Satoshi Kon Says He was Plagiarized by Darren Aronofsky

Do you know the story between Perfect Blue and Requiem for a Dream? Perfect Blue is a film that came out in 1997 in Japan, it was directed by Satoshi Kon and is based on a novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi.

Perfect Blue has quite an interesting story, it deals with a blurring line between what is fantasy and reality and well, apparently the film was honored by another film, called Requiem for a Dream by director Darren Aronofsky, released in 2000.

Requiem for a Dream is also based on a novel, the novel written by Hubert Selby Jr and released in 1978, but what happens that brings these two films together?

Requiem for a Dream has a scene just like a scene from Perfect Blue, which is a scene where the character appears in the bathtub, check out a comparison between the scene in Requiem for a Dream and Perfect Blue below:

As you may have seen in the video above, yes, the two scenes despite not lasting the same time are the same, so, was it homage or plagiarism? According to Satoshi Kon, it was plagiarism.

A Satoshi Kon video went viral on social media recently, and has so far 1.5 million views, where Satoshi Kon says he was plagiarized by Darren Aronofsky.

Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika…) about how he was plagiarized by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan…) pic.twitter.com/omcjolNH8o

— Otaking (@TheOtaking) March 20, 2023

In the video above Satoshi Kon says that Darren is “supposedly” a fan of Perfect Blue. Satoshi Kon informs him that he had the opportunity to work with Darren when Darren came to Japan to promote Requiem for a Dream.

He then tells that the bathtub scene in the Perfect Blue movie is also in Requiem for a Dream, including the camera position and everything is very similar.

Kon then asked Darren about it, who said it was a tribute to him, to which Kon laughs as he recounts this, Kon also cites other similarities between the two films and the lady says the film has more overlaps and Kon responds: “overlap or ripoff?”.

So for Kon, yeah, he considers he was plagiarized by Darren.