Rating: 
Summary: Great Animated Thriller for Adults Only
Review: This is without a doubt one of the better thrillers in the past few years, live action or not. Be warned though (to those new to anime or just learning distinctions within the genre), it is also one of the most adult-oriented mainstream anime movies out there. I have the unrated DVD, and it would quite handily earn at least an R rating based on violence and nudity, both of which have negative and disturbing impact on Mima, the main character.This is a primary example of how Japanese anime comes in many forms and is aimed at many demographics, just as live-action movies in general. This is equivalent to a violent, thought-provoking Hollywood rated-R thriller and is in no way related to what simple mainstream America thinks broadly of as "anime" (Pokemon, Escaflowne, G-Force perhaps). Only complaints about the presentation: the English voice actors sound great but read through some iffy translations. And yet when in native language, I find myself liking the English female voice better! Hey, you can't win 'em all, but overall, Perfect Blue will make an excellent addition to many an adult DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: You won't be blue for buying this one
Review: This is without a doubt one of the best animes that I've seen. At first I was skeptical as to how well an anime could pull off a psychological thriller. But after about 30 minutes into the film, all doubts were erased. I was enthralled, captivated and thouroughly entertained. Perfect Blue is a wonder for even those that don't enjoy anime. I convinced one of my friends, who has always hated cartoons, and anime, to watch it with me and one it was over, they were rounding up others for another viewing. If you're a movie fan, then you're sure to enjoy Perfect Blue, If you're an anime fan as well, then be prepared to double your pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Foil of today's Entertainment Society....
Review: This by far is a good way to make you chuck your Britney Spears or Christina Aguleria CD's out the house, because this movie almost (I say ALMOST here) mirrors today society. The fact that a well known J-Pop Idol getting Illusions of Grandieur and begins to distort reality with imagination, coupled with the deranged fan, and her "change of venue" could mirror to several artists of today (Jennifer Lopez ring a bell?) Truely one to scare the bejesus outta you. Watch the rated version if your squeamish, but the Uncut version is better.
Rating:
Summary: It IS perfect!!
Review: This movie is the most frightening mystery/thriller worthy of Alfred Hitchcock himself! The story itself is frightening on different levels. First you see Mima, who is not very sure of herself as a person and an aspiring celebrity. She's willing to sacrifice to hit the big time which leads her into several situations, including filming a disturbing rape scene for a movie (or a TV series, depending on the version you saw). Slowly and not so surely, you see the industry strip away pieces of Mima, which she clings to. This gets really bad as she starts seeing the "other Mima." Then the murders take place. One by one people around Mima are being brutally and bloodily murdered. The climax and ending is spectacular as the mystery begins to unravel, and unlike lesser thought out movies, everything makes perfect sense throughout the madness and murders!
Rating:
Summary: Twist your mind while your body cowers in a corner!
Review: Throw out everything you ever thought about psychological horror films and prepare to have you mind twisted beyond recognition and you body leave the room and cower in a corner while making squeaking noises. This movie is bar none one of the freakiest, most-twisted and down right terrifying movies I have ever seen. It is quite literally the main characters downward spiral from sanity to a complete lack thereof. And don't forget several grisly murders and a lot of extremely disturbing material. But for some reason it all comes together brilliantly and can really screw with your brain. The director makes the movie come together and turns the whole experience into something you live through the character, a rare feat indeed. Bear in mind that although I highly recommend this movie, it ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR CHILDREN! There are many extremely graphic scenes and this movie is the only movie to have ever succeeded in scaring me from sleeping. I wish I had more to say about how much I liked this movie, or how much it terrified me. But if you want to see an absolutely amazing piece of work, then watch this.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect Blue was Perfectly Bad
Review: I saw Perfect Blue in a theatre, and it's the worst anime I've ever seen! My two friends and I only stayed for the whole thing because we got in for free. I had heard so many good things about it, but the animation and story were both lacking, and the main character was horribly annoying! The never-engding giggling drove us all mad. I was so dissapointed; spare yourself from the same and go see something good, like Princess Mononoke or X.
