Foundations of Human Behaviour

Midterm Assignment

Amnah Tariq, 26632

29 October, 2023
 A Psychological Spotlight on Mima Kirigoe in

‘Perfect Blue’

Perfect Blue is a 1997 Japanese psychological thriller directed by Satoshi Kon. The film

depicts the transitioning journey of a popstar idol, Mima Kirigoe, stepping foot into the acting

industry to change the stance of her career, and the impact of this alteration on her

psychological being when the stress and pressure of her new career begins to manifest into

her daily life.

Mima’s life begins to take a dark turn as becomes the target of a stalker, Me-Mania, obsessed

with her popstar persona and hyperaware of the details of her everyday mundane life. As the

story unfolds, the film explores themes of obsession, paranoia, identity, and the blurred lines

between reality and fantasy such that it changes the trajectory of Mima’s supposedly positive

path of new beginnings into something darker and much more disturbing.

Alongside such a thrilling and captivating plot, the intricate character of Mima Kirigoe is

another compelling element of the film. The duality of her personality as well as the depiction

of her falling deep into psychosis offers a fascinating study of the many influences, innate

and societal, on one’s psychology. As the film progresses, we get to see how social pressures

and expectations shape Mima’s personality and her mental well-being.

Mima’s character can be analysed via Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory of

Personality. Sigmund Freud believed that personality is an amalgamation of unconscious

thoughts, urges, and memories, and the behaviour human beings exhibit is a combination of

these innate and societal influences [1]. This structural model of the psyche categorises

personality parts into three different divisions: the id, the ego, and the superego.
Mima presents all three of these dimensions throughout the film. The id is termed the most

primitive part of the psyche and is an exclusively innate part of our being, meaning it is

present within us from birth. While it is widely believed that the id operates on pleasure

principles such that it seeks instant gratification, the id can also be categorised as the

impulsive and reckless nature of mankind.

Mima’s id is reflected in her intense desire to break free from the shackles of her old singing

career and attain recognition as an actress. We can see a manifestation of this scene where

Mima performs increasingly explicit scenes for her upcoming TV drama which not only

clashes with the relatively ‘clean’ persona she had created as a pop idol but also goes against

her own moral judgment.

In another scene, Mima confronts her stalker, Me-Mania, who desperately tries to kill the

‘new’ Mima, however, driven by her emotions and adrenaline Mima is able to switch the

dynamic and murder Me-Mania instead. This scene can be taken as a display of her id as she

blindly tries to get rid of her stalker not only for her safety but also to put an end to her

declining mental stability.

The ego is the second component of the psychoanalytic theory of personality, and it operates

on the reality principle. The ego aims to contain the id’s instinctual desires within the

constraints of societal norms and regulations, in other words, the ego is self-awareness and

the self-questioning capabilities within a person [2].

In the film, Perfect Blue, the ego plays a central role in shaping Mima’s psychosis. As she

begins to discover the obsession of her stalker, Mima’s ego grapples with doubt and self-

reflection. She fights with her internal fears and begins to constantly question her decisions

and actions, a hallmark of the ego’s internal conflict. This leads Mima to start developing a

false sense of reality, forcing her ‘ego’ to confront the distorted perception of her life. As a
consequence of such ‘self-reflection’ and ‘self-exploration,’ Mima begins to hallucinate a

false reality which eventually culminates in a full-blown confrontation with her past persona.

This confrontational scene can be seen as an example of her superego. The superego is the

third aspect of the psychoanalytic theory of personality and is built on the bounds of societal

norms and morality. Throughout the film, Mima has multiple scenes where she converses

with herself in the mirror. While this confrontation with the mirror-popstar Mima is presented

to be a fragment of her imagination, she addresses the consequences and lack of morality and

ethics in ‘her’ actions. This can vividly be seen in the movie where Mima confronts herself

after seemingly having committed the brutal murder of a photographer.

Another particular scene where she faces her morality or superego is when Mima violently

trashes her apartment after shooting for the drama. As the meaning of her actions begins to

settle in, Mima’s mental instability begins to aggravate as her behaviour begins to greatly

contradict her superego.

Mima Kirigoe’s character in the film Perfect Blue also shows the effect of society and

morality on one’s behaviour and perception. An extension of the superego, cognitive

dissonance is a significant part of social psychology. It is attributed to internal conflict and

psychological discomfort due to contradicting beliefs, attitudes, values, and actions. In the

film, Perfect Blue, the cognitive dissonance theory can be used to study the different

inconsistencies in her sense of reality due to external and internal pressures and the way she

chooses to cope with them.

There are numerous scenes in the film that depict her cognitive dissonance and how she

enacts these conflicts. At the beginning of the film, Mima announces that she will be leaving

her singing career in order to move further as an actress. This disrupts her well-established

self-schema as a cute and innocent pop star as she transitions into a more serious career path.
This sets an internal conflict within herself as she fails to reconcile her past well-loved

persona with her new much more under-appreciated character.

This conflict further manifests into a humanoid existence where her popstar alter ego mocks

and criticizes her current decisions are reckless and weak. This is also a kick-start to the deep

psychosis Mima falls into as she slowly begins to succumb to her internal battle. Later on,

this situation further aggravates as Mima discovers an online video diary and letters from her

stalker which obsessively detail the mundane happenings of her daily life. As her inner

turmoil begins to overcome her, the lines between reality and her own imagination begin to

blur.

Ultimately, cornered by declining mental health, Mima begins to aggressively react to her

hallucinations. This eventually reaches its culminating point where Mima does a final

confrontation with her popstar alter ego and discovers the true cause of her paranoia, which

leads to much more deep-rooted obsession, delusion, and manipulation.

The film Perfect Blue is an enchantingly fascinating and thought-provoking work of art. The

character of Mima Kirigoe embodies the different layers of the psychological vicissitudes one

experiences in a world that is so heavily dependent on projecting an online persona or alter-

ego that appeases the audience. The movie explores the duality that exists between our true

selves, and what we show the world as an entertainer, and when the meticulously crafted

boundary between these two worlds begins to dissipate, how easily the very reality of our

being ceases to exist.

 References

[1] Freud, S. (1989). The ego and the id (1923). TACD Journal, 17(1), 5-22.

[2] Southwood, H. M. (1973). The origin of self-awareness and ego behaviour. The

International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 54, 235.

Feldman, Robert S. (Robert Stephen), 1947- Understanding psychology, University of

Massachusetts Amherst. Thirteenth edition. | New York, NY : McGraw-Hill Education,

[2017]

Perfect Blue (1997) Satoshi Kon