PAPRIKA

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MANGA FantasyPaprika
MANGA FantasyPaprika: The dream-child

REVIEWS

• 

  ToeBeans

  70/100
  A Review of the Movie Paprika

  Paprika: A Review

  Released in 2006, Paprika is a film centered around Dr. Atsuko Chiba who is a scientist by day, but is a "dream detective" by night as her alter ego Paprika. Atsuko and her colleagues are working on a new invention named the DC Mini, designed to help psychiatric patients by delving into their subconscious dreams. However, the unfinished DC Mini is stolen, which could lead to the disastrous destruction of people's minds. So Paprika must help recover it before the thief does any damage. All in all, the idea behind Paprika was an original and thought provoking one.

  The movie itself is definitely executed well, a lot of it does take place in the dream world, and I thought the film did a particularly good job of transitioning from reality into dreams and vice versa. Most of the time when someone was dreaming I didn't even realize until it was made obvious. Especially during dream sequences, the animation and graphics were especially stunning, although I wouldn't call them pretty, they were definitely impressive to me. The main theme music that appears periodically throughout the movie was also a good choice and is almost uplifting and fun in the fantastical dream scenes.

  One thing I really liked about Paprika was the characters,
  There is Atsuko Chiba, a stern, sometimes cruel but ultimately good hearted woman.

  

  Atsuko's dream self, Paprika, who is risk taking, brave yet practical, fun and a good counterpart to Atsuko.

  

  Kosaku Tokita, an immature and idealistic genius, who has no control over his eating habits.

  

  Konakawa Toshimi, a detective with a past that haunts him. He is really the character that seems to grow and develop the most over the course of the movie, definitely my favorite.

  

  The villain also makes for an interesting character as he is the chairman of the company making this new dream technology, he looks fittingly creepy as a villain should, but the part I liked the most about him is that in reality he has to use a wheelchair, but in dreams he is fully able to walk on his own two feet, adding a dimension to him that makes him less of an evil, hateable person and makes his motives more understandable. So, I did really like the characters of this movie, although some may have had extreme personalities, I could relate with all of them which added to the enjoyability of the movie.

  I will say that some of the movie is a little "scary, but less in a gory or bloody way, the creepiness of it stems from more psychological things that are often shown in the dream world, things that create an uneasiness in parts of the film, which I really liked because it made the dreams even more realistic. Don't we all have nightmares that just leave us creeped out? It made the movie seem more like something that could happen in real life rather than simply a fantastical science fiction movie.

  I also really appreciated the small injection of romance into the movie, it made everything seem a little less heavy and scary, and more down to earth. It did a good job of lifting the mood.

  I would say that although it was a good movie, I did get bored in parts, Paprika utilized two main dreams throughout and many scenes are repeated or similar to others making it a little tedious to watch. But, I did end up enjoying the movie and although I don't think I'll be watching it again anytime soon, I would recommend it to anyone to watch.

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• 

  TheGruesomeGoblin

  95/100
  A wondrous parade of absolute lunacy demonstrating the terrifying idea of dreams and reality merging.

  ___Now it is coming to you, giving off a stench and devouring your shadow!___ ___The parade of terror is coming, and it is in your name!___

  Paprika is a 2006 movie based off of the novel of the same name by Yasutaka Tsutsui. Brought to us by the studio Madhouse and the acclaimed director Satoshi Kon whom passed away in 2010, Paprika is a wonderful descent into the insane world of dreams and the human mind. I should right away state that Paprika is probably one of my utmost favorite animated films, and is without a doubt my favorite Satoshi Kon work, though I love pretty much every single one of them.

  

  But as for Paprika, I love every single component of this movie. It is in fact probably I think my hands down my favorite take on the idea of "dreams." Just a huge bustling and completely insane parade stampeding wherever it wishes, pulling in whoever draws near it. If you were curious why this movie is under the genre horror... what is more terrifying than just completely losing your mind? Losing your entire sense of self as you become devoured in the absolute madness that the parade represents? Additionally, there's a hell of a lot of smaller creepy stuff that kind of got swept under the rug of my brain that I just didn't remember as a result of the bigger stuff present in Paprika.

  

  I think the moment the movie truly and one hundred percent won me over was a scene relatively early on when during a conversation one of the characters just suddenly starts rambling about a bunch of weird nonsense. This movie is full to the brim of memorable and notable scenes, but it's this particular scene that has stuck with me like a year and a half later. Because once this old man's insane rambling concludes, he just bursts into laughter and takes off running throughout the halls. And as he does this, Susumu Hirasawa's Parade enters the scene and starts playing as this old man launches himself through a window and out of the building.

