Masao MARUYAMA, 6 anime to highlight a 50 years’ career: Perfect Blue
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Japanese animation, Masao MARUYAMA, a major character of the industry and ambassador for Animé 100, is coming back over his career, more than 50 years during which he produced a huge number of anime. For us, he has accepted to recall six anime that punctuated his career and today, he’s telling us about Perfect Blue!
"Perfect Blue for me is above all the story of my meeting with someone amazing, Satoshi KON. I remember thinking "There are such people as this man, who work in animation, and I’m going to have the chance to work with him!" It was such a joy for me.
Satoshi KON passed away at too early an age but we have worked together on anime until the end. I’ve done this job for 50 years but meeting Satoshi KON, someone with such a talent, is one of the most beautiful times of my career. That’s why I can never forget Perfect Blue. It was a crucial meeting for me.
Perfect Blue is a film that we could have been forbidden from producing. It is based on a work [by Yoshikazu TAKEUCHI] that tells the story of a man stalking a girl. But we didn’t feel like telling the story of a stalker, but rather of a stalked girl. The fear she feels transforms the film into a psychological thriller. The screenwriter, Sadayuki MURAI, wrote the story in a more dramatic way, mixing the fear we all feel deep inside with other fears.
The film plot is rather complex. We did so on purpose, because a psychological horror movie is less scary if it’s only about the main character being stalked. We meant to make a more elaborate film, where the past and present entangle. It was the same idea for Millennium Actress we produced later. The story not being continuous and the human feelings are the two aspects that probably appealed to the audience.
I don’t know if we managed to produce a film that goes beyond fear to show the beauty of it. But still, it was a challenge for us and I think we did achieve our goal."
Perfect Blue in short
- Japanese title: Perfect Blue
- European title: Perfect Blue
- Released in 1997 in Japan, and in 1999 in Europe
- Directed by Satoshi KON
- Studio: Madhouse
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