History YMMV / ParanoiaAgent

* HilariousInHindsight: The series revolves around a young boy coming to those who are desperate and screwing badly with their lives and thereby rendering their previous worries mostly moot, to the point of putting them at mortal danger, who's earned the moniker "[[Literature/{{Murderess}} Ha...]]" er, "Bat Lad".
** Episode 5 features Kozuka taking Ikari and Maniwa through the world of his fantasy role-playing game, framing his crimes as him defeating various monsters and villains. Throughout the entire FantasySequence, Ikari stays in his work clothes while Maniwa becomes a character in the adventure to get more information out of Kozuka. Kozuka and Maniwa are voiced, respectively, by Creator/SamRiegel and Creator/LiamOBrien, who would later come together on the ''D&D'' web series ''WebVideo/CriticalRole''.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: In the last few episodes, Lil' Slugger [[spoiler:nearly levels Tokyo]]. Fans disagree about whether this happened because [[spoiler:Misae gave him a serious TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, which seemed to cause him physical pain, and may have made him flip out]], or if it was just a buildup of the [[spoiler:lies, fears, and desperation that created Lil' Slugger and drew him to his victims in the first place]]. It basically depends on whether or not you view Lil' Slugger as an [[spoiler:actual person with thoughts, emotions, and everything, or just a force of nature acting without any real agency over its own actions, akin to a landslide or a flood.]]
** Harumi Chono and Maria. Is Harumi the primary alter or is it really Maria? All we know is that they're aware of each other.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Tsukiko routinely hallucinates and is perpetually stoic. She shows many symptoms of what could be interpreted as schizophrenia.[[note]]This includes having vivid hallucinations and delusions, having difficulty interacting with other people, emotional fragility, and the inability to comprehend life in a logical fashion[[/note]]. This interpretation is usually held as a criticism of the anime's aesop of [[spoiler:having to deal with one's own problems]], since it'd be unfair to ask Tsukiko to acknowledge her delusions when schizophrenia would make it very hard for her to perceive the difference between them and reality.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Tsukiko routinely hallucinates and is perpetually stoic. She shows many symptoms of what could be interpreted as schizophrenia.[[note]]This includes having vivid hallucinations and delusions, having difficulty interacting with other people, emotional fragility, and the inability to comprehend life in a logical fashion.[[/note]] That said, this being the case might somewhat undermine the series' message of [[spoiler:having to deal with one's own problems]], since it'd be unfair to ask Tsukiko to acknowledge her delusions when schizophrenia would make it very hard for her to perceive the difference between them and reality.

* FridgeHorror:
** 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'']].
** 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'']].

** Given that Disassociative Identity Disorder is often linked to past trauma, [[NothingIsScarier one can only imagine]] what Harumi Chono went through to have an alternate personality who works as a ''prostitute.''
** 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'']].

** Episode 5 features Kozuka taking Ikari and Maniwa through the world of his fantasy roleplaying game, framing his crimes as him defeating various monsters and villains. Throughout the entire FantasySequence, Ikari stays in his work clothes while Maniwa becomes a character in the adventure to get more information out of Kozuka. Kozuka and Maniwa are voiced respectively by Creator/SamRiegel and Creator/LiamOBrien, who would later come together on the D&D web series ''WebVideo/CriticalRole''.

** Harumi Chono is a young schoolteacher who just wants to live a happy, normal life after she's proposed to by a fellow teacher. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, she has severe mental health problems that manifest as another personality; a prostitute named Maria. If that wasn't bad enough, Harumi has been receiving threatening voicemails from Maria, and the more she tries to keep a handle on everything, the more she blacks out and starts losing control. While she does have a therapist, and her fiancé remains supportive of her, it's clear that Harumi should have been institutionalized a long time ago, if only for her own safety.]]
** Each member of the animation team could be a JerkassWoobie. They were pressured to reach some deadline, and because of Lil' Slugger -by extension, themselves- they each ''died'' to complete the first episode of a series. However, the Jerkass comes from, yes, picking on the idiot of the team, and ''also'' from the fact that none of them cared if the others died to complete the show, so long as the show was completed.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: A line in the opening sequence. "No need to worry about a tsunami or anything..." Turns out [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami they needed to worry about a tsunami after all.]]
* HarsherInHindsight: The series revolves around the idea of a single strange attack [[spoiler:that began as a hoax]] that gets picked up by the media, incidents increase, and rapidly becomes a national crisis. As WebVideo/SuperEyepatchWolf points out, this ends up bearing an eerie resemblance to reports of clown attacks in 2016.

* FridgeHorror: Given that Disassociative Identity Disorder is often linked to past trauma, [[NothingIsScarier one can only imagine]] what Harumi Chono went through to have an alternate personality who works as a ''prostitute.''

* UncannyValley:
** Tsukiko's seemingly constant lifeless stare.
** Kawazu, who's wild-eyed, perverted grin almost comes across as froglike at times.
** Maria, [[spoiler:Harumi's alter-ego]], who often sports a deranged, puppet-like grin.
** Hirukawa, a short, stout man with a gaping huge mouth and large lips to boot.

** Misae Ikari, [[spoiler:who's struggling with multiple illnesses and such and yet devotes everything to her husband despite her fears and insecurities that he doesn't love her anymore/could be cheating on her, a very sad AdultFear reality that most spouses deal with. She does, however, become a IronWoobie since unlike half of the characters who are attacked by Lil' Slugger, she just accepts reality as it is and refuses to back down despite feeling broken and tired]].

* FridgeHorror: Given that Disassociative Identity Disorder is often linked to past trauma, [[NothingIsScarier one can only wonder]] what Harumi Chono went through to have an alternate personality who works as a ''prostitute.''