Characters
Perfect Blue is a 1997 Japanese animated psychological thriller film directed by Satoshi Kon and written by Sadayuki Murai. It is based on the novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis by Yoshikazu Takeuchi.
The film follows Mima Kirigoe, a member of a mildly-successful Japanese idol group name ‘CHAM!’, who retires from music to pursue an acting career. As she becomes a victim of stalking, gruesome murders begin to occur, and Mima starts to lose her grip on reality.
Mima's first job as an actress is a minor role in a television detective drama called "Double Bind". Some of her fans are upset by her change in career and persona from a squeaky-clean and innocent teen girl, including a terrifying-looking male stalker who goes by the alias "Me-Mania". Mima receives an anonymous fax calling her a traitor, and even a letter bomb that injures Tadokoro. Following directions from a fan letter, Mima discovers a website called "Mima's Room" containing public diary entries written from her perspective, and which accurately discuss her daily life and thoughts in intimate and exacting detail.
Tadokoro lobbies the producers of Double Bind, and succeeds in securing Mima a larger part; however, this involves her character being raped in a strip club. Rumi is distressed by the scene and warns Mima that it will irreversibly change her public image, but Mima accepts the role despite her own misgivings. Though it is apparent that Mima tries her best and is treated professionally, the atmosphere and experience of filming the rape scene is traumatic. Between the ongoing stresses of filming Double Bind, her lingering regret over leaving CHAM!, her paranoia of being stalked, and her increasing obsession with "Mima's Room", Mima begins to suffer from psychosis: in particular, struggling to distinguish real life from her work in show business.
Several people who had been involved in the so-called "tarnishing" of Mima's reputation are murdered. Mima finds evidence which makes her appear to be the prime suspect, and her mental instability makes her doubt her own memories and innocence. After the rest of the staff have left the studio when the movie filmed was finished, Me-Mania attempts to kill her under emailed instructions from "the real Mima" to "eliminate the impostor", but Mima knocks him unconscious with a hammer in self-defense and flees. Me-Mania is murdered soon afterwards; Tadokoro is also killed.
Mima is found backstage by Rumi and taken back to Rumi's home, only to discover that Rumi was the culprit behind "Mima's Room", the serial murders, and the folie à deux that manipulated and scapegoated Me-Mania. Sometime in the past, Rumi developed a second personality who vicariously believed herself to be the "real Mima" (her pure-hearted and forever-young idol persona), using information from Mima's confiding in her as the basis for "Mima's Room". Rumi's "Mima" personality attempts to murder Mima to preserve "her" pristine image forever, and following a chase through the city, Mima incapacitates Rumi in self-defense and saves her from being killed by an oncoming truck.