Paranoia Agent is a series that examines the thin line between reality and perception, between fantasy and lies. Dark and atmospheric, this is a series that never lets you know exactly what's going on.

Who is Little Slugger? Why does he appear so conveniently for those seeking a way out? Why does he grow more powerful with each attack? What is real, what is fantasy, and how do the two states of being interact and warp each other?

But Paranoia Agent is more than a psychological drama. It is the darkest of dark comedies, poking fun at insincerity, cowardice, disaster, and despair. It is not only mind-warping, it is good fun. It's a series to watch with your jaw dropped, your eyes bugged out, and with frquent guilty laughter.

Few anime directors (and specially in such media business like this) overcome their own cult status or media staples when they reach international success with just one or two works. Satoshi Kon with just a minimum list of work in the anime industry not only achived all of this but, actually gave a new face to a form of art in agony (excesive comercial works and esentially the lack of directors with modern projects). He has gave us all: a complex new style, individualist, deep and post-modern to the bones. You know when a work it's truly Kon when you are watching it.
Also he posess one the most flexible and variable filmographies of the industry: psycological terror (Perfect Blue), comedic drama (Tokyo Godfathers), historic drama (Millenium Actress), but what exactly is the most latest and polemic work of this creator (yes don´t worry, I WILL do the review) "Paranoia Agent"? It's everything together: it's drama, a weird comedy, a complex psycological series that probably isn't (and that constantly plays with you), it's a social critic by the director (or more specific, diverse types of social criticisms) and is a series, making the whole experience different as the usual works of Kon.
The series plot sound fairly simple but it's extemely complicated and every chapter is like a puzzle that leaves you more questions than answers and is not a mistery, but actually a whole bunch of ideas that in the end match perfectly to a sort of "open" conclusion. I don't want to tell you much of this series (also I want to be short) since I'll be ruining something that you have to understand by yourselves.
As usual Satoshi Kon provides an almost perfect work of animation, music and photography, if it fails in some episodes probably it's for the matters of production. Everything serves to set the strange and disturbing mood of the series.
In all, an amazing series of a director that has grown and evolve to a unique style. Still this a series hard to get (probably the word is "digest") and it's isn't for everyone, even the most hard-core fans find it difficult with it's multiple "inside references" and the series as a whole it's not perfect, but it holds as one of the best modern animes and a different experience in animation, that both will shock you and amaze you. If you don't believe me, watch the first minutes of the opening, it will stick on you for some time.