. Who knows what we're all missing out on?Who knows indeed. Today I still feel the anger and sadness I felt then, and for that very reason.
In this gallery we'll touch upon his works, and several writers will chime in with their opinions. Click on the edge of the pictures to scroll through the titles.
Kon Satoshi started drawing manga in college, and was quickly recognized as a talent for both his prowess as an illustrator and his skills as a writer. After graduating he became an assistent to Akira writer/director Ōtomo Katsuhiro, and through him Kon became involved in movie-making. Among the titles he collaborated on are Kitakubo Hiroyuki's Roujin-Z and Oshii Mamoru's Patlabor 2.
Magnetic Rose (Memories) (1995)
In 1995, the science-fiction anime anthology Memories was released. Its first segment Magnetic Rose was directed by Morimoto Kōji, and was written by Kon Satoshi (based on a short story by Ōtomo Katsuhiro). Kon also provided background art and layouts.
The story concerns a salvage vessel in space, which receives a distress call from a huge spaceship. When the astronauts arrive to help, they discover the dead ship is run by a lonely demented Artificial Intelligence which tries to trap them for company. It is by far the most creepy of the three segments, and many of Kon Satoshi's recurring themes of questionable identities, dreams, altered realities and works of art can be found here already.
Perfect Blue (1997)
After having produced and directed an episode of the nineties' anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Kon directed his first feature film, and created an instant classic of animation: the giallo-inspired psychological thriller Perfect Blue. It tells the story of Mimi, a young singer who leaves her pop-music band to become a soap actress. This causes a change in her public good-girl image which is hard to swallow for her fanbase, especially when her newest acting roles require some controversial nudity. Almost cracking with stress and doubt, Mimi starts to suffer from blackouts. And things get really scary when people who helped with her career-change get murdered one-by-one.
Perfect Blue was a daring debut, which provided Hitchcockian thrills and exploitational sex and violence. But at the same time it was an intelligent drama about backbreaking stress, perception of reality, and even cyber-stalking (still quite prophetical in 1997). Also noticeable was Kon's art style, which ditched the caricatures and funny tropes regular in anime, and replaced them with far more realistic-looking animation. It was a style he would stick with throughout his career.
And it became a critical success: not only did Perfect Blue win awards, it gave Kon Satoshi a few famous fans as well. Director Darren Aranofsky admits his Oscar-winning drama Black Swan bears a strong resemblance to Perfect Blue story-wise (though he denies it's meant as a remake of sorts). And a scene from his earlier film Requiem for a Dream, in which a character yells in helpless rage while submerged in a bathtub, was lifted shot-by-shot from Kon's debut, and credited as such.
Kon Satoshi also received criticism, with many people wondering why this was an anime while it could have been done as a live-action film. However, Kon's toying with reality here should not be underestimated, and many of the story's conceits would probably not have worked so well when tried in live action.
Millennium Actress (2001)
Kon's next film explored less extreme grounds than Perfect Blue had done. Basically one big love letter to Japanese cinema history, Millennium Actress tells the story of two journalists who get a rare chance to interview a reclusive elderly movie actress, an icon of decades past. As the interview commences, so do the journalists get drawn into a whirlpool of memories, in which past, present and movie scenes melt into one reality.
Again Kon uses animation for the purpose of changing reality on the fly where necessary, and he uses it masterfully here, while at the same time being able to give hat-tips to many of his favorite movies. Millennium Actress also marks the point where he started to collaborate with composer Hirasawa Susumu, and the two artists formed a winning combo.
Millennium Actress was received even better than his previous film, and introduced many people to what Japanese animation could actually be capable of. As our Managing Editor Peter Martin fondly recalls:
"Flinging words around like daggers in a metal shed, my friend Shawn excitedly tried to tell me about a movie he'd just seen, Perfect Blue, a Japanese cartoon -- I stopped him right there. I had no experience with, nor interest in learning about 'Japanese cartoons'; far too many films awaited my discovery in the early years of the 21st century. Some time later, however, I found myself volunteering at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, where, in November 2002, I saw a 'Japanese cartoon' called Millennium Actress on a big screen … and it was fabulous, and not at all what I expected. After the packed screening, director Satoshi Kon stayed to talk about his movie and to sign anything anyone offered. Foolishly, I rushed out. Later, friends showed me what he had signed: not only his name, but also a bit of his own hand-drawn animation, freshly created and different for each one. Happily, I began watching and marveling at his films and television shows, which were always fabulous, thought-provoking, and totally unexpected."
Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Just before Christmas, a band of homeless people find an abandoned baby in the trash, and try to return the child to its family. Their task turns into a wild search through an ice cold Tokyo, in which they encounter not just their regular problems, but also yakuza, nightclub-performers and even assassins. Worse, at several key moments they need to face their own shortcomings and mistakes. Will this end well for anyone?
