Double Lips
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| Paranoia Agent | |
|---|---|
| "Double Lips" | |
| Previous episode | "The Golden Shoes" |
| Next episode | "A Man's Path" |
Double Lips is the third episode of the 2004 animated series Paranoia Agent.
[edit] Prophetic Vision
To begin with... A convolvulus who lives in an ivory tower dreams every night of being a kaleidoscope. The bloodsucker sucked the swallowtail. She is torn off, ripped up and broken. Two lips are floating around in the dark of night. The golden shoes will answer your call. You see a ferry boat far on the equinox. Well...
[edit] Plot
The introverted Harumi Chono, Ichi's tutor, is an attractive young woman with a particularly severe case of dissociative identity disorder. During the day she is a modest school tutor, and an assistant to a professor at a local university. At night, however, she becomes a prostitute known as Maria. In the guise of Maria, she dons more revealing clothing, a wig, and a fake mole. The two opposing personalities communicate with each other, mostly through messages on their answering machine.
Harumi has been visiting a psychiatrist to deal with her dissociative identity disorder, who further communicates with Maria. The doctor tells Harumi that Maria hopes that Harumi can accept herself and find peace with who she is. Harumi also notes that her boss and boyfriend, Ryu, does not know about her condition.
Later, while at work, Ryu proposes to her. She accepts his proposal. Because of this, Harumi attempts to completely separate herself from the darker side of her personality by throwing away Maria's possessions. Maria takes offense to this, and begins to manifest herself more frequently, and begins to leave Harumi angry and threatening phone messages. Maria even replaces Harumi's clothes and possessions (including a necklace, given to her by her fiance) with her own. Maria even starts to claim that Harumi is the fake, and that Maria will no longer stand for Harumi's efforts to send her away.
Chono visits Yuichi, who is in a hospital bed as a result of the attack in the previous episode. He is actually thankful that Lil' Slugger attacked him, as that eliminated him as a suspect. "Lil' Slugger freed me," he says.
Soon, Maria and Chono are in an existential hand-to-hand, life-or-death struggle over who is the legitimate personality. When Lil' Slugger comes by, he sees that while Harumi and Maria think they are fighting each other, Chono is actually pulling at herself along a deserted street, covered in clownish makeup, looking pathetic. Lil' Slugger attacks her.
The two detectives, Ikari and Maniwa, show up at Chono's hospital room to question her about her encounter with Lil' Slugger. To their amazement, Harumi Chono is now very much like Tsukiko Sagi was after she had been attacked - she appears to be relieved. According to Maniwa, Lil' Slugger seems to provide a solution of sorts to intense personal crises.
The episode ends with the old man drawing many different things on the hospital floor. One drawing in particular is a butterfly, one of its wings being black and the other one white, possibly symbolizing the split personalities of Harumi and Maria.
[edit] Notes
- Adult Swim Edits:
- When Maria is getting out of bed with the Otaku, her breasts were completely visible. In the Adult Swim edit her hair was given length as so to cover them.
- All of Harumi's showering scenes were made to be foggy in the Adult Swim edit in order to veil a brief shot of her buttocks at one point.
- Episode Title Appearance: After Maria exits the otaku's apartment, a sign displaying the words Double Lips appears advertising a prostitution agency — most likely the one Maria works for. It lists prostitutes as available for ¥25,000.
- This episode shows similarities to Kon's previous work, Perfect Blue, in the heroine's struggle for her identity. Some of the scenes in which Harumi 'fights' Maria are exact mirrors of scenes from Perfect Blue.
| Paranoia Agent |
|---|
| Characters |
| Shougo Ushiyama | Misae Ikari | Tsukiko Sagi | Maromi |
| Episodes |
| Enter Lil' Slugger | The Golden Shoes | Double Lips | A Man's Path | The Holy Warrior | Fear of a Direct Hit | MHz | Happy Family Planning | ETC | Mellow Maromi | Entry Forbidden | Radar Man | Final Episode |
| Other |
| Paranoia Agent Original Soundtrack | Satoshi Kon | Susumu Hirasawa |
