Satoshi Kon (今 敏, Kon Satoshi; October 12, 1963 – August 24, 2010) was a Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and manga artist from Sapporo, Hokkaido, and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art University. He is best known for his acclaimed anime films Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003), and Paprika (2006), and the TV series Paranoia Agent (2004).
In 2010, Kon died of pancreatic cancer at age 46.
Satoshi Kon was born on October 12, 1963. Due to his father's job transfer, Kon's education from the fourth elementary grade up to the second middle-school grade was based in Sapporo. Kon was a classmate and close friend of manga artist Seihō Takizawa. While attending Hokkaido Kushiro Koryo High School, Kon aspired to become an animator. Kon entered the Graphic Design course of the Musashino Art University in 1982.
While in college, Kon made his debut as a manga artist with the short manga Toriko (1984) and earned a runner-up spot in the 10th Annual Tetsuya Chiba Awards held by Young Magazine (Kodansha). Afterward, he found work as Katsuhiro Otomo's assistant. After graduating from college in 1987, Kon authored the single-volume manga Kaikisen (1990) and wrote the script for Otomo's live-action film World Apartment Horror.
In 1991, Kon worked in anime for the first time as an animator and on background design for the film Roujin Z, which was written by Otomo.
He began working around 1992 as a scriptwriter, layout artist, and background designer for Magnetic Rose (directed by Koji Morimoto), one of three short films in Katsuhiro Otomo's omnibus Memories (released in 1995). This was the first time he adopted "the fusion of fantasy and reality" as the theme of his work.
Kon worked as one of five layout artists on Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor 2: The Movie in 1993, along with other animated films. He worked as a key animator on episode 2 of the 1993–1994 OVA JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and he worked as the writer and storyboard artist for episode 5.
Kon then worked with Mamoru Oshii on the manga Seraphim: Wings of 266,613,336, which was written by Oshii and drawn by Kon. The manga was serialized in the monthly anime magazine Animage starting in 1994. However, as the series progressed, the opinions of Kon and Oshii became divided, and the series went on hiatus and ended unfinished. After this work, Kon ended his career as a manga artist and devoted himself to making anime.
In 1997, Kon began work on his directorial debut Perfect Blue (based on Yoshikazu Takeuchi's novel of the same name). It was the first film by Kon to be produced by Madhouse, and producer Masao Maruyama invited him because he was impressed in Kon's work on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. A suspense story centered on a pop idol, Kon was initially unsatisfied with the first script based on the original and requested to make changes to it. With the permission of the original author, Yoshikazu Takeuchi, Kon was allowed to make any changes he wanted, except for keeping the three elements of the novel ("idol," "horror" and "stalker"). The screenplay was written by Sadayuki Murai, who worked in the idea of a blurred border between the real world and imagination.
Following Perfect Blue, Kon considered adapting the 1993 Yasutaka Tsutsui novel Paprika into his next film. However, these plans were stalled when the distribution company for Perfect Blue (Rex Entertainment) went bankrupt. Coincidentally, Kon's next work would also feature a film studio going bankrupt.
In 2002, Kon's second film, Millennium Actress, was released to the public. The distribution company for the North American release was DreamWorks-affiliated Go Fish Pictures. The film centers on a retired actress who mysteriously withdraws from the public eye at the peak of her career. Having the same estimated budget as Perfect Blue (approximately 120 million yen), Millennium Actress garnered higher critical and financial success than its predecessor and earned numerous awards. The screenplay was written by Sadayuki Murai, who utilized a seamless connection between illusion and reality to create a "Trompe-l'œil kind of film". Millennium Actress was the first Satoshi Kon film to feature Susumu Hirasawa, of whom Kon was a long-time fan, as composer.
In 2003, Kon's third work, Tokyo Godfathers, was announced. The distribution company for the North American release was Sony Pictures-affiliated Destination Films. The film centers on a trio of homeless people in Tokyo who discover a baby on Christmas Eve and set out to search for her parents. Tokyo Godfathers cost more to make than Kon's previous two films (with a budget of approximately 300 million yen), and centered on the themes of homelessness and abandonment, with a comedic touch worked in. The screenplay was written by Keiko Nobumoto. This work also marked the transition from celluloid animation to digital animation.
In 2004, Kon released the 13-episode television series Paranoia Agent, in which Kon revisits the theme of the blending of imagination and reality, as well as working in additional social themes. The series was created from an abundance of unused ideas for stories and arrangements that Kon felt were good but did not fit into any of his projects.
In 2006, Paprika was announced, after having been planned out and materializing for several years. The story centers on a new form of psychotherapy that utilizes dream analysis to treat mental patients. The film was highly successful and earned a number of film awards. Kon summed up the film with "Kihonteki na story igai wa subete kaeta" (基本的なストーリー以外は全て変えた)—roughly, "Everything but the fundamental story was changed." Much like Kon's previous works, the film focuses on the synergy of dreams and reality.
He participated in the TV program Ani*Kuri15 broadcast by NHK in 2007. His one-minute short film Ohayō was aired along with works by Mamoru Oshii, Makoto Shinkai, and others. That same year, Kon helped establish and served as a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA).
Health deterioration and death
Following Ohayō, Kon began work on his next film, Dreaming Machine. In May 2010, Kon was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Given half a year to live, Kon chose to spend the remainder of his life in his home. Shortly before his death, Kon composed a final message, which was uploaded to his blog by his family upon his death. As Kon explained in the message, he chose not to make news of his rapidly advancing illness public, in part out of embarrassment at how drastically emaciated and ravaged his body had become. The result was that the announcement of his death was met with widespread shock and surprise, particularly given that Kon had shown no signs of illness at relatively recent public events, as the cancer progressed to a terminal state in a matter of months after being diagnosed. Kon died on August 24, 2010, at the age of 46. After his death, Kon was mentioned among the Fond Farewells in Time's people of the year 2010. Darren Aronofsky wrote a eulogy to him, which was printed in Satoshi Kon's Animation Works (今敏アニメ全仕事), a Japanese retrospective book of his animation career.
In November 2010, Madhouse, the animation studio that had previously produced Kon's works, officially announced that they would continue to produce the unfinished "Yumemiru Kikai", and that the animation director Yoshimi Itazu would be acting as the director. According to Takeshi Honda, animator and frequent collaborator with Satoshi Kon, Kon disappeared in the middle of production on the movie. He had not informed most of the staff on the movie about his pancreatic cancer, including producer Masao Maruyama. Maruyama recorded the script to the movie on Kon's deathbed and promised to see the project to completion. However, the project was halted in 2011 due to financial reasons. By 2013, the completion of Dreaming Machine still remained uncertain due to funding difficulties, with only 600 of the 1,500 shots being animated.