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite perfect, but nearly there
Review: A stylish, and sometimes fairly quirky movie, in which a pop idol turned actress loses herself as she takes on the role of the sister of a murdered model in a soap opera type story. That, basically, without going too deep into this animated movie, is the main theme of this story. The twists and turns the story takes from this basic plot makes for an engaging, thought provoking, and sometimes a scratch your head in thought movie. Mima Kirigoe is the pop idol turned actress whose role as the models younger sister, turns her world upside down, as her original one line role turns into something far more, threatening her life in the process. After doing a rape scene in the tv series she's in, reality and fantasy begin interweaving themselves into her life until she can't tell the fantasy from the reality. Subsequent events, such as posing nude for a famous photographer plummets her deeper into this fantasy world. As Mima slips more into the fantasy world, she begins to see herself as two people, the actress she is becoming, but also sees her former self, the pop idol, who taunts her, telling her she is the illusion. The brutal murder of the writer of the tv show she is on, and the photographer who took the nude photos of her overlaps her paranoid delusions, blending through so that neither she, nor us as the audience, is quite sure what is really happening, and what she is imagining. To add to the confusion, a crazed fan who has hundreds of pictures of the pop idol Mima in his room, is constantly following her, and logging onto Mima's website, which is called Mima's room. On this website is a personal diary of Mima, detailing the things she is doing and thinking, but Mima isn't the one who is writing it. Confusing, isn't it? Until nearly the end of the movie, it isn't any clearer to us, and the twists and turns are well executed, leaving you to believe one thing, and then showing you another. I won't give away the surprises of the film, but will say that the ending makes sense once you finally get to it. I really only have one real complaint about the movie itself, and that's in it's psychology. We are shown the progression of Mima's paranoia as events unfold, to where she can't separate reality from fantasy herself, but then, at the end, after the mystery is resolved, bam, she is just fine now. I don't think that she would have really been able to recover so fast like that, not without some sort of psychiatric help. It is true that some of what was happening was being caused, but there were also things going on inside her own mind, which she was creating, like the alternate images she would see of herself in the mirror. These were a case of a real psychological delusion, not just a make believe reality. That aside, I enjoyed this psychological thriller, and I think you will too.
Rating:
Summary: Dark and disturbing as hell -- the way I like it!
Review: I'm a big fan of eerie, disturbing, surreal films which jar me into reevaluating what's important and what's truly real. Many animated films asipre to this, but instead turn out very twee. Not Perfect Blue. This one definitely took me on the ride I was looking for. I won't go over the plot, because so many other reviewers already have. I'll just say that cinematically, this film is the equal of any work by Ridley Scott, David Cronenburg, or David Lynch. Based on his latest work, I think David Lynch could really take a lesson from this film on how to portray surreal discontinuities in the concept of self without completely doing away with plot. The idea of the cruel power-politics and general evil that lurk just beneath the pretty surface of a modern society is an idea that has been explored by my favorite American filmmakers. As a student of Asian cultures, I'm happy to see this same premise applied to Japanese society, because no matter what culture or social class we come from, there's something universally disturbing about how close to the surface our destructive primal urges are. By the way, I'm excited to see that someone else caught the blatant reference to Silence of the Lambs, another one of my all time favorites. For those who didn't notice, in one of the rehearsal scenes, the lines Mima and her fellow actors speak are almost verbatim from S. of the L. I'm sure there are numerous other references to other movies as well, which I may not have caught. If this is any indication of Satoshi Kon's future films, I'd have to say it looks like smooth sailing for him.
Rating:
Summary: Satoshi Kon Hits Big w/ This Thriller Classic
Review: This movie was a real treat that gives the viewer(s) a big of mystery and suspense. Mima, the main character, is a J-pop singer who leaves her trio to persue an acting career. However, one fan just won't let her go, and it becomes somewhat of a stalking movie at the beginning. Mysterious deaths occur around the city and some of the people impacting Mima's life the most end up dead (her manager, the director of her new TV show, etc.). This classic is the Alfred Hitchcock of anime - it can't be beat and it leaves those who watch it at the end with a big question - was it all a dream in, or did it really happen? This movie plays with twists and turns that put roller coaster rides to shame, and it does so in such an art form that makes it a big hit with any fan of anime murder thrillers (a rare breed indeed).
Rating:
Summary: A New Classic Of The Genre Rears It's Twisted Head.
Review: Satoshi Kon's 'Perfect Blue' is a true suspense film. It never relies on false scares or flashy monsters. It just slowly destroys your perceptions of reality, leaving you clueless as to where you are or what's really going on. Danger is always present and there is no where to hide. The story for 'Perfect Blue' is convoluted, at best, but this is precisely the point. You never quite know what's real or not. Not since Roman Polanski's 'Repulsion' have I believed a character's slow progression into madness as I have Mima Kirigoe's, the central character of the film. The violence is heavy-handed and the film pulls no punches in it's depiction of sexuality, but whereas most films would be considered exploitative for this, 'Perfect Blue' is simply pushing you ever closer to reality. An animated film such as this truely makes you forget that you're not watching 'real' actors and actresses up there on the screen. Everything... from it's super-glossy yet gritty presentation, it's mind-warping screenplay, it's eratic score... everything just clicks. Not since 'Akira' has an animated film got me so involved in the lives of it's characters. It also contains one of the most disturbing conclusions ever seen on the screen... period. A true example of the power of animation, 'Perfect Blue' is a great film that deserves repeated viewings. Just make sure you watch it with the lights off and the phone off the hook.
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