Satoshi Kon

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Image:Satoshi Kon (Director).jpg Satoshi Kon (今敏 Kon Satoshi, born 12 October 1963 in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan) is a highly-regarded director of anime films Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001) and Tokyo Godfathers (2003). His films are characterized by psychological complexity and realistic character designs and backgrounds.

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Biography

Kon attended Musashino College of the Arts and intended to become a painter. Shortly after leaving school, he worked with Katsuhiro Otomo on the manga World Apartment Horror. Kon entered the anime industry by working as set designer for Roujin Z (1991), for which Otomo was the screenwriter and mechanical designer. Kon's early work was strongly influenced by Otomo. Other early projects include Run Melos! (1992), and Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993). After collaborating with Oshii on a short-run manga series titled Seraphim: 266613336 Wings he then wrote the screenplays for Koji Morimoto's "Magnetic Rose" segment of Memories (1996) and episode 5 of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure OVA. His directoral debut was Perfect Blue (1997), a Hitchcockian-cum-Phildickian murder mystery. His most recent project was Paranoia Agent (2004), a series which examines the human psyche and archetypes within the framework of modern Japanese pop culture as well as issues of personal and cultural identity; as with much of his work, it has a strong subtext of social commentary on post-war Japanese culture. He is currently working on a feature-length film with an undetermined release date.

Kon's works often blur fantasy and reality, and his films deal with subject matter not usually found in anime. In the case of Tokyo Godfathers (2003), Kon discusses a topic (urban homelessness) not usually discussed in live-action Japanese films. Many parallels can be drawn between the viewpoints expressed in his works and those proclaimed by Takashi Murakami in his superflat manifesto.

Films

Director

Writer

  • Memories "Magnetic Rose" segment (1996)
  • World Apartment Horror (ワールドアパートメントホラー; (Waarudo Apaatomento Horaa) (1991) (with Katsuhiro Otomo)

Character designer

  • Roujin Z (Layout) (Mistranslated on US DVD as Takeshi Kon) (1991)
  • Patlabor 2 (Scene Design) (1992)

Television series

  • Paranoia Agent (妄想代理人; Mousou Dairinin) (13 episodes, 2004)

OVAs

Manga

  • The Tropics (海帰線; Kaikisen) (1990)
  • Seraphim - 266613336 Wings (1995) (with Mamoru Oshii) - Only published in magazine form

External links

de:Satoshi Kon fr:Satoshi Kon ja:今敏 pt:Satoshi Kon zh:今敏