This Is Your Brain On Anime: Paprika

Anime Monday!

Paprika (2006, directed by Satoshi Kon) is a postmodern cinematic confetti launcher.

Plot: a very brilliant, childish, and obese scientist invents a device called the DC-Mini that lets people enter others' dreams. When it gets stolen, a fight for its power races through all possible worlds.


A movie with a premise like this is ripe for creative animation. The visuals make full use of fantasy - showing people blending into walls, floors, TV screens, other people, other worlds and other movies.

Much of the movie plays with the fourth wall and showcases all the ways one scene can morph into the next. It's also no accident that the main character is an amateur film director, or that that the therapist, Paprika, has a interactive website that looks like a computer game. And while the fiction vs. reality games are in full display, the best parts are the small details and that classic anime whimsy.

The subtitles are excellent. The voice acting is very good. The music is exciting although a little too Dance Dance Revolution at times. The animation is top-notch. And the love stories are worked in tastefully, which means no excessive cheek blushing, needless romantic tangents, or girl wearing only a towel moments. Oh anime.

And bottom line, there's an old guy with a gun.

Netflix rating: 4 stars
RIYL: Existenz, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (even a direct reference to the Van Gogh episode), and, let's say...Howl's Moving Castle.
Youtube: trailer