The Bechdel Cast - Perfect Blue with Giana and Chika of Shoujo Sundae

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

This week, special guests Chika and Giana, hosts of Shoujo Sundae podcast, join to discuss Perfect Blue (1997). Here's the Substack we reference in the episode -- https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-real-history-of-perfect-blue*  Follow Shoujo Sundae on social media at @shoujosundae and check out the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Kaitlyn Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping-off point. The Bechdel test, test of course being something invented by our best friend, Alison Bechtel. Yeah, and she'll tell you more about it

at her house later where we're going to hang out. Yeah. Just kidding, I mean, this is actually kind of interesting because we're talking about, you know, super fans and parasocial distance today. We are not going to perfect blue Alison Bechdel. That's the Bechdel cast. Promise. We promise. If you are not familiar with the Bechdel test, we'll tell you what it is. There's many versions of the test. It was originally in Alison Bechdel's

incredible comic collection, Dice to Watch Out for. She's of course gone on to have an incredible career in graphic memoir, but the version of the test that we use require that two characters of a marginalized gender speak to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue. And that exchange should be meaningful, not a hi, hi. But what does count is women in conflict. And that's what we're going to get into today. Wow. Yeah, we didn't know how to start this.

It's hard when it's just like, what is a funny way to start a conversation about Perfect Blue? We'll figure it out. But I did I panicked I didn't I was like there any joke would feel very insensitive. It's a heavy film. Although I think that we could be in that group. What do you think? I think we could do it. I think we could be in the, in the pop group. Oh, in the pop. You mean, cham exclamation point?

Cham. Yeah. I'm a huge, I'm a, I'm part of the cham fam. Oh, cham fam. Yeah. Casual, not scary. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Weual, not scary. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, we're, we're all pop girlies here. It's true. And I'm the C in Cham.

I'm the ham. You hear the C, I'm the ham. And kind of how our band works. Yeah, amazing. Maybe you've heard of us. I'm excited to talk about it. And the star of the movie for me is explaining how the internet works, which makes sense because it's 1997.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It made me giggle. I was like, look at this. It's called a computer. There's something on the internet. Is it good? And then the movie posits no. Yeah.

I think a take that's aged quite well. I mean, truly, yes. Yeah, she explains what computers are. She explains what the internet is. The recipient of this information does not understand. And kind of to this day, I also do not understand. Yeah, there's, it's a whole, we'll talk about internet culture. I feel like this movie is really ahead of its time in that regard.

But let's get our guests in here because this movie needs to be discussed. And now it really does. The movie, of course, is Perfect Blue. The guests are the hosts of the podcast, Shojo Sunday. It's Gianna and Chica. Welcome. Yes. Hi.

Hello. Thank you so much for having us. We're so excited to be here. Thank you for being here. Tell us more about your podcast. Well, Shoujo Sunday is a delectable podcast, we like to say, covering Shoujo and Jose media, anime, films, sometimes manga, dissecting it through our segments that

are all ice cream pun names. So we go through all of our feelings, taking apart each and everything we have felt watching it and looking into the symbolism and the story writing and just digging in, if you will, to every bite we can. Tell us about your relationship with this movie perfect blue Chica. Why don't you go first? Yeah, so once upon a time when I was a young warthog I Was very much so into anime. I didn't know What it was I just thought it was cartoons I mean it is but then it's Japanese animation. And so I couldn't really tell the difference.

So in the beginning, or at least in the nineties, I was watching like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z and stuff like that. And I would go to Blockbuster and I would just be like, I'm going to find the type of shows that I like I can tell because it's drawn differently and so I picked up Perfect Blue um oh as a child as a child oh I really shouldn't have watched that movie you couldn't have known you couldn't have known no I couldn't have watched that movie. Oh, you couldn't have known.

You couldn't have known. No, I couldn't have because it's just like, cause we've seen Mima and like the cute outfit and everything and I was just like, oh, like this seems great. So my relationship with it, it's nostalgic, but then it's also a little bit flabbergasting just because I really had no business watching it. I mean, I feel like we all have that piece of media that really you're just like, and

that changed the course of my life in a way I wasn't prepared for because I shouldn't have been looking at it. Fascinating. Wow. What about you, Gianna? My history with this film is far less interesting. So, honestly, I kept hearing about it from Chica, because we've talked to some people about our history with anime, and she would always bring up how she watched

Perfect Blue to Young and I was like, what is this movie? What is it about this movie? I'm like, we're going to watch it eventually. So I guess I'll find out. And we had previously covered Millennium Actress on Show Show Sunday and I wasn't a huge fan. I know it's a hot take, but it was a personal thing. So I was like, oh man, I don't, I don't know how I'm gonna feel about Perfect Blue. And then we watched it to talk about it with you guys and it definitely exceeded my expectations

for sure. I liked it much more than Millennium Actress but it certainly, certainly left an imprint. It'll do that. Yes. Yeah. Kaitlin, had you seen this before? I had because when we covered Black Swan on the podcast, this movie comes up in the research quite a bit and we'll get into it later, but I wanted to watch it and just sort of like compare it to Black Swan because I mean, the short story here is that Darren Aronofsky was like rumored to have acquired the rights to do an American remake of Perfect Blue. But then he's like, never

mind. I didn't get those rights and I didn't do that. And then years like, never mind, I didn't get those rights, and I didn't do that. And then years later, Black Swan comes out and a bunch of people are like, hang on, this movie is very similar to Perfect Blue. Are you sure you didn't? And then he's like, no, no, no, it's not even inspired by Perfect Blue. And I just made up this identical story all by myself. There's a lot of deep lore about this that we can get into, but I didn't realize because I haven't seen Requiem for a Dream.

But I think that that movie has even more direct connections also from Perfect Blue, whereas, like, Aronofsky is a serial offender. And, like, he had actually met Satoshi Kan before, and they had this, like, I would love to watch a dramatization of this lunch we had that Darren Aronofsky seems to have thought went very well. And Satoshi Kan was like, he's kind of a clown and had some I think, understandable resentments that Aronofsky was this big shot director ripping off his work quite a bit. And Satoshi Kahn was struggling as a director.

And also just like the, I don't know, the poetic irony that he passed away the week before Black Swan even came out. So he didn't even get to see it. Like it's very like, it's not all about Eve, but it's not not all about Eve. It's wild. Yeah, I haven't seen Requiem for a Dream though,

and I don't think I want to. I have seen it many times. I am intimately familiar with that movie. I'm not sure why, because it's not the type of thing that I tend to gravitate toward, but I've seen it a bunch. And the similarities between Perfect Blue

and Requiem for a Dream are far more aesthetic. He's like pulling direct shots slash like animation the way that a shot is framed. It's just pulling for the storyboards directly, right? Pretty much. Yeah. And so he's replicating those for different shots in Requiem for a Dream. The similarities between Perfect Blue and Black Swan are far more narrative and thematic. So he's just stealing different components of Perfect Blue

for various of his movies. I have thought, I don't, because I'm not an Aronofsky defender by any means, but I am kind of a Black Swan defender. Yeah, that's okay. And I do feel like it was meaningfully different enough for me, but I also, it's clearly he's pulling from it. And I just wish he had just said that. Like I think the problem was he didn't admit it.