With Tokyo Godfathers, Kon Satoshi created a madcap comedy with Christmas sentimentality, but at the same time he packed it with taboos. Homeless people are not often talked about as a subject, and with every "model" family the vagrants encounter there is something seriously wrong. Domestic abuse, gambling, exaggerated family pride, alcohol... nobody gets spared here. Despite being very sweet, the film puts big question marks at concepts like family and friendships, and that contrasts nicely with the saccharine main quest of the "heroes".
Paranoia Agent (2004)
A television series with 13 episodes, Paranoia Agent brought back the killer combo of Kon Satoshi and composer Hirasawa Susumu. The series is blessed with one of the best combinations of opening credits and closing credits ever made, of which Kon stated: "Paranoia Agent was shown very late in the evening, so we decided to first wake people up a bit, and after each episode they could go to sleep."
Wake-up call indeed. In Paranoia Agent we follow several characters, all burdened with increasing stress. One person is being blackmailed, another has scored a huge success at work but is afraid she can't follow up properly, a student sees his position at school threatened by a rival, someone sees her life fall apart because of a mental health issue, ... as they say, happy people have no stories. But all these characters have one thing in common: they get attacked by a boy on rollerskates, who wields a golden baseball bat.
At first the police dismisses the stories about the boy, thinking they are excuses for these people to get out from under their crushing responsibilities, but the attacks increase, and more and more people fall victim. "Shônen Batto", as the boy is called by the press, becomes a phenomenon, an epidemic which runs wild through all of Japan. Can the police stop the wave of attacks, or is there a supernatural power at work?
Kon shows paranoia and stress as socially transmitted diseases, and in the 325 minutes at his disposal he shows a wealth of ideas and storylines, snippets he couldn't use in his other works. The end result is a very strong collection of critical sketches on modern society, and Kon treats all his characters (even the evil ones) with empathy.
Have you ever felt so depressed about the coming workday that you hoped something bad would happen to you on your way to work? This is the series for you. And strange as it may seem, you'll have a blast watching it.
Paprika (2006)
Originally, Kon intended to follow up Perfect Blue with an adaptation of Paprika, a book by his favorite writer, Tsutsui Yasutaka (who also wrote the much-filmed A Girl Who Leapt Through Time). The studio producing it unfortunately went bankrupt in an early stage, and Kon Satoshi moved on to other projects instead. He kept working on it for years though, and when Paranoia Agent was finished he hit the ground running. It shows: made for roughly the same budget as Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika looks ten times as expensive, a wild kaleidoscope of sound and vision.
In Paprika, a device has been created which allows people to enter each other's dreams, and while the machine is still in its testing stage, one doctor secretly uses it already to help her patients. Her dream avatar Paprika flies through nightmares like a superhero, helping dreamers solve their traumas and overcome their demons. But one day something goes terribly wrong. A prototype device is stolen, and with it, someone creates a communal nightmare which spreads through the population like a disease. And it's something so vile even Paprika may not be able to battle it.
Here you see many of Kon's favorite themes returning, in an insanely accomplished form, and coupled with another rousing soundtrack by Hirasawa Susumu, you get one of the best anime ever made. But don't just take MY word for it, read what fellow writer Kurt Halfyard has to say about it:
"Paprika is the culmination of maestro Kon Satoshi’s complex editing style and themes, in a gorgeous ‘keep up with me now’ package. It is not only the best animated film of the past 20 years, but it is one of the best films, period.
Combining a love for genre conventions, dreamscapes into something so creative and dense, it has its own gravitational pull inward. Christopher Nolan’s mega-blockbuster Inception emulates many things from Paprika, but with all its millions and Hollywood gloss it barely scratches the surface of this cinematic flight of the imagination. Paprika is also a movie about the love of cinema itself; one that effortlessly ranks with Singing In The Rain and Cinema Paradiso.
While Kon’s career was cut too short indeed, this is a magnificent exuent from both the medium and this mortal coil. He has left us with a glorious gift."
Ohayo (2008)
Kon Satoshi's fifth feature The Dreaming Machine will remain unfinished, and his last complete work is this one-minute-long short, Ohayo ("Good Morning"), which he made for Japanese television. Even in that minute, you can see his mastery in animating the human form, and his incredible eye for detail. You can check for yourself by clicking this link.
With Kon Satoshi, we lost one of filmmaking's brightest talents, in animation or otherwise, and his death never ceases to feel like a loss. I can't believe ten years have passed already. He ended his final message to fans, which you can read here, with the following words:
"With my heart full of gratitude for everything good in the world, I'll put down my pen.
Now excuse me, I have to go."