  

  Then you get to the see the parade in its full glory and sitting at the top of it is the old man, who has been forcibly abducted into this completely insane parade that stampedes throughout the world of dreams.

  ...Wait. Have I even actually stated anything about the plot of this movie yet? Basically, there's this invention called the DC Mini and it allows the wearer to delve into dreams. And as this movie bluntly makes clear, that is a realm we should just leave the fuck alone. Because the idea of going into someone's dream, or dreams crossing over into reality is fucking terrifying. Because of course this experimental and incomplete dream device is stolen and everything goes horribly fucking wrong.

  

  Anything can happen in a dream! Actually, this movie in fact features a nightmare that I myself have personally had multiple times throughout my life. Specifically, it's that dream where suddenly like the ground just gives away from underneath of you or just disappears, and you just start falling. And like right as I land in the dream, I wake up, freaked the fuck out until my brain catches up and I realize "oh that was just a goddamned dream."

  

  Additionally, I've also that had that type of dream where in the dream you think you've woke up, but you're still in the fucking nightmare. And of course the thing where you're being chased by something in a dream and you know it's a dream and you desperately want to wake the fuck up but you just can't. That type of shit is a billion times more effective to me than a bunch of spooky scary monsters or just buckets and buckets of blood.

  Satoshi Kon fully embraces the idea of "anything can happen in a dream." I don't know how the actual novel compares, though I know for a fact that apparently he changed some stuff and Yasutaka Tsutsui himself apparently agreed with the changes, but there is a multitude of just genuinely creepy or weird and fucked up things littered throughout this movie. I know Perfect Blue is viewed as like the darkest of Satoshi Kon's movies/works, but personally, Paprika got to me way more than Perfect Blue.

  

  One of my favorite things of all in horror is stuff just happening right in the background. Fuck your jumpscares. Subtlety is effective, god damn it.

  The scene that everybody knows from this movie, and for good reason, is carved into my mind right along with that scene where the old man is the first to just go completely crazy. I won't even include anything about it outside of a spoiler tag because you have to see it. You have to see it for yourself. The scene with the businessmen smiling and leaping off a building after shouting "IT'S SHOWTIME" is without a doubt one of the genuinely creepiest fucking things I've ever seen out of all of the anime I've watched. Like holy SHIT.

  And perhaps one of the things I love the most about this movie is that it never stops escalating.

  

  When dreams and reality are merging towards the end, it is just complete and utter chaos and the movie itself ends with two gigantic naked dream beings confronting each other (one of which is in the middle of the process of ushering in the apocalypse), with one sucking up and swallowing the other whole. That is fucking weird as shit and I love it.

  I mentioned him briefly before, but it does need to be stated that Susumu Hirasawa, who did the soundtrack for Paprika and has done music for this, Paranoia Agent, Millenium Actress, and the to-never-be-released The Dream Machine, is in fact in actuality, a musical god that has descended to this Earth. As previously stated, I love just about every single thing about Paprika, but the Susumu Hirasawa soundtrack is probably what puts it on top for me in terms of Satoshi Kon works. I cannot say it enough. I will never stop saying it. Susumu Hirasawa is a musical god that has voluntarily chosen to walk among us. And everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion, but this is not an opinion, it is FACT.

  The Paprika parade would not be as great as it is without this playing.

  I don't have much more to say since I of course do not at all want to get any more specific than I have/spoil this movie. So in conclusion, Paprika is a wonderful, wonderful movie from beginning to end, and in my opinion, is almost perfect. As I said when I began this review, Paprika is one of my favorite animated films of all and my favorite Satoshi Kon work. A 9.5 out of 10 or 95 out of 100.