I know, that's the annoying thing. Cause if he admitted it, I think the stories are different enough that, especially if you're a big shot director, why not shout out someone who you are clearly very influenced by. It almost is, it's like an Aronofsky problem versus a black swan problem. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah, no. Again, this happens all the time where a later movie will pay homage to an earlier movie or be influenced by an earlier movie. And it's just a matter of the creative mind behind the later movie admitting, yep, I drew influence from this earlier thing.

And then the fact that he refuses to do that, Aronofsky does. Just don't be a white Harvard guy about it, which Aronofsky struggles with. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, no, I saw a YouTube video. Somebody had translated Satoshi Kon having like sort of mini lectures

about Perfect Blue. And he directly talks about Darren Aronofsky and talks about how he pulled like the bath scene. Like very specifically pulled the bath scene, the bird's eye view, underwater view from Perfect Blue. And he was just sort of laughing at the homage, because he said that he asked him about it. And then Darren was like, oh, it's an homage.

And he's like, oh, I guess I should also do homages to other people's stuff in my films too. It's so tricky. Yeah, there's a great piece on a sub stack called Animation Obs obsessive that like broke down the exact like, I don't know, the beautiful part of the internet is someone has always done the work for you. And yeah, the conflicting quotes about because it also seems like Satoshi Khan felt different about it at different points in his life. And that

towards the end of his life in particular he was like nah fuck this Also, I mean as early as the 2000s after he first met Aronofsky. He said I'm feeling pathetic It's a pitiful tale when the person being paid homage to has less name recognition less social credibility and less budget to spend So it seems like Satoshi Khan's issue was at its core like why not give me credit? Yeah, like if you're so influenced by my work, why can't I get my projects funded? And there's culture vulture stuff to be examined there, too. We'll get back to it. Sorry. We got into the Aronofsky stuff immediately.

So all this to say, I did watch this movie. I think we covered Black Swan back in like 2019. So that's when I first saw Perfect Blue and we talk about it a bit on that episode as well for any listeners who wanna go back and- Live at the bell house if I'm remembering right. Yes, indeed. So yeah, but that was my first

and kind of only exposure to Perfect Blue and then rewatched it a couple times to prep for this episode. Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship? Jamie Dillion I hadn't seen it before. Yeah, I think that's the whole story. I have seen Satoshi Kon's last movie Paprika because it recently, it must be having like

some kind of anniversary or something like that because it like re-released at AMC's recently. I didn't see it there but it's, I don't know, I've just been seeing it around a lot. And so I didn't do a particularly like intense careful view of it, but I saw his last movie and I had conflicted feelings about it. And then this is his, I believe his first feature that I like a lot. I mean, just certainly from just like an animation perspective, it's so engrossing in a way that like, I don't know how many movies I've seen at all like that, especially ones that are so short. And the way that he animates the crisis

that Mimima is having, I just have never seen anything quite like it. It's amazing. Story wise, I've got some questions that I'm excited to talk to you about. Yes. Yeah. Let's take a quick break

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I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcast. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories,

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It's not complicated at all, Caitlin. I'm sure this was a breeze to put together. I'm going to have a very easy time. Although very short movie. I will say it's like 80, less than anything. If you take the credits out less than 80 minutes long, we're talking space jambling. It's awesome. Love it.

I'm delighted that it's so short. More movies should be 77 minutes long. Content warning at the very top for things like sexual violence, rape, stalking, coercion. The story takes place in Tokyo, I believe. We open on a performance by a pop girl group called Cham exclamation point which has three members one of whom Mina Seems to be the star of the group. She's idolized by the fans also at this concert is a

security guard man who is leering very creepily at Mima as well as a group of young troublemaker men and there's an altercation between them and the creepy security guard. I am curious what you think about like what level of famous are they? Because it seems like they're kind of famous, but I can't tell, they're performing at the mall. Like I'm not, like are they mall tour famous? Which does feel like a very 90s, 2000s convention

of like they're mall tour famous. They're gonna go big time or not. Yeah, cause didn't Britney Spears do a mall tour before? Oh yeah. Yeah, so like they could be on the way mall tour before? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So like they could be on the way up because later we're hearing about them charting in the top 100, but it's like in the 80s. So I think they're like working their way up the pop ranks.

They're paying their damn dues. Yeah. Yes. Have any of you ever been to a mall tour? I mean, they don't really happen anymore as far as I know, but like. I didn't know that was a thing. So. No, me neither.

Yeah, I feel like I missed out on something. I caught the tail end of it. And in middle school, I got to go to a Degrassi mall tour. Whoa. Wow. And that was so amazing. And Drake was supposed to be there, but then he did not show up.

Oh my goodness. So it was just like one of the objectively kind of flop cast members of Degrassi, but my cousin and I were really excited. I would have been thrilled. That's amazing. It was great. Jamie, you and I should do a Bechtel cast mall tour.

I honestly would. It still does have, I feel like it's more like outdoor malls. Like sometimes you'll catch like younger musician performing at an outdoor mall. Indoor mall tours are washed though. The convention of the past. Sure, fine. Anyway, they're doing a mall tour

and intercut with this concert at the mall are, I think these are flashback scenes of Mima with her like talent manager team discussing Mima's career. So there's a woman named Rumi who wants Mima to stay in the pop group Cham while Mr. Tadokoro wants Mima to pivot to acting and is trying to land her a part in a TV drama series. So back to the concert.

Mima announces that this is her last show with Cham. The audience is like, no, we love you. Don't go. And then someone in the crowd hands her an envelope. It's like fan mail kind of thing. So Mima goes home to her an envelope. It's like fan mail kind of thing. So Mima goes home to her small apartment, she feeds her fish, and she opens the envelope. And inside is a letter saying, I'm always looking at Mima's room. Here's a link to it. But she doesn't know what that means and she doesn't know what the internet is. So she just kind of brushes it off. Incredible. Imagine, I wish. I wish. Yeah. And then she receives a fax. Remember fax machines? She has one. And the fax is just like this printout of sort of like ransom note style lettering, it seems,

that just has the word trader written over and over again so clearly someone is upset that she left the pop group and they're being very creepy about it. Then we cut to the set of Doublebind which is the drama series that Mima has landed a very small role in. Which reminded me of Twin Peaks a little bit. There's like a similar thing that happens in Twin Peaks. I had to look it up, but there's a show with a show called Invitation to Love in Twin Peaks.

I forgot about that. I don't know why it clicked for me, but it did and Twin Peaks was big in Japan. I don't know. There's a lot of cultural exchange going on. Sure, sure, sure, sure. So Mima is playing the younger sister of a woman who was murdered in the show. So that's her character.

She's nervous about her performance. She sees that creepy security guard on the set of the show. And then Mima's manager, Guy Tadakoro, opens an envelope that turns out to contain a small explosive and he's injured. And it seems like the envelope was intended for Mima. So things are ramping up. And he's kind of like, haha, don't worry about it. I'm like, right? If that happened to my hand, I would not be like, haha, don't worry about

it. Yeah. How is it just a prank? That's a straight up threat. He's bleeding. Yeah. I was like, wow, he really is dedicated to the game. He's like, don't worry about it. It's just a scratch. I'm good. It is but a scratch.

So much blood on the floor and everything. It's just like, oh, no worries. Yeah. Okay. Everyone downplays it. Get some self-esteem, man. When you text, haha, no worries, but there's lots of worries. There's only worries. I mean, I guess, yeah, that's a lot of this movie is just like... Yeah.

