About Paprika

Repeating, the resounding dream, the time of chasing the wind descends

In the near future, a revolutionary new psychotherapy treatment called PT has been invented. A device called the "DC Mini" allows the user to view people's dreams, exploring their unconscious thoughts. The head of the team working on this treatment, Doctor Atsuko Chiba, begins using the machine illegally to help psychiatric patients outside the research facility, using her alter-ego "Paprika", a persona she assumes in the dream world. The movie opens with Paprika counseling Detective Konakawa Toshimi, who is victimized by a recurring dream, the incompleteness of which is a great source of personal anxiety for him. This type of counseling session is not officially sanctioned, so Doctor Atsuko Chiba and her associates must be cautious that word does not leak out to the press regarding the nature of the DC Mini and the existence of Paprika. Her closest ally is Doctor Kosaku Tokita, a morbidly obese child-at-heart genius and the inventor of the DC Mini. Unfortunately, before the government can pass a law authorizing the use of the device, three of the prototypes are stolen. Because of their unfinished nature, the DC Minis can allow anyone to enter another person's dreams, giving the culprit an opportunity to get away with all sorts of malicious deeds. Almost immediately, the chief of the department, Doctor Torataro Shima, goes on a nonsensical tirade and jumps through a window, nearly killing himself.
Show Spoilers? Upon examining Shima's dream (which consists of a lively parade of inanimate objects, instrument-playing animals, and various cultural icons), Tokita recognizes his assistant, Kei Himuro, which confirms their suspicion that the theft was an inside job. After two other scientists fall victim to the DC Mini, the Chairman of the company, who was against the project to begin with, bans the use of the device completely. This fails to hinder the crazed parade, which manages to claim Tokita and intrude Konakawa's dream. Paprika and Shima take matters into their own hands, and find that Himuro is only an empty shell. Tracing the "roots" that controlled him, Paprika confronts the Chairman, who claims that he is in fact the "protector of the dreamworld", guarding this last haven against the inhumane horrors of reality and technology. Again, she is chased by the Chairman but also finds out that the researcher, Doctor Morio Osanai, agreed to give the Chairman his body and become the Chairman's lackey as long as he got to have equal powers over his own dreams. Chiba/Paprika is eventually captured by the pair after an exhausting chase. Paprika wakes as a butterfly pinned to a table in a room surrounded by pinned butterflies. There, Osanai admits his love for Chiba, and attempts to peel away her Paprika disguise. However, he is interrupted by the Chairman, whose head sprouts on his shoulder (the two share Osanai's body, housing the Chairman's spirit). As the two argue over Chiba's fate, Konakawa bursts through the wall from his cinema dream, snatching the naked Chiba away from the bickering antagonists. After a chase through Konakawa's cinema dream, Osanai attempts to flee from Konakawa's homicide dream. It is there that Konakawa realizes that his recurring nightmare and anxiety result from his guilt that he never finished the film he was making with a friend. He decides to finish the film and shoot the escaping Osanai, finishing with the memorable phrase "I am justice!" as he poses proudly. This kills Osanai and supposedly the Chairman in one fell swoop. All seems well.

Chiba, believing the dream is finally over, runs through the research facility with Shima only to find that dreams and reality have merged. Amidst the chaos, Tokita, in the form of a giant robot, eats Chiba and prepares to do the same for Paprika, but is thwarted in his efforts by two bartenders from Paprika's website. A ghostly apparition of Chiba appears and reveals that she has in fact been in love with Tokita this whole time and has simply been repressing these emotions. She comes to terms with her own repressed desires, reconciles herself with that part of her that is Paprika, and is thus reborn in the dream world. The Chairman, in the form of a dark colossus, reveals his twisted dreams of omnipotence, and threatens to darken the world with his delusions. Realizing that everything has its opposite, Paprika returns to Tokita, throwing herself into his body. A ghostly apparition of a baby emerges from the robotic shell, like a womb. Sucking in the wind, the child grows until she sucks up the Chairman himself, becoming a full grown beautiful combination of both Chiba and Paprika. In this new form, she is able to consume the Chairman's dream form and end the nightmare he created.

In the final scene, Chiba sits at Tokita's bedside. Konakawa and Shima leave the two as Chiba puts her hand in Tokita's. As Konakawa and Shima walk down the street, Shima asks if Konakawa ever figured out the meaning to all this. Konakawa, turning to his reflection and seeing the figure of his film friend, realizes that he in fact became the character from their original film, the cop. Konakawa visits the bar-website one last time, and the bartenders give him a message from Paprika: "Atsuko will change her surname to Tokita... and I suggest watching the movie Dreaming Kids." The film ends as Konakawa purchases a ticket for the movie.
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