Paranoia agent

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Television series
German title Paranoia agent
Original title 妄想 代理人Mōsō Dairinin
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
year 2004
length 25 minutes
Episodes 13
genre Drama , horror , mystery , psychology
Theme music Yume no Shima Shinen Kōen
idea Satoshi Kon
production Satoshi Fujii , Shinsaku Tanaka
music Susumu Hirasawa
First broadcast February 2, 2004 - May 17, 2004 on WOWOW
German-language
first broadcast		 June 5, 2007 - September 2, 2007 on Animax
synchronization

Paranoia Agent ( jap. 妄想代理人 , Moso Dairinin ) is an anime - TV series of the studio Madhouse in 2004.

The series is about the fate of various people who are attacked by a mysterious youth.

action

The designer Tsukiko Sagi ( 鷺 月 子 ) created the drawn figure Maromi ( マ ロ ミ ), which became a best seller and has since developed into a cult object. Now she is supposed to design another such figure, which is just as popular with customers. But Tsukiko has no idea and delivers nothing more than useless sketches. One evening, on the way home, she is knocked down by a boy with gold roller blades and a baseball bat. Tsukiko only regains consciousness in the hospital. The police commission set up under Keiichi Ikari ( 猪 狩 慶 一 ) and the young Mitsuhiro Maniwa cannot prevent a tabloid journalist from being struck down by the boy soon afterwards. Since no victim can remember his face, from now on he is simply called Shōnen Bat ( 少年 バ ッ ト ), which can be roughly translated as “youthful thug” .

As a result of these events, the previously popular student Yūichi Taira is suspected of being Shōnen Bat. And that at a time when he has chosen to be the student representative and now his opponent has an advantage. This in turn torments him because he feels sorry for Yūichi. But the two of Shōnen Bat are soon crushed, so that the investigation against Yūichi is set. In the following years, the personality-divided employee Chōno Harumi, whose second personality works as a prostitute under the name Maria, is attacked by Shōnen Bat. She is followed by policeman Masami Hirukawa, who did business with the yakuza and was then threatened by them.

The police can then arrest eighth grader Makoto Kozuka ( 狐 塚 誠 ), who attacked Hirukawa and who confesses to further attacks. Makoto thinks he is a holy warrior in a medieval role-playing game and explains to the police during interrogation that he had to knock down the victims in order to free them from an evil force called Gōma. Also he only claims to have committed the last robberies. Soon after, Makoto is found slain in his cell and Ikari and Maniwa come to the conclusion that he was merely a copycat perpetrator. Ikari and Maniwa believe that they have recognized something in common among the victims - they were all under pressure for various reasons before the attack and are actually relieved to see Shōnen Bat - but they cannot pursue this assumption immediately because they were due to the death of the Prime suspect Makoto, who is reported to the media as suicide, must resign.

In the meantime, the story of Shōnen Bat has become very well known. A group of suicides who met on the Internet, after several unsuccessful suicide attempts, would like to be haunted by him. Ever crazier and more absurd stories about Shōnen Bat become the main topic of conversation in neighborhood gossip. Meanwhile, the members of the team that made the TV series about the soft toy Maromi are murdered one after the other by Shōnen Bat.

The released policeman Ikari is now working as a security officer on construction sites. His wife, who accuses herself of being a burden for her husband because of her illness, confronts Shōnen Bat when he comes to her. Meanwhile, her husband takes refuge in the dream world of his childhood. Finally, the superhero Radar Man , who Maniwa thinks he is, can clear up the secret behind Shōnen Bat: Tsukiko Sagi's dog was run over in her childhood for not looking after him. Out of shame, she claimed that she was knocked down by a teenage boy with a baseball bat, allowing the dog to run away. Later she developed from the memory of her dog Maromi and from her invention of the youngster Shōnen Bat emerged, who is now turning more and more into a monster. Maniwa counteracts this, while the character Maromi casts a spell over the people of the country. After the Maromi figures disappear, a black liquid pours over the land. The identity of Maromis with Shōnen Bat becomes apparent and Ikari manages to free himself from his dream world through his wife. Maniwa confronts Tsukiko with her childhood experience. Eventually she manages to overcome her trauma and push Shōnen Bat back out of the real world, but Tokyo is in ruins.

Concept and themes

The people attacked during the plot all suffer from psychological problems or pressure, such as Yūichi being bullied and Chōno Harumi and Masami Hirukawa leading a double life. Some of them want someone to help them or stop them shortly before the attack.

Up to the seventh episode, the series tells the plot in a relatively straightforward manner, with the narrative perspectives changing to the characters that are the focus of an episode. Each episode tells the fate of one or more victims of Shōnen Bat. In the fifth episode, in which the perpetrator was supposedly caught, the two police officers immerse themselves completely in the world of the game in which Makoto believes he is. Two characters also appear there, who appear frequently in the plot, but always only in the background.

Including an old man who always speaks in disjointed phrases. This also speaks the preview for the next episodes and appears several times in the background during the action. The preview always ends with the word now and the picture of the striking Shōnen Bat.

Production and publications

The Anime - TV series with 13 episodes was established in 2004 from the studio Madhouse and directed by Satoshi Kon produced, who also did the idea. The character design comes from Masashi Ando.

The series first aired from February 2, 2004 to May 17, 2004 on WOWOW in Japan.

Episodes one to four were shown internationally for the first time in Italy on January 21, 2005 at the Future Film Festival. From May to August 2005, the series was broadcast on the American television station Cartoon Network in Adult Swim format, and in 2007 also on the G4Tech TV station in Canada . In America the DVD is distributed by Geneon Entertainment (currently Funimation since 2020), in Australia by Madman Entertainment. In Poland it was broadcast on the Hyper channel. The series was also released in French by Dybex, in Spanish by Selecta Visión on DVD and on TV, in Italian by Panini Videos , in Russian by MC Entertainment and in Swedish by Sandrew Metronome.

The complete series was released on 4 DVDs in 2006 in Germany, Austria & Switzerland on the anime label Anime Virtual . On May 21, 2007, the series was then re-released as a complete edition. From June 5, 2007 to September 2, 2007 the anime was broadcast on the German channel Animax .

synchronization

The German synchronization was carried out by the company Elektrofilm.

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) German speaker
Shōnen Bat Daisuke Sakaguchi David Turba
Tsukiko Sagi Mamiko Noto Giuliana Jakobeit
Keiichi Ikari Shōzō Iizuka Roland Hemmo
Mitsuhiro Maniwa Toshihiko Seki Bernhard Völger
Yūichi Taira Mayumi Yamaguchi Raúl Richter
Chono Harumi Kotono Mitsuishi Claudia Urbschat-Mingues
Masami Hirukawa Toshihiko Nakajima Helmut Gauss
Makoto Kozuka Daisuke Sakaguchi David Turba
old man Ryūji Saikachi Hasso Zorn

music

The background music for the series was composed by Susumu Hirasawa , with Masafumi Mima directing the sound. The opening credits are Yume no Shima Shinen Kōen ( 夢 の 島 思念 公園 ), Shiroi Oka - Maromi no Theme is used for the credits . Both songs are by Susumu Hirasawa.

reception

The television series was featured in a New York Times article about Cartoon Network's anime programming. Author Mike Hale describes the series as a metropolitan thriller with a hypnotizing opening credits that deserves attention.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Article in the New York Times, January 15, 2006

Web links