Paranoia Agent...
To my surprise, not only was Paranoia Agent really, really good, but, it was also only four volumes. For some reason that defies description, I was under the impression that the series was longer.
An interesting side note turned up when I was listening the commentary track. The director, Satoshi Kon, confirmed that the opening and ending animation have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. Apparently, the opening and ending created a great deal of controversy when they were originally aired in Japan. With fans of the series studying the sequences in microscopic detail and trying to find some hidden insights into the story. It was also surprising to find out that the opening animation used less than 100 cels.
A word of caution, the story is somewhat convoluted. You *MUST* watch the series from the beginning. You can't come into the middle of the series and expect to be able to follow the story. I gave Paranoia Agent a 5 out of 5.
In Paranoia Agent, after the first victim's story, the police felt the overly stressed woman was having a breakdown and lied to cover-up for some crime. However, after the third and fourth attacks upon unrelated victims led to the same description of a young attacker with a golden baseball bat and in-line skates, the police had to wonder - is the Lil' Slugger real or some kind of sinister phantom?
An interesting side note turned up when I was listening the commentary track. The director, Satoshi Kon, confirmed that the opening and ending animation have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. Apparently, the opening and ending created a great deal of controversy when they were originally aired in Japan. With fans of the series studying the sequences in microscopic detail and trying to find some hidden insights into the story. It was also surprising to find out that the opening animation used less than 100 cels.A word of caution, the story is somewhat convoluted. You *MUST* watch the series from the beginning. You can't come into the middle of the series and expect to be able to follow the story. I gave Paranoia Agent a 5 out of 5.
