Entry Forbidden
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| Paranoia Agent | |
|---|---|
| "Entry Forbidden" | |
| Previous episode | "Mellow Maromi" |
| Next episode | "Radar Man" |
Entry Forbidden is the eleventh episode of the 2004 animated series Paranoia Agent.
Contents |
[edit] Prophetic Vision
In the beginning, the final demise of the golden shoes was recounted in the rumors of the people. Having lost their place, the pair of defeated lions now face each other. The beckoning dog that stands in the land of origin of a labyrinth that one cannot return from once one enters. Healing, illusion, and weirdness. Now...
[edit] Plot
This episode revolves around Detective Ikari's wife, Misae, a sickly woman with a terminal illness, who is devoted to her husband. As she walks through the city with her shopping bags she hears the local women gossiping about Lil Slugger. Also we see on Tv that "Mellow Maromi" has become a big hit, thousands of people are buying his products and that there have actually been riots over buying Mellow Maromi dolls. Tsukiko's being interviewed a lot. MaromiMania abounds in the city, from giant Maromi Balloons flying above the city and Hundreds of city goers stopping their everyday lives to watch his tv show, as if in a trance with smiles upon their faces.
It appears that Lil Slugger has become far more fierce since we last saw him; people are saying that he's become much taller, and muscular. And they even go as far as to say he's become some sort of demon. Ikari's wife ignores all this and heads to her home. She puts her groceries down, and we see Li'l Slugger. She is unfazed at this, and asks Lil Slugger to sit down. Strangely enough, he reluctantly does. We only see Lil Slugger's silhouette through the door of the room, symbolic of Lil Slugger being a shadowy being (we have a good view of Misae though).
At the same time, we see Former Detective Keīchi Ikari at his new job as a security guard at multiple construction zones. He now has a simple job of basically standing around and keeping people from walking where they shouldn't. He's obviously bored from his job, or perhaps feeling down about the way things have turned out. He looks down at one point, and picks up a Mellow Maromi keychain.
Misae starts talking to Lil Slugger, telling him about how she was told that as a child she wouldn't grow up to live very long. This naturally troubled her in her life, causing her to be unwilling to get emotionally involved with anyone else. But Keīchi wooed her, and touched by his love she came out of her shell. She became his devoted wife, who stays at home most of the time keeping the house perfectly clean, and always having a warm dinner to await him. She goes on about how her husband is a good man, and how she often thinks she's not worthy to be loved by him.
Whenever Misae starts to weaken, or get filled with pain, sadness, and remorse, Lil Slugger gets riled up. He swings at her, only to stop mid swing because she regained herself. We see a perplexed body language from Lil Slugger, showing that she has subdued him and he doesn't know how to deal with it.
Meanwhile, Keīchi rushes from security job to job, and finds that one of his Co-workers is a man that he arrested many years back, one of the last carpet bag robbers. The two have no ill feelings for each other, and speak fondly of their encounter. The Co-worker says he's no longer a criminal, like Keīchi he can't cope with the changing world, or at least keep up with modern thieves. Keīchi agrees with him, expressing the wish that he could go back to simpler times.
Tsukiko appears shortly after, apparently walking to another interview. Spotting her, Keīchi shows her the keychain he found, and all Tsukiko can do is give a somewhat animated smile at him.
Back with Misae, We learn that she has often felt that she was a burden upon Keīchi. She weakens and says that she wishes she would die to no longer be a burden to Keīchi. Immediately Lil Slugger grows to an enormous size, fitting with the descriptions given earlier by the Gossiping women. He swings. A flash of red fills the screen, and it shows us the Big 'Lil' Slugger holding the bat close to Misae's head, he stopped so close that it cut Misae's skin and she's slightly bleeding. She begins to laugh. This unnerves Lil Slugger, and as she continues talking Lil Slugger takes his pent up frustration out by swinging his bat and destroying the furniture.
