Through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Japanese cinema, and particularly anime, started to see a boom of popularity in the West.

But it was one film in particular, a 1988 dystopian science fiction body horror which reshaped perceptions

of what animation could achieve. Katsurio Otomo's Akira was animation that dealt with

dark existential political themes and included moments of violence and body horror that

introduced anime to a whole new audience.

These weren't the kind of family-friendly animated films that were dominant in the West.

A decade later, in the midst of the first anime boom in the West, Satoshi Khan took the idea of horror animation one step further with perfect blue,

a hugely prescient psychological horror movie

that explored the dangers of the internet and tackled themes of exploitation and fractured

identities and provided inspiration for countless horror and genre movies in the decades

to come.

Join me as we continue exploring the evolution of man-made monsters,

and we discuss two anime horror classics, Akira and Perfect Blue.

Welcome back to the evolution of horror. My name is Mike Munser, as ever I am your host. In this

podcast, we explore and dissect the history and the evolution of the horror genre, one subgenre at a time.

We are currently in the middle of our 11th season exploring the evolution of man-made monsters.

And this is part 23. In this week's episode, as that

intro suggested, we're going to be tackling anime for the first time on this podcast. We're going to

be talking about Akira from 1988 and Perfect Blue from 1997. Both of these discussions will be

spoilerific. So give yourself a treat and watch both of these bangers before you listen to our discussion.

So I sat down with longtime friend of the pod and anime super nerd Becky Dark to discuss two of her favorite movies of all time in depth.

Enjoy.

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