Paranoia Agent (Season 1)

Paranoia Agent (妄想代理人, 2004) is a psychological anime series directed by Satoshi Kon — watch it online on iFILM. In the streets of Musashino, Tokyo, a boy on golden inline skates swings a bent golden bat at people who seem to have hit rock bottom. The attacker is known only as Lil' Slugger, and the police can't agree on whether he's real.

Detectives Ikari and Maniwa chase the leads — a traumatized character designer, a straight-A student, a pair of women sharing a secret, a cluster of would-be suicides. What links them isn't bad luck. Each victim was at a personal breaking point before the bat came down, and the city is already building a legend out of the attacks.

Kon used the thirteen-episode Madhouse production to do something a crime thriller rarely does: turn the case inside out and make the social anxiety the real subject. The result sits in a strange space between noir, horror and dark satire that very few anime have tried since. Stream all episodes of Paranoia Agent online on iFILM.