This article is a stub, it could use some additional information. Double Lips is the 3rd episode of the TV show 'Paranoia Agent'. Download & Streaming Paranoia Agent 13/13 en VOSTFR en HD (720p) sur Uptobox / Youwatch / Exashare. Watch Paranoia Agent Episode 1 in Dubbed or Subbed for free on Anime Network, the premier platform for watching HD anime. Paranoia Agent: A Case-Study of Fear and Repression. Paranoia Agent, despite being extremely short, is a very intriguing series to watch.Its disturbing imagery plays upon our innermost fears and the characters we’re introduced to show the various forms fear can take.
These are dangerous times we're living in, and dangerous times require a dangerous man. Officer Hirukawa is ready to be that man - a family man who's tough on crime, ready to make the tough calls and crack the big cases. Though he's beaten down by villains and harried by his past, he won't falter in his goals. He's going to crack this case, stop these thugs, and build his family the house they deserve.
Of course, this is Paranoia Agent, so Hirukawa's actually terrible. Jumping focus characters again this week, we got an episode focused on the most crooked of cops, a man funding his dream home with money extorted from a prostitution ring. When the flunky pimp he's been browbeating is replaced by a boss wanting his money back, Hirukawa is forced to turn to petty robbery to keep himself afloat. And as the stakes get higher and Hirukawa descends into his own delusions of grandeur, it begins to look like Hirukawa himself might need a hero, one reflective of this strange, undefinable age.
Paranoia Agent Episode 1 Dubbed
This was a more straightforward episode than the last couple, with less of a focus on evoking a very specific tone than either Yuichi or Harumi's stories. The execution was more workmanly overall, telling a more familiar story spiced up by a couple well-chosen stylistic diversions. The first and most noteworthy of these was Hirukawa's slowly building delusion of heroism. From the title “A Man's Path” onward, the episode used consistent cuts to an old-fashioned manga to depict Hirukawa's internal self, contrasting this with sequences of him bowing and scraping to mob bosses or stealing purses from little old ladies. It was a neat stylistic trick and a handy framing device (one that accompanied this episode's repeated cuts to both billboards and Hirukawa staring at his house-to-be), but it also served to center this episode as directly focused on the question of justice and heroism in the modern age.
Because the focus character was one of our chief investigator's coworkers, we got to spend more time with our eternally put-upon chief, who put his own big question in very stark terms. At the beginning, he once again stated his fundamental belief - “there has to be causality between these cases.” The chief is a traditional man, and he believes in traditional answers. But by the end of this episode, he's forced to concede that some crimes just might not make sense, and some criminals “might not have so many motives anymore.” “That's the kind of generation we're living in,” he continues, casting the blame for modern insecurity on the young people of today. But he's not going to take this lying down - he's “going to grab hold of this generation!” Good for him.
Of course, in an episode focused on a tired old cop falling into delusions of grandeur, the chief's words ring a little hollow. What separates him from Hirukawa, the man who sees himself as an old manga hero in a world far simpler than our actual one? What makes him just, and not just a relic of an age that never really existed? The episode's climactic conversation between these two emphasizes this disconnect through their visual and conversational interplay - as the chief steels himself with his simplistic credo, Hirukawa cheers him on and lauds the bar for its choice of old-fashioned matches. For all Hirukawa's debauchery and the chief's firm justice, in the end they might just be two old men rambling into their cups.
Paranoia Agent Episode 1 English Sub
Hirukawa, at least, eventually seems to realize he is not a hero, but is in fact just as in need of a savior as anyone. “Can't somebody stop me?” he cries at the end, begging for someone to save him from himself, from his responsibilities, from his displacement in his own world. His cry echoes the thoughts of all the characters so far, and once again, Shonen Bat arrives. The hero of the day, ready to strike you down and take your worries away.
Unfortunately, Hirukawa's still all hopped up on drugs and adrenaline from his robberies, so he takes the hit like a champion and comes back swinging. So now Shonen Bat is captured, Hirukawa's more or less an actual hero, and we're only four episodes in. Huh.
