Paprika [Blu-ray]

This review is extremely biased because I will forever be Satoshi Kon’s number one fangirl. Rest in peace, king. The late and great director, Satoshi Kon, made this absolute banger back in 2006 and of course the animation still holds up to this very day. This anime film does not appear dated in the slightest like most animation made during this time period, and dare I say it’s ahead of its time as well. You have not seen what can be done with animated transitions until you see this movie. It is littered with the most striking transitional scenes you will ever witness. I would actually consider this animation to be an exemplary case study on how to achieve the best transitional effects possible, live-action features included. Although the visuals itself could carry this film entirely, the plot does a fantastic job of capturing your attention and your imagination throughout the runtime. The story is something I have not seen done by anyone else and nothing else really comes close. I’ve heard others compare the storyline to the movie Inception, and while I don’t disagree that this live-action movie touches on similar concepts in regards to controlling dreamscapes, I find the two films handle this particular situation in a vastly different manner that leads to different thematic interpretations of each film. Inception seems more gloomy while Paprika seems like it is bursting at the seams with life in an array of color. Inception pales in comparison in every aspect in my opinion. I cannot stress this enough, but I highly recommend watching this absolute masterpiece if you like anime, any anime really. Oh, there is some warnings though: female nudity, smoking, drinking, slight body horror, depictions of suicide, and some suggestive content.

If you are looking for a film to watch numerous times, to study, analyze and rediscover, look no further. Granted, if you do not like anime, then recommending Paprika would be a waste of time. Its quality of animation and style is visually astounding and reminiscent of Studio Ghibli at its prime (I am not familiar with Mad House Studios' other works). It does not squander minutes on shock value or making the films message glaringly obvious as a lot of baser animes tend to do these days. Paprika maintains a light-hearted mood which never completely fades even as the movie rises in insanity all the way up to the climax.The visuals are flawless, the soundtrack is flawless, and from a directorial standpoint - Paprika is flawless. While the movie unfolds as gracefully and seamlessly as a dream would (as it is quite literally about dreams), it manages to stay somewhat intellectual so that when the credits role and you are allowed to wake, you are still left with powerful messages to ponder over and an excellent film to re-watch. All you have to do is sit back and let yourself be guided into a world you can only relate to from having been asleep.I can't emphasize it enough: 5 stars.

This review will be of the DVD only. I really enjoyed the film, but that's a matter of opinion, so you can read more informative and eloquent reviews by actual critics (check rottentomatoes.com).The movie itself is very high quality. It looked very crisp on my hdtv even though I don't have an upscaler (using old Xbox as a dvd player). The audio is also high quality. I'm just using my tv's speakers, so I can't rate how the digital surround sound and what not is like.As for the features, there are plenty of them and they are subtitled. The "making of" features are actually split up into several parts. The Making of Documentary follows the story from conception as a novel to its movie release. A very pleasant surprise was revealed here about the voice actors, but I won't spoil it for you. Satoshi Kon is a greater director to listen to, since he is very direct about his methods and is not pretentious like some other anime directors."The Dream CG World" and "Art of Fantasy" chapters are also very interesting, especially the CG section. The lead CG artists shows some of the techniques they used to blend CG and animated cells in depth, yet is easy to understand.The only disappointing section was "A Conversation About the Dream". This chapter is basically just a roundtable of the director, author, and lead voice actors discussing their favorite scenes and dreams. It's a bit long, at points awkward, and generally uninteresting. However, it's still a nice extra and deserves a brief viewing.