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Saw this anime in the most classic Adult Swim way, waking up in the middle of the night to it and not understanding the context at all. It's lived in the back of my memory ever since.

Whatever localizer named him Lil' Slugger was a visionary

This anime scared me as a kid because i didn't understand it, now it scares me as an adult because i do.

the sheer number of psychosocial problems being treated with bat based cranial trauma is impressive

Rip to the goat, satoshi kon's body of work is incredibly profound no matter where you look, and i consider myself lucky to have been born in the same era as him.

She created the next big thing but it wasn't through creativity and passion and love, but rather fear and dread and anxiety, the golden bat boy takes over society just as much as her last creation did but in a very different way, its a great anime/story

One day, my comments won’t be visible once this channel grows to its proper size. Till then, I’m here to let you know that we appreciate you putting in large channel effort regardless.

I absolutely love how Shonen Bat shows up for the corrupt, PDF file character, but instead of hitting him on the head he get's captured instead and still acts as a temporary solution that he was craving for. I also will never forget how powerful the scene with Koichi's wife was, it still sends shivers down my spine, and it's done so effectively because we have seen so many victims before this, but now we see this calm, stoic resistance.

The older I get, the more I see, and the more I understand, the stronger and more powerful of a work of art Paranoia Agent becomes.

This is a true critique of Japanese society we've seen many times in real life. Can't keep up with a deadline? You'll probably be yelled at by your manager/management for something you may not be in control of. Maybe you'll even push yourself to exhaustion or sickness.

Go outside of what is considered "normal" in a company to get a deadline done? You'll again be yelled at and blamed. Maybe even fired and have a whole multi-page, bullet points of what you supposedly did wrong. Meanwhile, people who have done much worse are elevated, praised (at least within the company).

A society which has a strict hierarchy, where individuality may be shunned, and conformity is the "only way forward". Maybe it's to the point where management asks you to die your hair black, even if your natural hair color is another (red, blonde, etc).

Satoshi Kon is a legend and will, and still is, missed.

I love how the three musketeers is a representation that human connection and community is only achievable after death in a society that profitable and promotes alienation .

I always loved anime and japan, and when you get a bit older. You start understanding why these themes were used in japan. And you start to feel a bit melancholic for japan

One thing everyone seems to be missing: this is a classic, and fairly strait-forward, inugami story. Maromi is the inugami, the spirit of a puppy which died a pretty rough death because it's master was suffering her first set of menstrual cramps. Maromi is ALSO Shonen Bat, the embodiment of her despair and feelings of claustraphobia at being forced to grow up and enter society despite the fact that she is utterly unprepared to cope with the responsibilities of adulthood, and so uses Maromi to deflect anger and disappointment away from her while enjoying the benefits of becoming a hit designer. She continues to dodge the inevitable bullet of confrontation, but the negative aspect of Maromi (Shonen Bat) keeps getting stronger. As per the myth, she herself eventually becomes a target of her own accidental generation of this spirit. Look up inugami, and you'll see dozens of similar tales, though in Sagi-chan's case, the generation of Maromi/Shonen Bat was indeed accidental. Which only makes the entire story a bit more tragic, in my opinion.

Fun fact: My younger sister who I shared a room with when we were kids used to take up in the middle of the night and turn on our TV, waking me up in the process. I saw the episode centered on the characters at 29:08, though being as young as I was (probably no older than 11) I had no idea what was really going on. Nice to know the story about the weird Adult Swim show I thought I dreamt up pfff

i was 11 when this came out and i didnt understand it at the time. all i knew was i liked the atmosphere. rewatched it in my twenties because i had heard it became a cult classic and i understood better. Now im in my 30s seeing this video and having a midlife crisis whether to continue to be a cog in the wheel until i die or run away from the imposed "reality" of a "normal man in society." i now think paranoia agent is a work of art.

I love this anime but watched it when it was airing, I was like 7-12 years old or something and it only aired at 1:30 am on adult swim. This is dope you posted this, because I feel like no one talks about this one, but I remember being very disturbed by it, yet enthralled. It wasn't scary per se, just upsetting. It's cool to see it laid out chronologically and analyzed like this. I'm gonna rewatch it now, thanks for posting.

You can see the covert narcissist, grandiose narcissist, malignant narcissist, the antagonistic narcissist in the characters.

I do love the 3 ghostateers. Their friendship is genuine and wholesome and makes you think “did they need to die to find this joy in each other? Or would they never have found it without dying?”

Whelp it was inevitable. Guess I gotta crack open the good ol’ totally legal anime viewing platform to finally watch Paranoia Agent. I’ll be back in like 36 hours.