Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

Adapted by Sadayuki Murai from Yoshikazu Takeuchi's novel, "Perfect Blue" creates an increasingly terrifying world and pulls you into it with the effectiveness of a Hitchcock suspense classic. [07 Oct 1999, p.F16]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Joe Williams

It would be a disservice to describe "Perfect Blue" as a well-made cartoon. It is simply one of the richest and most suspenseful films of the year. [03 Aug 2001, p.E2]

Empire by Kim Newman

Strange, stylish and intelligent, this is a rare anime film that delivers on its Eastern promise.

Total Film by Staff (Not Credited)

All the elements of a modern Hitchcock-style murder mystery are brilliantly handled, while the sort of tricks usually deployed to misdirect the audience are intelligently positioned to draw us deeper into Mima's tortured psyche until fantasy blurs into deadly reality. The result is a smart, innovative and gut-wrenchingly disturbing film.

TV Guide Magazine by Staff (Not Credited)

It won't take genre fans long to unravel the mystery, but the pleasures of this film lie elsewhere. Its images of the gleaming, depersonalized Tokyo in which Mima lives out her superficially charmed but lonely life are haunting, and the characterizations are unusually strong. There's plenty for anime newcomers to enjoy, and fans won't want to miss it.

Slant Magazine by Jake Cole

Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue is a prescient vision of a modern world defined by media oversaturation and social media validation.

San Francisco Chronicle by Bob Graham

Perfect Blue manages, through animation, to take the thriller, media fascination, psychological insight and pop culture and stand them all on their heads.

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

With its fluidly changeable surfaces, animation may be the ideal medium for confronting the public's growing uncertainty with reality, but Perfect Blue is a missed opportunity, too shallow and exploitative to be taken seriously.

Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov

Contemporary adult themes that resonate as much as those in Perfect Blue (stalking, the cult of celebrity) have become increasingly rare in this animated genre better known for tentacled demons and cute forest sprites; it's refreshing to be reminded that not everything in anime need feature that lovable scamp Pikachu, either.

San Francisco Examiner by Wesley Morris

The art direction is reliably vivid and hyperreal, but director Satoshi Kon and company can't articulate how mentally taxed Mima is without confusing us.

Variety by Dennis Harvey

Forsaking the usual anime fantasy terrain for a straight suspense plot that might easily have been executed in live-action form, director Satoshi Kon's debut pic, "Perfect Blue," is a psychological thriller that intrigues without quite hitting the bull's-eye.

Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector

This engrossing animated thriller (2000) somehow displays realist gore, nudity, and sexual violence in a tone not too far from that of a children’s adventure; its innocence stems in part from the convincing naivete of the heroine.

Film Threat by Merle Bertrand

What starts out as a fairly conventional and effective stalker drama with a cyber-twist, soon gets too cute with its dreams within dreams set pieces and shifting realities. It’s kinda nifty at first, but Kon just keeps piling it on until you just roll your eyes, throw up your hands, and scream, “Enough!”

The New York Times by Anita Gates

With smarter dialogue, it might have made a fascinating film.