Misae says that Lil Slugger is truly pathetic, for while she did wish that she would die for a moment, she says that it would be foolish for her to do so because she would betray her husband and all the work he has done for her. She says that she intends to get the operation that would prolong her life, and she lured Lil slugger to her home to confront him for what he did to her husband. As she explains how she and Keichi work to stand up against Lil Slugger, Lil slugger falls on his back with heavy laughter, apparently finding it all very funny. She goes on to explain to Lil Slugger that what he is doing is terribly wrong, telling him that he feeds on the paranoia of others. She states that while he may think he is providing a service to the people he hits, it is all vanity.
As she goes on to explain to Lil Slugger, the tv that had fallen from a nearby table after Lil slugger smashed it turns on. It shows Mellow Maromi's cartoon show. As she Misae continues to talk, she seems to contemplate further on Lil Slugger's nature, stating that Lil Slugger and Maromi are one and the same. This seems to hurt Lil Slugger, as she states she sees through his lies. He bends over in pain as she continues to talk, and is defeated. Suddenly what is left of the house falls down and we see Misae sitting in the paradise that we see in the ending credits, symbolic of her "release" from her troubled situation. It seems that while all the other characters got "release" from their problems by having Lil Slugger beat them senseless, she attained true peace of mind by defeating him.
As she savors her victory, Keīchi eats lunch with the former thief, talking about the old days. The old thief asks him why he isn't in a rush to go home, and Keīchi talks about his wife. He is of similar feelings about her, thinking she is simply too good for him. He says that when he'd get home from long cases, he'd see the dishes from past dinners still at the table, placed where he sat. He states that when he wasn't there, she still made dinner for him. He explains that his wife is sickly and that her mind isn't as good as it should be. The Former Thief gives him some advice, and offers the Former Detective some matches. (Apparently Keīchi gave up smoking) The two men exit the diner and we see that Keīchi is now in some sort of 2 Dimensional world. Everyone is paper thin and move like cardboard cutout puppets. It seems that Keīchi longs for simpler times, and this world is what he wants. He doesn't act as if this world is strange or anything, and goes along with it.
As he buys some cigarettes, he hears a woman cry out about a thief, and turns to see a cardboard cut-out Thief running away with a cardboard cut-out carpetbag. Again in his element, Keīchi gives chase. Just as he's about to catch the thief, the thief turns into an alley. When Keīchi looks in, he finds that the thief is gone. And in the center of this alley in the midst of a 2D world, he finds the Maromi keychain again. There is a brief flash of the full moon, with a "rabbit making rice stew" shaded on it.
Maniwa comes across Misae sitting in the middle of her destroyed home. She tells him she's worried about Keīchi because he hasn't come home yet.
The episode ends.
[edit] Notes
-The actual title of this episode (English dub) is "No Entry."
-Episode Title Appearance: Ikari points to a sign that is displayed as symbolizing "no entry."
- The character Misae is finally introduced; despite the fact that she is one of the laughing cast featured in the opening, she is the last of the main characters to be introduced. (Introduced in the 11th episode out of the 13 episode series.)
- The former thief has several similarities to Maromi; his eyes, his small stature and, to a lesser extent, his nose. Also, in the bar scene following Misae's defeat of Lil' Slugger, he gives some very familiar advice to Keīchi after he confesses to the former thief that he feels out of place in modern society. The former thief tells him that he's "just tired," and that he should "take a rest." This is the exact same advice that Maromi gives to the baseball player in the cartoon which served as the focal point of the last episode, "Mellow Maromi."
- Though Misae may be considerably the physically weakest character of the series, she is the only one who has faced Lil' Slugger and come out relatively unharmed and victorious.
[edit] Speculation
- The former thief is most likely another coping mechanism (like Maromi is later found to be). This is evident in his advice (which is verbatim to Maromi's in the previous episode) to Ikari in that he's "just tired," and that he should "take a rest." It is also suggested that he is the person who brings Ikari into the fantasy world, and at the end of the series we do not see him standing alongside Ikari.
| 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 |
