Perfect Blue 1999

As Mima Kirigoe (played by) abandons her J-pop idol persona to pursue a solo acting career, she finds herself entangled in a web of chaos and confusion. Fans like Mamoru Uchida, aka Me-Mania, become fixated on her transformation from wholesome entertainer to edgy actress, their obsessive fervor manifesting as stalking behavior. In this tumultuous landscape, Mima discovers the enigmatic online presence known as “Mima’s Room”, a digital repository of her thoughts and daily life, which seems to be mirroring her very existence.

As she navigates the challenges of her new profession, Mima is supported by her manager and former pop-idol Rumi Hidaka (played by) and agent Tadokoro. However, when Tadokoro secures Mima a meatier role in the TV drama Double Bind, which involves a controversial rape scene, Rumi’s objections are overridden, leaving Mima to grapple with the moral implications of her decision. The experience leaves her mentally scarred, and she begins to question the boundaries between reality and her acting life.

As the pressures of filming Double Bind, coupled with her lingering regret over abandoning CHAM! and her growing paranoia about being stalked, take their toll on Mima’s mental state, she starts to exhibit symptoms of psychosis. Her perception of the world becomes distorted, and she begins to see apparitions of her former idol self, “the real Mima”, who seems to be taunting her.

Tragedy strikes when several individuals involved in her acting career meet a gruesome end. Mima discovers cryptic clues hinting at her own involvement as the prime suspect, which further erodes her grip on reality. As she becomes trapped in a cycle of self-doubt and recollections of a traumatic event involving perverted photographer Murano, Mima’s mental instability reaches a boiling point.

Despite this chaos, Mima manages to complete filming for Double Bind, the final scene of which reveals that her character’s descent into madness is rooted in trauma-induced dissociative identity disorder. In the aftermath of the shoot, Me-Mania, fueled by instructions from “the real Mima” to eliminate the impostor, attempts to assault and murder Mima, but she fights back with a hammer blow to his temple. Later, Me-Mania meets a violent end at the hands of “the real Mima”, who has deemed him a failure for not carrying out her bidding.

As Rumi’s (unbeknownst to Mima) sinister intentions unfold, Mima finds herself being whisked away to a room eerily reminiscent of her own, only to be confronted with the shocking truth: Rumi was the mastermind behind “Mima’s Room”, the string of gruesome murders that had left a trail of terror in their wake. The puppeteer behind the curtain, Rumi had crafted an alternate persona, convinced herself to be the authentic Mima, using the intimate confidences shared between them as the blueprints for her twisted creation. With a calculated vendetta against Mima’s decision to hang up her idol boots, Rumi sought to supplant and destroy her idolized image.

As tensions escalate, Rumi’s dual identity chases Mima through the city, driven by an insatiable urge to eliminate her perceived rival. A desperate struggle ensues, with Mima inadvertently disarming Rumi using a shard of mirror glass. Free from Rumi’s grasp, Mima takes advantage of the momentary reprieve to extricate herself from the chaos.

In the aftermath, Rumi’s fractured psyche continues to wrestle with the boundaries between reality and fantasy, hallucinating an approaching truck’s headlights as spotlights on stage. Mima intervenes just in time to prevent a catastrophic collision, marking what appears to be the final chapter of her own tumultuous odyssey.

Fast-forwarding through the years, Mima has established herself as a prominent actress, choosing to pay a visit to Rumi at a mental institution. Despite being institutionalized, Rumi still clings to her delusional identity as a pop idol, much to the dismay of her attending physician. Mima, now wiser for her experiences, takes solace in having learned valuable lessons from her tumultuous past, courtesy of Rumi.

As Mima departs the hospital, she becomes privy to hushed conversations between two nurses, who unwittingly reveal their perception that Mima is merely an imposter, a mere lookalike, while the “real” Mima Kirigoe would have no reason to visit such a place. Seated behind the wheel of her vehicle, Mima flashes herself a knowing smile in the rearview mirror before declaring with conviction: “No, I’m the real Mima Kirigoe.”