Spent today mostly just cleaning up the apartment and occasionally watching tv when I took a break. I bought an anime I’ve been meaning to pick up for well over a year now, but totally forgot about it till last weekend, titled Paranoia Agent.

I spent my evening watching the first DVD and I quite like it. The art style of each character varies stylistically and it’s not as flat as some anime I’ve seen (animation-wise that is). The last anime I’ve seen which I really enjoyed was FLCL. Paranoid Agent is not as good as FLCL in my books, but I am enjoying it and it’s got me wanting to watch more, so that’s saying something for it in my books. I can’t say if anyone else would like it though. It’s definitely kind of an acquired taste in some aspects. I’ve only watched 4 episodes and there’s another 3 DVD’s to go, so who knows. It might take a turn for the worst. Boogiepop Phantom (another series I bought to watch years ago) kept me interested for the first episode, then after watching the second and third, I just completely lost interest. The rest of the series is still sitting on my shelf unwatched.

I find the opening and end sequences really odd in Paranoia Agent, yet strangely enjoyable to watch. I’m really digging the end theme of it too, which is the soundtrack they play on the flash site for this anime. It’s a very soft and subtle tune that goes well with the ‘sleeping characters in a field‘ sequence. You’ll have to watch it to see what I mean.

Edit: Ah, interesting. I thought when I was watching this, it had a lot of similarities in both story and art direction as Perfect Blue, and now watching the extras, I just realised the creator is the same guy who was behind Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress. No wonder it’s appealing to me so much. Perfect Blue was amazingly fucked up.