Right. Rumi also is like, no, don't even worry about it. We definitely shouldn't have called the police. And yeah, Mima's the only one being like, unlikely thing for Rumi to do. Hmm. Interesting. Anyway, so a few days later, Rumi comes over to Mima's apartment and sets up a computer with the Internet ever heard of it for Mima. Fully branded! Fully branded! Like here's a Macintosh computer. I think they're using an actual browser that once existed too. I was like, did Mac pay to be the scary computer for Perfect

Blue? Maybe, maybe. Interesting. Anyway, so Mima goes to that link that she saw in the letter for that thing called Mima's Room. And it turns out to be this like blog slash diary thing where someone is writing about Mima's life as if they are her and describing intimate details about her life that you would only know if you were Mima or if you were stalking her.

So she's freaked out. For anyone that's ever had a scary parasocial experience, I feel like it's done really well here where she's like, oh, this is so cool. Oh, oh, oh, wait. It's like, yeah, that's that's how that goes. Yeah yes. So then we cut to the set of the show Doublebind again. Rumi and Tadokoro have another conversation about Mima and her career. They learn that Cham is doing quite well without her and they now have a song on like the top 100 list which they never had when Mima was a part of the group so they're sort of like this oh did Mima do the right thing she's maybe having some hashtag ragrats kind of thing. Though Mima is given a few more lines on another episode of this show.

So she returns to set, the security guard seems to continue to be stalking her. He's coming to set, he's videotaping her. Then the writer of the show, Mr. Shibuya, writes a scene in which Mima's character will be raped on the TV show. Rumi doesn't want her to do the rape scene, but Tadokoro says it's important that Mima do this. So Mima agrees to it. That night on the metro, Mima gets a quick glimpse of her reflection, but it's not her reflection. It's a different version of her in her like pop girl outfit. Yeah, this is like one of the more obvious Black Swan obviously ripped off like this

exact sequence. Yes. Yeah. Then Mima is back on the set of Doublebind shooting this rape scene and it is brutal. We will talk more about it later. But it's very traumatic for Mima and the security guard is there watching the whole thing. Mima goes home and has a breakdown. She also discovers that her fish are dead and it's like, did

someone kill them or did she just forget to feed them again? We're not sure. She sees another vision of this kind of like alternate version of herself, like pop idol Mima. And she's kind of real and kind of not because she's like floating and bouncing around not really obeying the laws of gravity so you're just like is this a hallucination is it a real person we don't really know it also becomes clear that the security guard is the one posting to mema's room website to Mima's room website and like writing this diary under the alias Mimania and similar to the like pop idol vision Mima he thinks it was a mistake for Mima to leave the music group and pursue acting he's furious about it and he maybe murders the screenwriter

about it because that guy is brutally killed one night, but we don't see who the assailant is. Yeah. But we hear Cham. Yes. Yes, Cham on the boom box haunting. Yeah. Again, it's just like, it is so incredible

how seamless it all kind of comes together of how many different sources are literally putting words in Mima's mouth, whether it's her fans or the screenwriter. I mean, at least for me, it's kind of hard to be like, oh no, the screenwriter, like, he's awful. Yeah. Yeah. And who will mourn him.

But there are movies that try to say something similar that really bonk you over the head with it, but it just is so seamless here for sure. So then Mima reluctantly participates in a nude photo shoot. Her photos end up in a magazine. The stalker security guard buys like all the copies of the magazine so that no one else can see this version of Mima he thinks that she is an imposter and the real Mima is this like floating ethereal pop idol Mima cut back to Mima filming scenes of double bind where what's happening in the show to Mima's character seems to be mimicking what's happening to Mima in

real life where her character is seeing things that aren't there and is confused about what's real and what's not and then real Mima sees pop idol vision Mima again and starts chasing her almost gets hit by a bus or a truck or something. It should be said at this point pop idol Mima is wearing the outfit of the movie. Yes, the red dress. Oh, not quite yet. She's still we're not at red dress. We're not yet. Yeah, there quite yet. She's still... Oh, we're not at red dress. We're not yet, yeah.

There's so many sequels. Okay. Well, buckle in because I was really dazzled by the red dress. It's so far beyond the point that I'm like, let's take a moment for the red dress. Yeah, it's currently still the like pink and white dress. Yeah. Still iconic, but... For sure.

But not quite the red dress. Not the red dress. Right. Anyway, so there's this whole chase sequence, but wait a minute, was it just a dream? I don't know. Then Mima has a conversation with Rumi about her distorted perception of reality. Then that scene abruptly transitions to Mima back on set shooting the same scene we just saw her shoot or was that a dream and then Mima's having another conversation with Rumi and was that a dream so basically Mima's grasp on reality is really falling apart. Cut to the psychiatrist character in double bind saying that the murderer character in the show is just an illusion that Mima's character fabricated

but maybe that illusion found someone to possess and that's who's killing all of the models in the show or maybe Mima's character has dissociative identity disorder and it was her committing the crimes when she's a different persona. And that one such persona is a former pop idol turned actor working in a drama series. And we're like, wait, is that what's happening to Mima in real life? I had to rewatch that sequence like four times. And it was still at the end, was like, huh?

We don't know and we're not supposed to know. Yeah. I know. But I was like, I'll figure it out. No, it's impossible. No, no, no. Then another man is brutally murdered. I think the photographer who did the nude photo shoot.

Yeah. With the iconic last line, you're a weird pizza guy. Pizza boy. You're a weird pizza boy. And then curtains. Dead. Stab. Ice pick. Wow. Yes. Brutal death. Yeah, very basic instinct murder weapon. Anyway, so it seems like maybe Mima is the weird pizza boy murderer, or maybe that was just a delusion

because she wakes up from a nightmare, but then she also finds bloody clothes in her closet. So maybe she is murdering, we don't know. They finish shooting double bind and at this point Mima like truly has no idea what's real and what is not. Then the security guard abducts Mima. There's another brutal assault scene though Mima is able to fight him off and get away. But wait, was that real or was that a scene that they were shooting for Doublebind?

We don't know. And then we get a reveal that the floating pop idol vision version of Mima was maybe roomy this whole time and this is the red dress sequence. Right. Now we're there. Yeah. A moment for the red dress. Yes, yes, yes. It seems like maybe Rumi is trying to live vicariously through Mima because Rumi is also a former pop idol. Something that I didn't really pick up on from watching

the movie, but it's something I kept reading when I was doing research for this movie. So it's one quick exchange. Okay. It's like one line, like when they're initially talking about Mima pivoting into becoming an actress, I believe, because I think Mr. Tadakoro says something about like, oh, just because like it didn't work out for you or something. It's like something along those lines. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Like apparently she didn't fit the beauty standards. And so that's why she ended up having to quit or stop being an idol. I see. And that seems and it's like the I don't know. I'm excited to talk about Rumi. Yes, same. But this is like super common in entertainment,

like how painful it has to be to be facilitating this for other people and knowing all of the shortcomings and still having to be like, nope, this is great, greatest business in the world. Like you might find yourself putting the red dress onto, I don't know. Oof Oh yeah. So Rumi attacks Mima.

They start fighting. There's a chase sequence. But also like pop idol Mima is sometimes Rumi and she's floating around again and we're like, wait, is this real? And it all culminates in Rumi impaling herself on shards of glass and then nearly being hit by a truck but Mima pushes her out of the way and saves her and then we cut to sometime later both Mima and Rumi have survived their multiple stab wounds. Mima and Rumi have survived their multiple stab wounds. Mima visits Rumi, who is a patient at a psychiatric hospital, fully convinced that she is a pop

idol. Mima, on the other hand, is now a famous actor. And the movie ends with her looking at herself in the rear view mirror of her car being like, I'm real. Because she had overheard nurses at the hospital being like, is that the real Mima? There's no way she would be here. And she's like, no, I am real. Wink.

