Director Bibliography – Satoshi Kon

This bibliography collects scholarly publications on Satoshi Kon and his works written in English that I am aware of. Whenever possible, and if this is not clear from the title of a particular entry, the actual work or works that it discusses is noted.

[Page last updated: March 9, 2023]

2023

• Woodard, Sean. “But illusions don’t kill”: An examination of giallo tropes and gender in Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue.
  In Matthew Edwards & Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (eds.). Bloodstained narratives: The giallo film in Italy and abroad (pp. 164-181). Jackson: University of Mississippi Press.
  *** NEW ***

2022

• Freedman, Alisa. Down in the dumps: Tokyo wastelands and marginalized groups in Japanese film and anime.
  In Jennifer Coates & Eyal Ben-Ari (eds.). Japanese visual media: Politicizing the screen (pp. 97-117). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
  [Tokyo Godfathers]
• Jensen, Casper Bruun, Auld, Eaun, & Brown, Steven D. In the forest of virtuals: The modes of existence in Tokyo Godfathers. Mechademia: Second Arc, 15(1), 15-33.
• Keene, Andrea Constance. Japanese pop idols: A feminist pragmatist read of Perfect Blue. Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 7(2), 200-219.
• Wells, Paul. The best part about goth sluts is how versatile our aesthetics can be: Latour, Kon, and animating cosplay performativity. Mechademia: Second Arc, 15(1), 34-53.
  [Perfect Blue; Millennium Actress]

2021

• Grajdian, Maria Mihaela. Social critique and visionarism in Kon Satoshi’s animation movies. BRUKENTHALIA. Romanian Cultural History Review, 11, 1199-1210.
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***

2020

• Loriguillo-Lopez, Antonio, Palo-Errando, Jose Antonio, & Mazal-Felici, Javier. Making sense of complex narration in Perfect Blue. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 15(1), 77-92.

2019

• Josephy-Hernandez, Daniel E. Reflections on the translation of gender in Perfect Blue, an anime film by Kon Satoshi. MonTI. Monografias de Traduccion e Interpretacion, special issue 4, 309-342.
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***
  
• Torrecila Cabrera, Angelica. Allegories of Japanese women in Paprika by Tsutsui Yasutaka and Kon Satoshi. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 19(3).
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***

2016

• Levy, Dylan. A girl divided: The fragmented shōjo in Perfect Blue. Flow: A Critical Forum on Media and Culture, 22(07).
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***
• Teodorescu, Alice. Blurring the screen: The fragmented self, the database, and the narratives of Satoshi Kon. Ekphrasis: Images, Cinema, Theory, Media, 15(1), 63-74.
  [Perfect Blue, Paprika]
• Vernon, Alice. Digital sleep and the performance of lucidity in Paprika. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performance Arts, 21(1), 115-119.

2014

• Annett, Sandra. The nostalgic remediation of cinema in Hugo and Paprika. Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 7(2), 169-180.

• Mishra, Manisha, and Mishra, Maitreyee. Animated worlds of magical realism: An exploration of Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress and Paprika. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 9(3), 299-316.

• Villot, Janine. Chasing the Millennium Actress. Science Fiction Film and Television, 7(3), 343-364.

2013

• Chang, Yen-Jung. Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress: A feminine journey with dream-like qualities. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8(1), 85-97.
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***
  

• Schaub, Joseph Christopher. Otaku evolution: Changing views of the fan-boy in Kon Satoshi’s Perfect Blue and Paprika. In John A. Lent and Lorna Fitzsimmons (Eds.), Asian Popular Culture: New, Hybrid and Alternate Media (pp. 59-78). Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.

2012

• Norris, Craig. Perfect Blue and the negative representation of fans. Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 4(1), 69-86.

• Perkins, Chris. Flatness, depth and Kon Satoshi’s ethics. Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 4(2), 119-133.
  [works covered: Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent]

2011

• Wells, Paul. Playing the Kon trick: Between dates, dimensions and daring in the films of Satoshi Kon. Cinephile: The University of British Columbia’s Film Journal, 7(1), 4-8.

2010

• Figal, Gerald. Monstrous media and delusional consumption in Kon Satoshi’s Paranoia Agent. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 5, 139-155.

• Ogg, Kerin. Lucid dreams, false awakenings: Figures of the fan in Kon Satoshi. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 5, 157-174.

2009

•  Gardner, William. The cyber sublime and the virtual mirror: Information and media in the works of Oshii Mamoru and Kon Satoshi. Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 18(1), 44-70.
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***

• Osmond, Andrew. Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.

• Perper, Timothy, & Cornog, Martha. Psychoanalytic cyberpunk midsummer-night’s dreamtime: Kon Satoshi’s Paprika. Mechademia: An Annual Forum for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, 4, 326-329.
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***

2008

• Diffrient, David Scott. From Three Godfathers to Tokyo Godfathers: Signifying social change in a transnational context. In Leon Hunt and Leung Wing-Fai (Eds.), East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film (pp. 153-171). London: I.B. Tauris & Co.

• Ortabasi, Melek Su. National history as Otaku fantasy: Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress. In M. MacWilliams (Ed.), Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime (pp. 274-294). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

2007

• Mes, Tom. Requiem for a dream: The films of Satoshi Kon bring the depths of the subconscious into bright anime light. Film Comment, 43(2), 46-48.

• Ortabasi, Melek Su. Indexing the past: Visual language and translatability in Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 14(4), 278-291.

• Ortabasi, Melek Su. Teaching modern Japanese history with animation: Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress. Education About Asia, 12(1), 62-65.

2006

• Napier, Susan. Excuse me, who are you: Performance, the gaze, and the female in the works of Satoshi Kon. In S. Brown (Ed.), Cinema Anime: Critical Engagements with Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (pp. 23-42).

• Rickards, Meg. Screening interiority: Drawing on the animated dreams of Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue? IM: Interactive Media – E-Journal of the National Academy of Screen & Sound, 2.
  *** OPEN ACCESS ***

2005

• Bryce, Mio, & Stephens, John. Japanese popular culture and character fashioning: The quest for subjective agency in the animated films, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Perfect Blue. International Journal of the Humanities, 1, 311-321.

2004

• Sharp, Jasper. Perfect Blue – Satoshi Kon, Japan, 1997. In Justin Bowyer (Ed.), The Cinema of Japan and Korea (pp. 161-168). London, UK: Wallflower Press.

• Yokota, Mamao. Satoshi Kon’s transition from comics to animation. International Journal of Comic Art, 6(1), 250-265.

1993

• Pollack, David. The revenge of the illegal Asians: Aliens, gangsters, and myth in Kon Satoshi’s World Apartment Horror. Positions: Asia Critique, 1(3), 677-714.