The movie centers on Mima Kirigoe, the lead singer of the fictional J-pop idol group 'CHAM!', worshipped by the masses until fashion dictated otherwise. But when she decides to leave the group to become an actress, her sense of reality is shaken when she is stalked by an obsessed fan and seemingly a ghost of her past.
Popular anime is mature/violent, despite sunny art style.
TheFilmFile.com
January 01, 2000
A wildly inventive creation that is just about as adult as an animated film can get, and at times, I even started to forget that it was, in fact, animated.
[An] nime thriller [that] often plays as an examination of identity and celebrity, but ultimately gets so lost in its own complex structure that it doesn't end up saying much at all.
Kon signe d'une main de maître un thriller enlevant et chaotique dont la nature déjantée et le goût pour les effets théâtraux rappellent le Dario Argento des belles années
Satoshi Kon has created a taut, tense thriller that's a lot more coherent than many sci-fi animes, and deftly weaves several levels of reality up until the twist ending.
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)
January 09, 2016
The mood is spot-on, then deliriously spottier. As Mima's sense of what's real dissolves, the film spins mirror-plates of possible realities, shattering them on the set of Mima's film before a B-movie-ish action-climax and a too-pat whodunit? reveal.
