Line #16 Fridge/ParanoiaAgent


1	'''As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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3	!!FridgeBrilliance
4	* Tsukiko designed Maromi after herself. Pink body, brown-black hair/ears, big, vacant black eyes.
5	** Might overlap with FridgeHorror, but look carefully at Maromi's head. Why is it so big and misshapen? ''It's supposed to look like a mushroom cloud.''
6	*** Or perhaps it looks flattened because of what happened to the original Maromi.
7	** Harumi Chono has a split personality, and is named after a butterfly, much like the rest of the cast. Only Harumi has a surname, which begins with Cho, in the same structure of everyone else's surname. The word for butterfly is "Chocho". Cho is only half of it, much like Harumi is only half of the person!
8	*** On that note, Harumi is beautiful on the inside, but not as pretty as Maria, who is ugly on the inside. This raises the question of which is the caterpillar and which is the butterfly!
9	*** Is Harumi beautiful on the inside? Maria is calling her a fake and it is sort of implied that she is pretty deeply repressed, she hides all of this from her fiancé (who it's never clear she loves) and is more often the instigator with Maria whom it seems would be content to let Harumi live her "fake" life provided she also allows Maria to live what she thinks constitutes a genuine one.
10	*** Then consider that everyone likes caterpillars, despite them being uglier than butterflies, so this troper would guess that Harumi's the caterpillar and Maria's the butterfly.
11	*** Maria's a prostitute, so the "others" could be seen as flowers is he is the butterfly.
12	*** So that makes Maromi the giant can of bugspray looming overhead until the last second?
13	*** Considering how Maria survives Little Slugger's attack, probably not. If anything, Maromi/Little Slugger just made Harumi ignore her condition instead of actually fixing it. Maria only became aggressive towards Harumi after the later forcefully interfered with Maria's life, so Maria probably liked that Harumi stopped bothering her.
14	* A lot of people find the bright, cheery opening theme to contrast with the often dark and disturbing show. This is a case of LeaningOnTheFourthWall, as it's fun and happy, like a million other animes out there, and because of that, it's familiar and comforting. Consider how that compares to what the show's use of Maromi says about Franchise/HelloKitty and such, or even how it compares to the images played during the show's intro. The ending theme drives this point home even further because it intentionally sounds like a happy, childish song that's been broken and distorted.
15	** Even more fridge brilliance is that, if this translation is correct, the song uses seriously dark imagery. Seeing a mushroom cloud in the sky while watching the birds eat in a park? Waking up from a daydream in your office to a rain of flames? It's nearly apocalyptic. The only reassurance we get is that the message of the song is to not worry about the horrible things, because while things may be terrifying now, tomorrow may be sunny. Which, incidentally, parallels the show exceptionally well: despite the deranged and disturbing events we see, the proverbial mushroom clouds and rain of flames and vapor trails, [[EarnYourHappyEnding things finally start looking "sunny" as the series ends]].
16	* Throughout the series, Tsukiko is under severe pressure from her superiors to make another cultural phenomenon like Maromi. She did: Lil' Slugger.
17	* "Happy Family Planning" is seen on a condom machine. Trying to start a family while using birth control is as futile as trying to kill yourself when you're already dead.
18	** Alternatively, it could be Kamome's hint much like Fuyubachi and Zebra had as to what happened to her in the past, possibly implying that she was an unplanned pregnancy.
19	* The series focusing around paranoia is an obvious lead to the strange happenings of the series and all, but what about 'agent'? The definition of the term is "a person or thing that takes an active role or produces a desired effect". What is Tsukiko's role in the story? Accidentally creating the cultural boogeyman that is Lil' Slugger, to the point that pretty much everyone that encounters her or at all relies on her creation Maromi for any sense of escapism ends up having a mental breakdown or feeling cornered. "Agent" could also be interpreted towards Maromi as well, as it and Lil' Slugger are ultimately the same being, meaning that either way, Tsukiko is effectively the [[TitleDrop Paranoia Agent]] or at least the creator of it.
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21	!!FridgeHorror
22	* It seems to strike Maniwa near the end that everything is just going to repeat itself, and that Shounen Bat will never truly go away.
23	* As it is implied in the end that Lil Slugger is an imaginary manifestation by those who are stressed, that would mean most attacks are actually self-inflicted or inflicted by others in stress. In episode 9, the bullied wife in the end sees her husband beaten by Lil Slugger. Given that it's implied that she's the one in high stress, it's likely she beat her own husband to death just to make a story so she could fit in.
24	* What did Zebra, Fuyubachi and Kamome appear as after their deaths? The girls taking a picture at the end of the episode was horrified, and even ''Lil' Slugger'' was terrified by them and ran away.
25	** Since it's likely that they were crushed/maimed during the demolition of the building they were going to kill themselves in, maybe their bodies/spirits were horribly mutilated? Kind of like the one guy who jumped in front of the train.
26	** Maybe they looked normal. I would be terrified too if I saw someone who wasn't there in my picture.
27	** More FridgeHorror from that episode - one of the three people who enters an online suicide pact is ''a little girl''. One who freaks out and demands the other two not abandon her, and genuinely wants to die. What happened to her to make her think that way?
28	* Given that Disassociative Identity Disorder is often linked to past trauma, [[NothingIsScarier one can only imagine]] what Harumi Chono went through [[spoiler:to have an alternate personality who works as a ''prostitute'']].
29	* The ending of Taeko's plot is something it's probably best not to think about too much, or you'll start to get a nasty feeling about what it might actually mean. [[spoiler:She falls into despair after finding out her father is a pedophile who has been secretly taking nude photos of her, and Lil' Slugger's attack causes her to lose her memories of who he is.]] This is treated as LaserGuidedKarma for her father, who is implied to have legitimate guilt over his actions, but it's undercut by the idea that [[spoiler:a pedophile who's been shown to have very little self-control and implied to have already raped a little girl off-screen during one of his burglaries now has sole custody over a girl he lusts over and has no memory of who he is or that she shouldn't trust him]]. Depending on how much you trust Hirukawa to have really changed, it's not too difficult to instead see this as a KarmicMisfire where [[spoiler:he gets exactly what he wants and Taeko's situation gets ''much worse'']].

Context Fridge / ParanoiaAgent