This was a very solid episode of Paranoia Agent, trading the oppressive tonal focus of last week for a more straightforward story that let the show more directly attack some of its central questions. It was a bit less of an aesthetic highlight (though Hirukawa's very expressive face was excellent, and the contrast of manga and reality in the final sequences were compelling as well), but that's because it had other priorities. And beyond that, this episode also went some distance to address my central complaint from last week - though Hirukawa was fairly despicable, it seemed like this episode had a real sympathy for the chief, even as it undercut his proud words. He might not be a real hero, but he's at least trying to be one.
Rating: A-
Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.
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The cause of these breakdowns is unique for every victim Lil’ Slugger attacks (see Fig. 1), but they typically come from some deep-seated psychological problem that is brought to its full-height by fear. For this reason, they are unable to deal with their present circumstances. This inability then causes them to look for something that will alleviate their problems, whether it be something as masochistic as Lil’ Slugger, or deceptively comforting as Maromi. But what it all boils down to is repression, and its consequences.
For example, there is one kid named Taira Yuuichi who is extremely egotistical and conscious about how others view him. While he tries to hide these flaws through his role as class president, his popularity starts to rapidly decline when the students start comparing him to Lil’ Slugger because of his age and what he wears. He even goes to the point of suspecting another kid for spreading the rumors, though he has no actual proof. So by the time Lil’ Slugger knocks him out with the bat, Taira’s fear of losing his status as the popular kid has overwhelmed him completely. But what occurs after he’s hit is very interesting, because despite having a head injury, Taira is no longer stressed, and he doesn’t remember what caused it.
The same thing happens to the other victims, but as the series progresses, we discover that these so-called “cures” are only temporary. This in turn causes the fear to return, and Lil’ Slugger feeds off of these fears until he nearly consumes all of Japan. Now whether he is real or not is debatable, but what the show implies is that he’s a psychological demon created from Tsukiko’s denial when she accidentally killed a puppy, who happened to be named Maromi, when she was a little girl. So when she created the character Maromi many years later, the reppressed guilt began to surge, and then combined with the fear of losing her fame if she couldn’t meet her company’s demands, Lil’ Slugger came back, and she once again used him as an excuse to hide from her troubles. But because she was so famous, the image of Lil’ Slugger spread into the unconsciousness of the millions who heard the police report, who was then summoned by the mentally deranged who needed a form of escape, which included a sleazy reporter, a woman with split-personality disorder, a man whose ideals clash with a low-life reality, a boy who sees the world as a role-playing game, and a mediocre employee who murdered everyone on his production team.
All of these people are so far off the beaten path that fear is like a disease to them, and the only solution is through self-inflicted pain, which temporarly makes them forget it. But not everyone is completely clean, because as the influence of Lil’ Slugger increases, so does the popularity of Maromi. Born out of a disturbing event that Tsukiko tries to forget, Maromi also represents repression, but with a more comforting appeal. While Lil’ Slugger’s demeanor is dark and frightening, Maromi’s is innocent and cuddly (see Fig. 2). Its adorable face makes one forget one’s troubles in an instant, taking them to a happier place that lies outside of real life. However, the characters who experience this are completely out of touch from reality, leading to a false black-and-white interpretation that lingers as long as the complex fears remain reppressed. An example of this occurs when Keiichi, after being laid off the Lil’ Slugger case due to a suspect being murdered under his and Mitsuhiro’s pr0tection, falls into a vivid daydream where he’s back in the days of his prime as a cop while being accompanied by Maromi and a younger version of Tsukiko posing as his daughter, even though he never had one. Eventually, images of his wife start to appear, reminding him of the fear he has for her weak health and their shaky marriage. Through her, he learns of her recent death, which snaps him out of the false reality he’s created under Maromi’s influence.
Paranoia Agent Episode 1
So as you can see, despite Maromi and Lil’ Slugger’s differences in terms of promoting repression, they are similar in that they were made by the same person, and they both feed on the fears of people to sustain their existence. However, their attempts at reppressing people are thwarted by certain individuals, namely the detectives and eventually Tsukiko, because instead of giving into their fears, they accept them in some form. For Keiichi, it was the love for his wife that gave him the courage to realize the truth about Lil’ Slugger. Meanwhile, Mitsuhiro decided to take the path of the spiritual warrior, allowing him to confront Lil’ Slugger on a physical and psychological level. As for Tsukiko, it was accepting the guilt of her previous actions, and that was what ultimately destroyed her inner demons.
Paranoia Agent Episode 12 English Dub
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