The end. STACEY KAPLAN Cute, amazing credits music. So good. Oh yeah. Yeah. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss. Get ready for a celebration of play like no other at the all new LEGO Summer of Play event at LEGOLAND Discovery Center Toronto.

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We're back. Chica, Gianna, we'll let you take the reins here. Where would you like to start? There's so much to talk about. Where does one begin with perfect blue? That's true. Caitlin, I wanted to, that was a really good summary, given the challenge you were up against. Yes.

I really worked hard on it. It could not have been easy. Chef's kiss. Especially the dream part where it was like, oh, wait, is she waking up? Did this happen? And then again, and then again. Every two lines you have to be like, or is it? Right.

Or is it? It was definitely hard to summarize, but there are different scenes in the movie where either like Rumi or Tadokoro are like, I can tell how hard you tried Mima. And I feel like that I'm like, I tried so hard with this recap. So I'm glad it went well. I mean, we could start by finishing the conversation we apparently were very eager to have which is the Aronofsky Sure thing. Yeah, I guess is there anything else that we wanted to say to that? and I think the thing that stuck out to me that like I

Hadn't read about but it clicks very fast is like this Period of time this movie comes out in 1997. Same year as Titanic. And my brother. So a lot of incredible debuts this year. But that this is a period of time that again, I'm referring to this animation obsessive post that we can link in the description

where there was a lot of movies and film in the US and Japan about reality fuckery and double images in a way that, I mean, I think this is like a really strong example that it's someone usually a white American borrowing too heavily from another artist. The example that I didn't know, because I just am not a huge Matrix head,

but was how heavily the Wachowskis were pulling from Ghost in the Shell when pitching The Matrix, and that The Matrix, well, Ghost in the Shell, I think did well, but The Matrix and that The Matrix, well, Ghost in the Shell, I think did well, but like The Matrix became this global phenomenon and there is this pattern of white American directors, I think really blurring the line between homage and just lifting.

Stealing, yeah. I mean, everyone's mileage is gonna vary there. I don't even know how to feel about it in certain places. I think narratively, I don't know. I hope that, please don't hate. I feel like Black Swan is different enough from Perfect Blue. There are obvious similarities.

I think that Aronofsky definitely needed to acknowledge this influence and even better credit and compensate Satoshi-oshi Kon in some way. I think these are like two great movies that, I don't know, I can see that Aronofsky is also pulling from stuff that is not Perfect Blue and Black Swan. For example, Swan Lake. He is pulling from pretty heavily,

that also features dueling images and personas. I think Perfect Blue is a very, very clear heavy influence and it was insecure and gross and disrespectful that he did not properly credit Satoshi Kon for the influence he had on the work. But I also don't fully buy that Black Swan's fully ripped off of Perfect Blue due to the swan-like of it all. I don't know. Fair.

Yeah, he basically just like swapped out this drama series, Doublebind. And he's like, instead of that, what if swan-like? Well, I don't know, because Perfect Blue is about a forced career pivot. Yeah. Black Swan is more of a promotion within a system. True, true. Well, I don't know, because Perfect Blue is about a forced career pivot. Black Swan is more of a promotion within a system. True, true.

Which again, does feel like the dynamics of that are pretty different. I want to talk about the dynamics in Perfect Blue of like this pivot that seems to be happening basically against her will. I know that she's not technically a child star They say that she's 21, right? Mm-hmm. I think the dynamics of child stardom are really present here. Yeah Yeah, well because it says that she was in she started in Cham two and a half years ago So she would have been you know, like 18 19 So she kind of started as like a teen star at the very least so very young. Yeah

Yeah, yeah of started as like a teen star at the very least. So very young. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just to provide a little bit more context on the development of this movie. And then yeah, we can get into more theme stuff. So this source material was originally supposed to be adapted to a live action film. So Toshi Khan was approached and he agreed to do it but there were funding issues so the project kept getting like quote-unquote downgraded to animated film and the idea was that Satoshi Kan basically had to make it as a straight to video animated film. He took the source material and the first version of the script, which was written by

Satayuka Murai, and made quite a few changes to it. But then he and the screenwriter worked together to write a new script that introduces different things that Satoshi Kon wanted to play around with, such as the, like, play within a play component, the blurred lines between reality and dream. He wanted to focus more on the main character, Mima's inner struggle, things like that. And part of it was that psychological thrillers

were not a mainstream genre in anime at the time. So there was like no real precedent for this story to be adapted to an animated film. Which is how perhaps a young Chica ends up watching it by accident. Yeah. It's not what you would expect. Right. And it wasn't expected to do well at all. Everyone thought that this movie would

be immediately forgotten. Well, and it kind of didn't do well when it first came out. No, but then it ended up like screening at various festivals around the world and it gained a following. There's some other, like, interesting distribution stuff, but it's not super relevant to our discussion. But, yeah, so that's kind of the context. As we hinted at, there's all these themes that get explored. There's, like, things around the pressures

of becoming a celebrity, the pressure to acquiesce to the demands of powerful entertainment industry people, the idea of like becoming a commodity to be bought and sold. And the idea that like, there's like this repeated idea that Mima should be grateful that this is happening. Yeah. Yeah. Which is obviously something we still see all the time,

particularly with young women. Like it is critical that she does not acknowledge the parts of this that are difficult or you're ungrateful. And like again, it's from all of these different angles, she needs to appease her agents because she should be, she says it explicitly at one point, like, well, they've done so much for me. Like, who am I to push back on what they want?

Same thing with her fans, where they're, it's hard to cross a line more severely than her fans are, but she has to be grateful for them. And then there's like a line again, that's explicitly like, the fans know what is best for you. And we are going to, which is such a fan mentality, like name a fandom where this is not present, somewhere. It feels like it really clearly understands contemporary internet culture, which is wild. Yeah, for how old it is. Yeah.

There's another scene also where it's before the photo shoot where Mima knows that she'll be photographed nude. She has locked herself in her dressing room. She seems very apprehensive about it. And Tadokoro is like pounding on the door being like, I thought you decided to go through with this, everyone's waiting for you. So just like the pressure she feels, people are coercing her, not letting her change her mind. It's all stuff that, again, like still happens to this day. There's a long history of

Again, like, still happens to this day. There's a long history of people in the entertainment industry, particularly people of marginalized genders and marginalized people in general, being taken advantage of and heavily exploited. And then asked to say thank you, basically. Yeah. Yeah. I think they even have, like, after she has to do the rape scene, they essentially have her go on this press tour talking about how she wants to be a serious actress. And they had, I think just prior to it even happening, Tata Kuro is talking about Jodie Foster, which I was just like, Oh, yes. is talking about Jodie Foster, which I was just like...

Oh, yes. Oh, okay. Which I was just like, I know more of her later work, but I was like, let me go look back at, like, in and around the time Perfect Blue was being made, and I guess she had won an Oscar for The Acquired, where she was playing a character that ended up getting raped.

Oh, wow, okay. And, like like the movies about like the legal case behind that and her like trying to win that. And so it's just like, oh, okay, there are more cultural ties within this than I had originally thought of. I didn't know that specific. I thought that was like referencing the fact that she'd been a child star, but that like that totally makes, oh my God, that's brutal. I thought it was referencing specifically her character in Taxi Driver where she plays like an underage sex worker. Right.

