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"With feelings of gratitude for all that is good in this world, I lay down my pen. —Satoshi Kon closing out his final message to the world
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Satoshi Kon was a Japanese director noted for serious, thoughtful, arthouse films which examine their characters' psychology. He was especially preoccupied with the concept of subjective reality, and incorporated it into almost all of his works; that aside, his works cover a wide range of genres and themes: psychological thriller (Perfect Blue), Magical Realism (Millennium Actress), wacky caper comedy (Tokyo Godfathers) and Paranoia Agent (which defies categorisation). He was closely tied to Madhouse studios and composer Susumu Hirasawa.
He passed away on August 24, 2010 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 46. His final words can be read here.
Notable works include:[]
- Magnetic Rose from the anthology Memories
- Millennium Actress
- Paprika
- Paranoia Agent
- Perfect Blue
- Tokyo Godfathers
- The Dream Machine
Tropes found in his work:[]
- Ascended Fanboy: Kon was a fan of Yasutaka Tsutsui and Yoshikazu Takeuchi, and adapted works from the both of them into films. He was also a fan of Susumu Hirasawa long before he first worked with him.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence : He's in a cooler place now.
- Author Existence Failure: At the time of his death, he was working on a film about robots called The Dream Machine which would have been his first project aimed at a younger audience.
- Cast of Snowflakes
- Famous Last Words: "Now excuse me, I have to go."
- Genre Busting: Most of his films have strange or unconventional premises.
- Magic Realism
- Mind Screw: There's a reason he's called "the David Lynch of Anime".
- Something Completely Different: The last project he worked on was a kid-friendly robot movie called The Dream Machine.
- Madhouse has thankfully confirmed the film is back in production. In Satoshi Kon's final message, he said he was assured by MadHouse founder Masao Maruyama that the studio would do "whatever it takes" to finish it.
- Unfortunately the movie has slipped back into Development Hell again.
- Split Personality: Comes up a lot in his work, bordering on Author Appeal.
- Take That: He was quite fond of berating the Japanese Kawaisa mentality. Shown in Paranoia Agent in particular.