  
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• 

  QuasiDeus

  98/100
  Paprika's convergence of dreams and reality,is a surreal parallel to today's hub of dreams,the internet and our reality

  Rating:9.8/10

  "The Internet and dreams are similar. They're areas where the repressed conscious mind escapes."~Paprika

  Dreams, for many, are an escapade, a safe haven from our harsh reality. We subconsciously build worlds and universes that exhibit our experiences, desires, personality, traumas, phobias and even our innermost forgotten selves in the form of dreams. Though we dream during both alternations of the sleep cycle(i.e. Non-rapid eye movement(N-REM) and rapid eye movement(REM)) our dreams are normally more vivid and longer during REM sleep. While we generally can’t control our actions in conventional dreaming, there are means to be aware and control it to a certain extent, at least the dreams in REM sleep. This phenomena is referred to as lucid dreaming. Many people suffering from a psychological condition or disorder, often don’t recall those repressed memories responsible for it. In such cases it’s often a tedious task for therapists to understand their patients' behavior and the cause of their condition. As a method of therapy, lucid dreaming is gaining a lot of attention in psychotherapy as a way for people to understand, help and equip themselves in ways unimaginable. Except that it isn’t always easy for us to lucid dream, or even if we did, there is no guarantee we will interpret the nuances of our dreams and how it relates to our own problems correctly.
  But what if therapists were able to enter into the dreams of their patients to analyze it and get to the bottom of their condition? And what would happen to humanity as a whole if everyone gained this ability to enter the dreams of other people? Would we have lesser misunderstandings and understand people better if we saw life vicariously? Or would it be deleterious and damage society fundamentally? A dream as I had first mentioned is the only sanctuary for many people in general, so can we as humans accept this ability to enter a person’s dream?

  Paprika is an eccentric dream(in all its definitions) that is diligent in making sure we don’t open our eyes during its entirety, and gives us a thrilling experience equivalent to the above stated. The entire anime is minimal in both the duration and decipherability with it’s subtle yet remarkable storytelling.
  In Paprika, the DC-mini is a transmitter-like device that induces lucid dreaming by stimulating the brain using a psychotherapy machine, with the user’s own natural body energy levels and frequency. A DC-mini has the capability to simulate the dream in a computer, allow other users to enter the person’s dream and can also tune a previous user’s mind using its data on their energy level, without being physically in contact with the person. Though it is said to be in its prototypical stages, it is used by the psychotherapeutic/psychiatric institution that invented it, after authorization by the chairman for every use. The DC-mini’s development team however, to gather more information and help others, use it on people that require it. Paprika(an alias), a person from the development team, stands as the therapist to all these unauthorized treatments. Police Inspector Toshimi has anxiety neurosis and Dr.Shiba, from the development team tries to help him with a DC-mini. His own side story is tacitly blended with the main plot in a very clean manner. But then, three DC-minis gets stolen by someone from the same organisation, and before stealing it, is believed to have forced dreams/delusions into the scientists when they were using the psychotherapy machine. And upon remotely triggering an anaphylactic reaction among those who had the most exposure to it, they make these scientists hallucinate. Everyone suspects the DC-mini’s inventor, Dr.Torita’s assistant Himura, after seeing him in the delusions of Dr.Shiba, the first victim. The story progresses in a very unique and somewhat predictable way with its surreal concert of dreams and reality, making us see dreams/delusions and its implications in a new light. The collective delusion in the form of an eerily comical procession of personified objects, enforced on people in particular is very distinct, as it being a parade, I felt that it refers to the death or importance of dreams. The plot also has a great deal of visual references to other movies which are both symbolic and additive to the plot of Paprika in general. The anime is meant to be implicitly understood and nuanced, and hence it would be a shame, if I were to elicit more on what needs to and must be experienced. The character development for many characters in the story is among the finest I have ever seen in anime as short as Paprika. The most beautiful of them were Toshimi overcoming his trauma by seeing ‘it’ in a new light and ironically the alter ego of Paprika, an exceptional therapist understanding and embracing her unseen, innate identity, and her own true self.
  The story wouldn’t have been as entertaining if it weren’t for its vivid visuals. The animation was sharp and fluid,as it needs to bring entire worlds of differently toned dreams to life many times. The color palette created an aesthetically bizarre ambience and was mostly consistent, florid and distinctly bright, with the shades of red appearing most vibrant. The soundtrack album was mostly techno and resonated with the artstyle and the setting very explicitly.

  The concise storytelling requires you to be on your feet and actually take in the scenes from the very beginning, as otherwise you will find yourself quickly lost and the ending would not make sense all too much. It has non-sexual nudity, which I felt was most necessary as it actually had an impact on what needed to be established. Symbolism and irony is very intricately placed in the scenes and dialogues of Paprika that subtly roll by and I advise its viewers to pay careful attention to it. I would recommend Paprika, a story of dreams that optimistically speaks yet also warns us of technological marvels and its misuse, to all those who love to intellectually test themselves in connecting dots alongside a very great storyline, and memorable characters.

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