But yeah, I think I can really only speak to American culture with any sort of detail, but this career phase that we're seeing Mima in, we see all the time. We still see now. It's like what we see with Mima is how something like this can go when you don't have proper support. You could really kind of name any Disney or Nickelodeon pipeline child star to go in quote unquote legit as a young adult as an example of this. And sometimes it seems like, again, we just don't know, it seems like the young actor

has the support familially. We don't really see Mima's family. She references them once and she's like, they probably won't like seeing me get sexually assaulted on TV, but whatever. Like her family is not engaged. Yeah, it seemed like when she was originally doing the pivot, the career pivot, it seemed like she was excited

about acting, like this new prospect of it. And she has that phone call with her mother. And her mom's essentially like putting all of that down, like, guilting her about not being a singer, saying how the whole family was waiting on the next single and saying that singing is what you do best. So it almost feels like even if she wanted to lean on her family for support, like maybe she wouldn't get it. Because it's like, oh, well you made this choice. So these are the consequences, you know, it feels like she might get that kind of response. Yeah.

Yeah, like her just trying to, I feel like her becoming an idol was an uphill battle. And so now her wanting to do something else, it's just like, but we're used to you being an idol now. We actually like it now. Like why would you change? And it's good to want to change, but then it's also just as good to have people

be able to accept different versions of you. Yeah, I also wanna just note really quickly, before any of the listeners read me the riot act, the Jodie Foster film is the accused, it's not the acquired, my bad. Oh, okay, the accused, okay. You're fine, you're fine. We didn't know it existed, you're good.

Yeah, didn't know the difference. I think was like what struck me, well, what do y'all think? It seems like Mima prefers to be a pop idol to being a serious actress. But the more the movie went on, I'm like, we never really hear her explicitly state what she wants. Exactly, yeah.

We hear that her family and obviously her fans and Rumi want her to be a pop idol and they have their reasons and that her agent and the director, they want her to be an actress. We don't really know, like we can guess what Mima wants, but she's very young, she's so like understandably sort of like pulling her hair out over wanting to please everyone in an industry

where that's completely impossible. And I just, it made me so sad, because like I don't, who knows what she wants? She probably doesn't know. She exactly like she's still young enough to be quite impressionable and not that young people and you know, early twenties people can't have autonomy, but like she is in a juncture in her life and career where she thinks she needs

Like she is in a juncture in her life and career where she thinks she needs to be listening to the people who have more power and experience than her. Right, like her entire adult life has been defined by trying to please everyone, which is like obviously like a super common experience just rarely at this level. I do like that they don't make her super, super famous though, because I do think that that makes her uniquely vulnerable. Because she does have these fans that she feels still kind of accessible to, because she's still performing at the mall. She still does her own shopping.

She lives in a pretty normal looking apartment. A studio apartment, question mark. Yeah. Like, I mean, but that's, I can see that being true. There's, I mean, pop groups of the nineties didn't make money at first. It was usually like their managers that made money. Yeah. So it's like, she's kind of living a normal life, but also she's not.

And there's no one protecting her. It's like a very kind of scary level of notoriety to be at, it seems like. It made me feel more critical of like that kind of pop star to sex symbol transition that a lot of musicians like go through all of the time. I know especially the Disney stars, it's like, okay, they did Disney, and then it's like, okay, I'm breaking out, I'm grown now, so I'm either going to put out more sexually charged music,

or maybe they will pivot into acting and doing very serious roles. But I never thought that, I think I was just under the impression that that was something that they wanted. I never thought that maybe that transition itself could be manufactured for the benefit of other people. Well, I got the impression,

and maybe this is just kind of like my headcanon, but that it wasn't Mima's idea at all to leave the group and pivot to acting. It's what her managers and specifically Mr. Tadakoro thought was best because there's different conversations about how you know pop idols are not taken seriously and then like the gap that my mind filled in is, oh, probably because it's a medium of entertainment that tends to appeal to people of marginalized genders and sexualities. For girls.

Mm. So she has to become a quote unquote serious actress doing dramatic roles. Yeah, it seems like he's just trying to like flesh out his like roster. And also, it's so bizarre how many times he's like, well, girl groups aren't serious in front of the two remaining members of the girl group. Yeah, right. But the idea is that also that pop stars, at least at the level that they're at, and as we see evidenced by the studio apartment that Mima lives in, like, they don't make much money, but actors make more money. So it seems

like part of Tadokoro's motivation for wanting Mima to pivot to acting is so that he can exploit her more and make more money off of her. And it goes back to the whole, like, commodifying human beings thing. And there's all these scenes where they are talking about Mima as if she is a commodity. Sometimes Mima will be in the room, sometimes she's not there, but either way they're never treating her like a person. They're never considering her feelings and her comfort level and what she wants. They're just like, and then we're doing this for you and then we landed you this role and you are quitting the group and did it all this stuff it's just again very emblematic of what happens a lot in real life. And Mima like I think of it like a scene that the

towards the very beginning with Rumi and Tadokoro where you know I think that we are sort of led to believe I mean intentionally by the movie, that Rumi has more what's in Mima's best interest. Is she, you know, a broken clock is right, twice a day. Where, you know, I agree with Rumi when Rumi is like, you shouldn't have to be in this really exploitative rape scene if you are not completely comfortable with it. Which Mima is not, but she is afraid to say so.

Rumi tries to give her the opportunity to bow out of it, but the reason she does that has to do with her. It doesn't have to do with Mima. But just anyways, that scene at the beginning where Mima is just sitting there and passively listening to them argue over her future. Like that's normal for her. That's it's like clearly that is just the dynamic that she has been conditioned to feel like she should be grateful to have in the first place.

I just I love her. I want to talk more about the rape scene and again we'll place another content warning here because it is long, it's brutal, it being animated does not make it any less hard to watch. I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on this but to me there was a troubling kind of visual juxtaposition of on one hand it's clear how horrific this is for Mima and as you're watching it you're often forgetting it's a staged scene that they're filming for tv oftentimes you you're just like, oh, this feels like an actual rape that I'm watching. So it's really traumatic and brutal. But on the other hand,

the way it's like, quote unquote, shot slash animated is in a way that is similar to how a lot of porn is shot. Like it seems to be reveling in the sexual violence, but like this emphasis on the sexual, the like, you know, it's almost presented in a way that it's like, this is sexy, right? Like the way it's framed, again, is this weird juxtaposition between like, this is horrific, but also like like, look at how like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm making sense. Yeah, no, it's it's, I don't like it. I don't like it. Yeah. Me neither. It feels very exploitative. To me, it was the case of like attempting to comment on the thing, but then just kind

of doing it. Right. Yeah, I didn't think that there was the commentary around that was not meaningful enough. I don't know if there is any, maybe that's my hot take. I don't know if there's really any explanation of staging a sequence like that, even in animation where it is making meaningful commentary enough to justify it happening. I just don't think that's true. And I always especially side-eye it when it's like, men, men, men at the top. I'm like, yeah, well, where the fuck do you get off?

Like, I just didn't like it. I didn't think it said anything. Yeah, I'm very much with you on that. I think something that, at least for me, made it, we know it's fake, we know it's staged and it's acting. I'm doing air quotes for people who can't see. But I think the reason why it feels so real is because we know that she's uncomfortable filming it.

