Thank you, Satoshi Kon.

Thank you, Satoshi Kon. Thank you for all the great memories.

Satoshi Kon lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away on August 23, 2010, at the age of 46 (two months shy of his next birthday).  The news struck me harder than I imagine it would, and has led me to reflect on his works and how they played into my anime fandom history.

When my fandom really peaked, Paranoia Agent was on TV and I was watching it whenever I could. Satoshi Kon was the director of Paranoia Agent, and it oozed what I know now as his iconic style. I would sit in my dark living room late at night, with headphones plugged into the sound system, watching Lil’ Slugger (Shônen Bat) reek havoc on Tokyo. Paranoia Agent was weird, suspenseful, hilarious, beautiful, and real (in an insane kind of way). It showed me Japan like I had never seen before in the likes of Tenchi Muyo or Sailor Moon, darker and more personal. Even today I can see images in my head from Paranoia Agent: a Japanese street late at night, a detective taking an old woman’s statements, Sagi’s crowded office, the children’s school.

I would realize later on that Paranoia Agent was not my first look at Satoshi Kon’s work. I had first seen his hand as a writer in “Magnetic Rose,” the opening short of the Memories. Craving anything Japanese anime when I was younger, I had rented Memories on a whim. ”Magnetic Rose” is hauntingly beautiful and gritty, and it is still the only portion of the compilation I can remember in its entirety. I watched it in my room, on my old Dell. It has those horrible yellow italic subtitles, but I loved every minute of it. Memories and “Magnetic Rose” were very new to me, the style and approach was completely different than anything I had seen before.

As I grew, I learned to seek out Satoshi Kon’s major films. Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Paprika. All are gorgeous, human, and shining examples of the anime medium as a legitimate form of narrative expression, just like movies and books. (I am ashamed to say that Tokyo Godfathers has escaped my view, but that is something I will seek to quickly rectify.) I taught a mini-course on Japanese Animation as Literature for my (graduation requirement) Senior Project in high school, and had planned to show Millenium Actress as a perfect example of anime as lit., or anime as worth examining and discussing like Hamlet or Siddhartha. I regret now that I choose to not show it.

I wish I could have thanked Satoshi Kon for the memories I have from watching his works while I was developing into the fan I am today. The magic of sitting on my couch, watching a gang of suicidal strangers prance through Japan will last me forever. Thank you, Satoshi Kon, for all the fond memories. Your life was truly too short.