Paranoia Agent Week 1: Clues

[Figal-sensei]

The overarching plot of Paranoia Agent (such as it is) is basically set up at its core as a crime-mystery that detectives Ikari and Maniwa seek to solve. What kinds of clues to the mystery have been presented so far to the detectives and to you as viewer? Do you have any working theories about the mystery based on the first six episodes?

[Kevin Hu]

In the first episode, Kon begins to hint at the audience that the Shonen bat who hits Sagi might be an illusion: Sagi is pressured and depressed, and while she walks back home, she can see the road behind her suddenly fades, which is a hint that she begins to confuse the reality and her illusion. Another source of clues is the old man, the “prophet” in the anime. In each episode, he would do something, such as writing a bunch of nonsense equations or drawings, so that he would deduce the final result which predicts who the next victim is. For example, in the first episode, he writes 510 in the end of the equation, which is the room number of Sagi. In the third episode, he draws butterflies on the ground, while “butterfly” (cho) is the partial name of Chono Harumi.
Moreover, a very obvious clue is that all victims are more or less suffer from pressure or other forms of mental stress: some are inflicted by jealousy, some by threatenings, and some by distorted relationships with others or family.

[seoa]

Thus far, I believe that there is no Shonen Bat, and that nearly all of the characters that were “attacked” by Shonen Bat actually had purely self-inflicted injuries. Two of the characters were attacked by the copy cat Shonen Bat, the pig pine tree kid and the pig police officer. Kon hints this when he shows a brief cut of the copy cat’s braces, which are seen “flashing” like Ichi’s smile. On the other hand, the rest of the other characters hurt themselves in order to escape from reality. Each of these characters were “attacked” at the height of their emotional despair, hinting that the mirage of Shonen Bat striking at the screen with his bat is merely the story that the characters told the cops. I believe Paranoia Agent is an anime about how the story of the violent assault of a popular toy designer, when blown out of proportion by the media, bred a series of simulated assaults from people trying to escape from reality by roleplaying as either the victims of Shonen Bat or Shonen Bat himself. Constantly, Kon blends the worlds of fantasy and reality, whether it be with the man who worships his dolls at the beginning of the multi-personality disorder episode, or with the manga character and the pig police officer, or with the young cop and the copy cat literally roleplaying a fantasy storyline. This theme constantly bombards the viewer throughout the anime, strongly suggesting the “fantasy” of Shonen Bat.

[alappah]

Kevin, in response to what you said, what exactly do you think the “clues” given by the old man mean? While there clearly is some correlation between what he seems to be writing in gibberish, I don’t think we as viewers can yet call these clues, as we don’t know any way that this points to the future, and all it has seemed so far is that it’s pointing to the past. More than this however, how can we even say that his writings are indications of the past or future at all? As is so often pointed out by Prof. Figal, and I’m sure all of us are aware of, Kon uses many red herrings, and the nonsensical writings of a seemingly delusional old man could legitimately just be that. To the other point made about the “fantasy” of Shonen Bat, I’m gonna go on the complete opposite and call that this is Kon (once again screwing with our minds) planting the idea that it’s going to be fake, but make it a double bluff and have it all have happened in some weird way that we’ll never understand.

[MaliaL]

As we watch the investigation unfold, we see that there is a pretty unanimous idea that Shonen Bat has committed the assaults. We even have a few characters witness his acts (or even just have a prolonged visual of him). When he is apprehended, all of the victims identify him as the attacker (although the ID process is not very unbiased or procedural), and he even gives an account of himself committing the crimes, though in his own sort of version. The old woman revealing that Saginaw injured herself doesn’t really count him out of the situations for me.

However there is a bit of mental aspect added with all of the act being sort of wished into existence by one of the parties present. This kind of blurs the idea of there being a physical assailant.

[Author]

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