So it may as well be real. The fact that it goes on for so long and it's like, you know, she's dissociating to cope. Like that is real. That is real trauma happening to this person and we're experiencing it too. And also, like Jamie was saying, just knowing like men made this scene is also, I feel violated a little bit watching that as a woman, you know? I was also very uncomfortable and I was just kind of like, when does it end? Like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. When does it end? It's so long.

Once the light went out of her eyes, I'm just like, I think it's done. We get it. Yeah. Yeah. The point was made. The point was made. I literally had tears in my eyes watching that scene and it took me off guard to be like, oh, I'm crying. It really affected me. Yeah. The one thing that I will say is that that sequence made me at least grateful that this was not adapted into live action. Yeah. Right. But that's about all I can say for anything. Yeah. I mean, and to your point, Jamie, I did consider like, well, this is a show within a movie. So perhaps it is the movie Perfect Blue commenting on the way that other

media tends to, you know, like glamorize slash pornography, rape, or if it's just the movie also doing that. And I did read that Satoshi Kan made the like, you know, show within the movie double bind as a sort of like parody. Like his intention was to criticize Japanese TV dramas that tend to like imitate Hollywood fads and tropes and that he was aware of movies like Basic Instinct and Silence of the Lambs and things like that. But again, it's also the movie still showing this very exploitative, Also, the movie still showing this very exploitative, very, again, pornographied rape scene. And I'm not saying this to like, dis-porn inherently, but just the way that like, again, I'm not articulating myself well, but you're watching the scene and you're just like, oh, why are her like her titties bouncing

so pornographically? Yeah, right. And why does the murder sound like sex? Yeah. Sorry, you know what I mean. It's just, yeah, I don't think that he, because we all know what he's referencing. But at some point, it's just like,

I don't really care what men think of that scene in general. Yeah. Yes. I'm not saying that men, obviously, people of all genders are affected by this, but in general, I'm not really interested in what straight men think about that scene. I do hope that it would make them uncomfortable,

and I wonder if that is more what Satoshi Kon was going for is to take who would normally be the intended audience for stuff like that and really make them sit and consider, well, what if the actor performing this didn't want to do it and maybe that was more where his head is at. But as someone who that content is not made for me and I don't like it, I felt like punished and really made uncomfortable by it. Yeah, yeah. I'll say that in the lecture series that I like saw about it, which it's like, I'm glad I watched it just because it provided me with more context on this. And I think that's the thing.

I had to watch this on streaming essentially, but we don't get access to those DVD extras of people talking about the scenes or talking about stuff like that. But when he was talking about the rape scene, he said he went too far and that when he was making Perfect Blue, he was not under the impression

that it was going to be, like, widely released. He thought it was gonna be, like, a home-released type of thing. And so, when he saw the scene and it's, like, on a theater-sized screen, he was, like like uncomfortable with it. Yeah. And he essentially was saying that the rape scene itself

was like the death of her pop idol persona, which is why like when she ends up being in like the dressing room and she's wearing all black and stuff because she's mourning that version of herself before it happened. And so I was just like, oh, okay, well, I'm glad you were uncomfortable because so was I. Right. We appreciate a self-aware king.

I do appreciate that he... I wish more directors were willing to like interview because it's like you know it doesn't excuse it but the 90s I mean that's a lot of what he's referencing like erotic thrillers in the 80s and 90s we're full of shit like this I am interested that about because I hadn't I hadn't seen that quote and I guess something that I I don't quite know I I'm just curious what you all think because I was like am I okay there feels like there's sort of this more conservative idea than most of this movie holds up that her being

sexually assaulted in reality or on screen means that she is permanently damaged goods mm-hmm the idea that once something horrific has happened to you that was completely out of your control, you can no longer sing pop music? I just find that to be a very weirdly patriarchal idea. That it doesn't feel like the movie's really pushing back on. I don't know. Because it's obviously like I am a survivor of it myself. Like it certainly changes your life in many, many ways. But I don't really like the implication that it means that you cannot return to your passions or you have a total and permanent loss of of self because I just don't think that's true. I was sort of like maybe I'm overly projecting but it didn't feel like that idea

was pushed back on very much. Yeah, I mean we've talked about this on different episodes and it's almost always media written and directed by men where there will be someone, usually a woman, who is a survivor of sexual assault and that is her defining trait as a character. That's kind of the only thing we know about her, that's what's motivating her every choice. And that is obviously not true for survivors of sexual assault in real life, but there's just this tendency to like, revel in sexual violence. And that manifests in different ways.

It manifests how a rape scene will be framed. It manifests how a survivor will be characterized. But it's just, yeah, it's a lot of men not knowing how this actually manifests for real survivors. Mm-hmm, definitely. I think there's just also this overall idea, like, of Mima trying to find out who she is, but it's like, who is Mima without the male gaze? At one point she's this pop idol

and she's put on this pedestal by her fans, which are mostly like men. Then she's doing this TV series, Doublebind, and she is now following this script by this man where if she's leaving her pop girl image, if she wants to be taken seriously, then I'll add a rape scene. And she has to act this out.

And then even when the scene was happening, Satoshi-Khan had mentioned the fact that there's also commentary sort of on like the amount of spectators that come. Because I guess this was, I mean, since it's in the 90s, I don't know if intimacy coordinators existed in the 90s. No, they did not. But it's like pre-intimacy coordinators, pre-security, because who are all of these random people that are not normally there, that's not like crew.

And the one security guard is her number one stalker. And that part felt like intentional commentary. But again, if that's his intentional commentary, that still doesn't justify showing a long exploitative rape scene. Yeah. Okay, I'm glad we're all on the same page about that because I was like, it's such a good movie and also that happens in it.

Right. This kind of switches focus to Rumi a little bit. I'm curious what everyone thinks about Rumi because again, I think it was kind of a mixed bag for me where I think that there is some interesting commentary going on with Rumi, but I also feel like there are some tropes at play because we don't really know her well enough.

We get that little information that she had briefly been a pop idol, or she was aspiring to be bigger, and then Tadokoro just basically says, "'It didn't work out for you, but it's implied implied that it has to do with her looks and her body type. And that she's almost trying to like live out this dream she couldn't have through Mima. I don't know. How do we feel? I was confused about the direction they took Rumi, because it's an interesting twist for sure to be like, oh, Rumi's jealous of her.

I think the hardest left for me is I think they heavily implied because they're doing the double bind, has this plot and idea going on and it's also being mimicked by real life. Is it determined at the end when Rumi is in the mental hospital that she has DID? I don't. Because I think that's heavily implied. I think it's implied. Okay. Because that really bothers me.

Yes. Like that's something we talk about on the show a lot is like, obviously you don't want to say mental illness in film is off limits. But if you're doing something like this, do not attribute it to a specific mental illness in film is off limits, but if you're doing something like this, do not attribute it to a specific mental illness. Yes. I think the ultimate example of that for me is the opening sequence of Midsommar. At the end they're like bipolar and you're like no. I wasn't sure if that was suggested in, I mean I was confused.

