enilenis To me the series examines the psychological breaking point - the line pass which an individual becomes violent to others and/or self-destructive. Essentially, most of the victims of the "Bat Boy" are casualties of their own impaired judgement resulting from a tragedy or isolation. Each one is fighting a personified and externalized demon - a battle in which rare few succeed.The world portrayed in Paranoia Agent represents the warped reality of a temporarily deranged individual, unable to cope with stress and struggling to come to terms with reality.Throughout the series, the detective following mysterious bat boy cases is trying to figure out what he's most afraid of and whether he's strong enough to face his own fears.Paranoia Agent is the "happy place" people go to, and the pain that it brings when the veils are inevitably lifted.

benjamin_lappin A simply stunning anime, "Paranoia Agent" is a thoughtfully thought out trip into psychosis and the darker aspects of the human psyche. With a no holds barred approach to its philosophical and occasionally violent story telling, it highlights the very best that is achievable through the medium of anime with a plot line that is as dark as it is witty and as disturbing as it is intelligent. "Paranoia Agent" is one of those few serial creations that will have you hooked from the very first episode and have your mind salivating for more once it concludes, it is supremely assured from its style to its substance and will toy with your mind in the best possible ways.Set over thirteen episodes of crisply created animation, "Paranoia Agent" is a paranormal, psychological thriller which charts two men in the Tokyo Police Force investigated the sudden spates of attacks of members of the public by an entity known as "lil slugger". With the first attack having taken place on the creator of popular creator of the sensationally cute dog "Mamori", we discover that "lil slugger" is a metal bat waving, rollerblading teenager. As the investigation progresses and the police become more attached to the case and more victims fall at the hands of this crazed child things take a decidedly more "surreal" turn as things become complicated.Successfully fusing style, ideas, intrigue and compelling characters, Satoshi Kon has created not just one of the best anime's in recent times, but also one of the most sublime series in recent times. "Paranoia Agent" is a powerful tour de force that will veer from moments of you scratching your head to shocking your eyes, through to putting a knife through your heart. It is a study in humanity and the human psyche, handling characters in difficult positions that would in other programmes feel contrived and forced. It stretches the boundary of its environment and the sanity of your mind as you find yourself falling as deep as the characters into this surrealistically normal construct. Satoshi Kon has not merely created something that every fan of anime must surely possess in their collection, but something that certainly deserves wider recognition and broadcasting than that what is has achieved already. This is thought provoking entertainment that rivals recent animated hits like "Broken Saints" and leaves many others reeling in its wake, but "Paranoia Agent" must be seen to be believed and understood. Rollerblades have never been so scary.

Shaun Marquet (metalsonic_chaosking) Paranoia Agent, without doubt, is a good anime, but certainly not for everyone. It is a dark anime about a series of attacks carried out by a mysterious child known only as 'Lil Slugger', and the efforts of the detectives to find him/her. The show often takes different angles, away from the main characters, showing us what is happening with other characters on the show. There will be people, who after watching this, will be thinking 'WTF just happened?' after seeing some of the things this show contains. Towards the end the show becomes outrageously weird, Lil Slugger suddenly becoming more than 10 feet tall and Tsukiko's travels into an insanely weird environment, where everyone but him are 2-D characters. Throughout every episode, there is an old man, whose name was either never mentioned or I have forgotten it, but although he seems irrelevant, almost every episode ends up involving him in some main way, such as Episode 5: The Holy Warrior and later on, where he is referred to as The Old Master by a man called Mitsuhiro, who goes by the alias of Radar Man and fights with Lil Slugger from at least episode 11 (have not seen Disk 3) and is technically the one who solves the case of Lil Slugger. Without giving anything else away, I recommend this highly to anyone who likes a 'Smart' anime/show, and a good mystery at that. 8.5 out of 10

busterkuri In Paranoia Agent, a mysterious boy starts attacking people with a baseball bat, to put it simply. To put it complexly, it's more than that. It is the greatest anime series I've seen, although I didn't know it at first.Yes, I was very skeptical at first. The first episode was...well, weird and a bit disappointing to me. It had little point, and just didn't seem to matter that much. But I decided to give this a chance. So I watched the second episode.Suddenly, all the questions come up. Who is Lil' Slugger? Who will he attack next? Then, the third episode. And by this point, I was hooked.And director Satsoshi Kon knew I was hooked. With a reality-blending tale not seen since Perfect Blue, he takes you in. He takes dark themes: schizophrenia, suicide, and murder. But he presents them in such an everyday way that it's not disturbing, and, at the same time, it is.And every episode is different. You could take each episode by itself, and they would stand alone well. But when you put them together, it's incredible. It's mind-blowing. It will have you guessing until the very last second of the very last episode, and even then, you may not know everything.It is amazing. It is the best. It is a must-see.10/10