Paprika author Yasutaka Tsutsui and director Satoshi Kon lend their voice performances to the movie's short and tall bartenders, respectively.

Directing the Future
As a young man, Kon never thought about screenwriting or directing. Having studied visual communication design, he began his career as a comic artist while still in university. His detailed illustration and clear composition became highly regarded, and he went on to work as a background and layout artist on various anime productions. Beginning with "Magnetic Rose" in the anthology Memories (1995), Kon helped to write the story in addition to his background and layout work. Three years later, he gained international attention with his directorial debut, Perfect Blue (1998). Making such a quick ascent, he jokes, "You can imagine the shortage of personnel in the field." Millennium Actress (2001) and Tokyo Godfathers (2003) added to Kon's oeuvre and were also well received. In 2004, Kon directed his first television series, Paranoia Agent.

Given two years of production, a crew of 50 people and a humble budget of $4 million, Kon once again demonstrates, in Paprika, that hard work pays off. At Madhouse studio, where he has created all his films, development is not a bloated ordeal. Screenwriting, production design, storyboard -- all of these are accomplished by his own hand. Unlike other studios, where disciplines may be partitioned and segregated among a large group of people, in Japan the same amount of work is done more economically. With fewer people overseeing more tasks, the crew feels a much deeper sense of involvement in the project.

Kon advises that, with a small budget and dedication, anyone can produce the films they want. Even in a culture and marketplace where animation is often pigeonholed as children's or family entertainment, adult-oriented storytelling can find funding and distribution. If someone has the will and enjoyment to make a movie, he or she will find a way. Kon offers the example of a salaried man in his own country who worked during the day, but mustered the free time to create anime on his own. Once completed, the man became financially successful selling his film on DVD.

As if this wasn't encouragement enough, Paprika itself is triumphant proof that nothing is impossible.

Greg Singer is an animation welfare advocate, eating in Los Angeles.