It's a confusing movie. I didn't know if that was happening in the text of the TV show because TV shows do that all the time and it was commentary or if they were just saying that this is how DID manifests. Or if this scene where Mima is going to visit Rumi at this hospital, if that's just another figment of Mima's imagination, and this is her kind of compartmentalizing that persona or like, we don't know, especially with the little like, wink and nod at the end where Mima looks in the mirror and she's like, I'm real. And it's like, but are you? We don't know. But either way, there is certainly, I think a demonization of mental illness and specifically of dissociative identity disorder. And it's implying that if you have

this, you're going to murder. Yeah, I think like they had said something about like, sometimes the regular Rumi comes back and then like sometimes she's someone else. I felt I thought that they had said something like that towards the end, which heavily implies the DID thing. Yeah, right. I know like back then there was more of a misunderstanding on the disorder and so people were using it as like plot points. Oh, and stuff.

But it's I mean, I'm not at all excusing that because it's equally frustrating. But yeah, I didn't like the usage of that at all. It made me think of, because I think that was also just before the film came out, like when Selena was murdered. Yes, yeah, I thought that as well. I haven't seen any quotes from him being like, I saw that. And then I decided Rumi is going to partially be inspired by. By like Yolanda Saldivar.

I thought that too, yeah. But yeah, I don't like how they kind of demonize mental illness and stuff. And like, of course we don't get to see a trial or anything like that. But then it's just like, okay, well, there was Mr. Shibuya, there was Tadokoro, there was the Mimania guy like...

Right what was going on there? I also think in regards to Rumi's character that there is fatphobia in that she is a little thicker than your typical, you know, beauty standard super thin woman. And it's implied that that's part of why she wasn't successful. Right. Yeah. Which is a thing that happens. But that this has led to this deep murderous resentment

and the fact that she's the only female character who has a bigger body and that she's this delusional, resentful killer. I didn't like that choice at all. And also just that her stalker, who's the security guard, is physically othered in a way that feels like it's telegraphing. Like, well, because he is not conventionally like Western Beauty's Anders Hantum,

of course he would do this. Like, there is just that, you know, that something we've seen in villains from time immemorial of physically othering someone as a shorthand to say, like don't trust this person and they're trying to hurt the beautiful virginal young woman. It's like hundreds of thousands of movies, but it's again, there's just like these really basic

othering tropes that this movie is not above. Yeah. Including, so the young men who are causing trouble at the concert at the very beginning, the main instigator of this trouble making is a darker skinned person, has hair that looks kind of like dreadlocks. It seems like it might be a black character.

And I don't know a lot about anti-black racism in Japan specifically, but I do know that it exists everywhere around the world and it just feels like a very racist choice for the one black or at least dark skinned character to be this like violent, he's punching people, he's threatening people in the crowd, it feels like it's just playing into very racist tropes.

Yeah. And throwing things on stage too, which people are doing, that came back, I, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know,

it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, like, you know, it's like, you know, it's so subtle, but there's just like a little like poster somewhere and it's implying that that young man is like missing or maybe has been murdered. But yeah, that happens off screen, but we do see this like image of that young guy as if he has been abducted or murdered. Another thing was, and again, not clear if this is the movie commenting

on media tropes or if it's just the movie doing the trope or a little bit of both, but the TV drama series that Mima gets cast in, Mima plays a character whose older sister has been murdered. And in one of the episodes we learn that the sister was murdered by this I don't know if it was a serial killer or what but someone who kills women and peels off their skin because he wants to wear it in order to become a woman or at least that's what the psychiatrist character speculates. And it's the whole, you know, transphobic Silence of the Lambs storyline where a person who was assigned male at birth murders cis women to wear their skin and become a woman. Again, we don't know

if it's just like that's almost satire and the movie is like commenting on this trope or if it's just doing the trope. But it's certainly there. Yeah. And this is maybe too hard of a line, but like, I feel like if you cannot discern that answer, then it's you're just doing the trope. It's not effective. Yeah.

Yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking. I'm like, if we have to think that hard and look into the tiniest crack to figure out if it's satire or not, I don't think it's really effective satire. For sure. Like, effective satire can be surprising and horrifying and clear, like all at once. Again, it's like this movie is in conversation with so much that happens before and after in media where it's hard not to think about Silence of the Lambs when that idea is introduced,

right? Because that was like the, not that it was the only, but that was the movie, the prestige movie that came out just a couple of years earlier that used that same plot point. But if it's a reference, it's not being subverted or commented on, so it's just almost being like there. Remember Silence of the Lambs? Did you like it? Like, I don't know what the, yeah, which just feels covertly transphobic

and just all this nasty stuff. For sure. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about? I would say, well, this has definitely happened after the fact, but when it comes to idols either being harmed by their fans or killed by their fans, I could say that one case is like Christina Grimmie. She was a singer that got big because of The Voice.

And then one of her fans killed her at one of her autograph signings. And that was in June 2016. But then the month prior in Japan, there was a J-idol, I guess, singer-actress. Her name's Mayu Tomita, and her stalker found out where she lived and then ended up stabbing her multiple times because she had returned gifts, I guess expensive gifts that he had bought for her. And because of that particular case,

Japan had to revise their anti-stalking laws to include online threats, which I thought... I think that a woman has to die to get laws like this changed, almost without fail. Yeah, yeah. I know. Christina did, but Mayu, I think Mayu is still alive and she was able to... I think she also sued the government as well. So it's like, but the fact that online threats only just got added to their anti-stocking laws in May 2016 is a lot. It's absurd. Yeah. I was like, I also think about the attack at the Ariana Grande concert around that same

sort of period of time as well. Like, I think ultimately, this movie needs to be called out for the parts of it that are dated, unclear, and more, it seems like, shock than commentary. But what I do think this movie encapsulates well, although it is still clearly, I don't know, at no point was I like, was this written by a woman? Like, it obviously isn't. no point was I like, was this written by a woman? Like it obviously isn't. But I do think it kind of encapsulates the feeling of not belonging to yourself very clearly in a way that is like very rooted in pop culture globally

of like there's just no part of Mima that belongs to herself. And it seems like at least, at very least, all of the creatives for all of these missteps is very aware of that. And presenting that as a horror scenario, that's what really works about this movie. Totally.

Showing this experience of her just not even having a moment to be like, who am I, what do I want? You know, that's not a possibility for her. And at the end, like, it could be seen as, like, kind of eerie ending. But I find it very sad, because if she is real, this is someone who's just like, all she's done is fulfilled what Tadakura wanted for her. We still don't know that she's doing something that she feels fulfilled by. We just know the victory is supposed to be surviving the experience. And that's really depressing.

Yeah, it is bleak. But no, it's it's very astute commentary. Any other final thoughts? We made it. We did it. We made it. Yeah, we made it. I'm just like, we can all take a deep breath. This movie does pass the Bechdel test, not in particularly pleasant ways, but it does. Yes. But it is, you know, Mima talking to her mom about Mima's career, Mima talking to the actress that she's in double bind with and their scenes in the show double bind also pass the Bechtel test. So it's a pass within a pass. So in a way it was a feminist note. Yeah, it does pass quite a bit. And then obviously Mima and Rumi talk, but does the whole sequence where Rumi

is trying to stab Mima at the end, does that pass the Bechtel test? You could argue yes, because stabbing attempts are a form of communication. It counts. It counts. It's feminist. No notes. It counts. To rate the movie on the Bechtelcast nipple scale, where we rate it zero to five nipples, examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. Well, now we're in a pickle. Oh, we are in a pickle. Yeah. Because again, there's a lot of themes that this movie explores very effectively as far as the

commodification of celebrities and especially the way that young women are heavily exploited. Of course this extends to marginalized people in general and of course there are like cishet white men who are deeply exploited by the entertainment industry, but it seems as though the like primary survivors of this tend to be marginalized people. I mean, it is. It doesn't seem it is. Yeah, it is. It is. So the commentary and examination of that, and just again the the pressure I just kept thinking about how like there's this through line of again something we see in real life all the time of Women and other marginalized talent agreeing to something they don't want to do because they don't want to be labeled as being difficult

And then being tried and I think Chica you mentioned this earlier But like and then being trotted out to perform consent retroactively, basically as a way of making people feel comfortable watching the exploitation. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very quick kind of almost throw away moment in the movie, but there's a quick scene where Mima is on her way into her manager's office. And this is after things have started to get pretty weird for her. And there's like a group of like fanboy men

standing outside being like, hi Mima. And she walks past them and ignores them. And then one of them says like, why do they become so unfriendly when they become actresses? And it just like makes you think of all of the, you know, like celebrities and actors who are women who have been labeled as like, oh, I heard so and so is such a bitch.

And it's just like, is it that or is it a woman responding to constantly being harassed and exploited and mistreated? We can't retrench the chapel row in discourse, but it comes to mind. Right. Like requesting personal space makes you a bitch. Right. Right. Right. Establishing boundaries makes you a bitch, that kind of thing. So all of these components and this commentary are really, I think, effectively

done in the movie. But then you have all of these other moments of like, is it satire or is it just playing into the trope? Not clear enough, so it's probably just the trope. Again, the way in which the brutal rape scene is framed and animated was just, again, so exploitative and unnecessary and horrid. So I don't know. I split down the middle, two and a half nipples. I'll give all of my nipples to the red dress at the end. I'm gonna go two, baby. I almost kind of want to go a little lower,

which is tricky, I mean, whatever. This is just the intersectional feminist ranking of it because I do like this movie and I think that there's, animation wise wise as an animation head it's fucking incredible I feel like it it captures one dynamic really well and then a lot of other dynamics not well at all but I'll go to because I do think that this movie is acutely aware of the hyper exploitation the hyper vigilance and was really early to call

how internet culture was going to factor into fans feeling even more entitled to someone's time and body and future. I feel like that is, you know, it's been attempted a lot of times and rarely this well. And that's really special. And then there's, like we've talked about for the last hour and a half, a lot of things that this movie just really needed more women at the top of the creative chain.

And that the mistakes this movie made, even in 1997, were largely avoidable. because if this creative team could capture so many ideas so clearly, so far ahead of everyone else, it's like almost without fail. If you have a couple of women, just more than one so they can talk to each other, a lot of these things could have potentially been avoided,

but I'm gonna give it two. I'm gonna give one to Mima and I'm gonna give one to her fish, her support system. I think that that was the her support system was unfortunately a jar of fish. Oh, yeah. Who died? Who died? Yeah. Like you hate to see it. How about you Chica and Gianna? Oh, it's hard to find something to say that hasn't already been said, to be honest. I'm so very much on the same page as you both, because it did accomplish things like commenting on the tropes, but at the same time it was like, are some of it satire? But it was also so aware of the toxicity within fan culture and portraying that in like an

expert way. But then there's the mental health aspect that's concerning. And again, can't reiterate enough that more women at the top of this really could have benefited the beats of those more difficult to swallow parts of the movie. So I think I'm gonna agree with a two and a half, but the question is where to give them.

That's always the question. Oh, the remaining members of Cham. Oh my God. Of course. Best of luck to them, honestly. I kept thinking of them as Kelly and Michelle. I see three girls. I'm like, that's Destiny's child. Yeah. I kept, as I was watching this movie, being like, hmm, this is what would happen if Josie and the Pussycats went way more wrong than it does. There you go.

Oh, wow. As far as the dynamics of the band go. Yeah. Okay. I think I would give it three nipples. I feel the same way as you all. I think it would have been way higher if a woman had been involved because then it's like, okay, certain things, it's like, this is too long. What do you

mean by this? Like, I think if there had been at least a woman on the team or multiple women on the team that could like push back at certain stuff, then this would have been higher for me. But like push back at certain stuff, then this would have been higher for me. But it was to who I'd give it to. Um, I think I'd also give it to champ. So it's like, cham, I think Yukiko and Ray are their names, but if I'm wrong, don't quote me. Um, I would also, the mom in the beginning, because even though she was kind of pushing back and stuff, she was still like, hey, I'm sort of invested in your career. I don't really know that I like where you're going with it. Classic mom behavior, yeah.

Classic mom behavior, so it's like mom. And I guess the third one is just Mima being able to survive it all, or like get out of all of that because I was just like, oh, especially when the truck was coming, I was like, oh, it's over. She's done for. Truck Kun has got her. Oh, okay. Nevermind. Yeah. So her being able to move out of it, although I think I would have liked it if that story was kind of discussed a bit more of like how was she able to get a stronger sense of self to then even decide to visit Rumi in the first place to see like how she was doing and stuff like yeah because I don't I don't know if I would visit

somebody that was trying to stab me. Yeah. Right. Yeah, side note, I know we're on final thoughts, but like, why did she push her out of the wave truck if I'm so honest, it would have been bye for me. Right. She put her hands up in the air and I was just like, I guess, you know. This is your choice.

She was ready to go. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I did wonder, I was like, were we supposed to think that like there was a mother-daughter thing between them and that was why she was protective of her? Because if that was what the aim was, it didn't come across.

Oh, that didn't even occur to me. Yeah. Maybe that's just me coping and trying to figure out what he's going for. But like, I don't get why Mimo would be like, no, we've got to I mean, it is tragic that Rumi was not able to have the career that she probably deserved to have. But if someone stabbed me, I would let them get hit by a truck, especially if they just stabbed me like just. especially if they just stabbed me, like just. Yeah. That's divine intervention.

Yeah, that feels like instant karma. Yeah. It's like, I wonder if it was the whole, cause then the wig part happened where she took the wig off and suddenly she was roomy again and then she put it back on and then she was Mima. Then maybe real Mima was still kind of like, who is the real Mima was still kind of like,

who is the real Mima? So then she pushed- Oh yeah, is that me? Oh, right, yeah. Right, so is she pushing herself out? And then it's like, oh, that was actually Rumi who stabbed me, why did I do that? But you will never know.

Yeah, we truly won't. But it has been wonderful trying to figure it out with you both. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Truly. Where can we find your work? So you can find us across socials at Shojo Sunday on Blue Sky. We're at Shojosunday.com. We're also on threads.

Yeah. at ShojoSunday.com. We're also on threads. We're available to be heard on podcast platforms, whatever preferred podcast platform. You listen, we are on there. Yeah. Yeah. And that's Shojo with a U and Sunday like Ice Cream Sunday. And it is our anniversary month and we're nearing our 100th episode. So if y'all are big, big fans of Shoujo anime or Josie anime, you can check out our catalog. We might've talked about one of your favorite films or TV series. Yeah. Amazing. You can follow us on mostly Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can subscribe

to our Patreon, aka Matrion, where we have a whole back catalogue of bonus episodes, plus two new bonus episodes every month, all for $5 a month. What a bargain, I think. What a treat. What a dream. It's sort of like a little Sunday of our own. You know, with sprinkles and a cherry on top. With that, oh gosh, how do we dismount from Perfect Blue? Let's go feed our fish to make sure they don't die. Remember to feed your fish. Remember to feed your fish for crying out loud. Okay, bye. Bye. The Bechtel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrasensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo.

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