The Awakening of Feminism through Kon Satoshi

The Legend about Kon Satoshi

When it comes to Japanese anime movies, Miyazaki Hayao may pop up in your mind first. There is actually another legendary director behind the Japanese anime movie industry named Kon Satoshi.

Unfortunately as he passed away at an early age, Kon only directed 4 feature movies while he was alive. However, each of his movies is fascinating and has huge impacts on film art globally. His first directed movie ‘Perfect Blue’ inspired the creation of ‘Black Swan’. Moreover, ‘Inception’ is also a homage to ‘Paprika’, another movie by Kon. Known as the ‘Master of Dream’, Kon’s style of editing and creative thinking are so unique and couldn’t be surpassed. Unlike Miyazaki’s childlike fantasy, Kon brings audience to a world interweaving reality and science fiction.

Kon Satoshi and his movie characters

The awakening of feminism in Kon Satoshi’s movies

In Kon’s works, the main characters are mostly females. Female characters in Kon’s movies vary in appearances, personalities, and occupations, however, they share one thing in common — their determined pursuit of independence and self-knowledge. Despite being a male director, Kon was making films in the aim of inverting people’s stereotypes about females.

In Perfect Blue, Mima is an idol fighting against the control under men's power and the sexual desire of men, while gradually finding her self-value. In Paprika, Paprika is a heroine full of intelligence and power, who doesn’t need any rescue or help from men. The excellent traits of females are depicted through their self-conscious awakening under patriarchy.

Mima in Perfect Blue Paprika in Paprika

From the characters’ naming to character design, Kon’s focus on women reflects his subversion of the traditional voices and power owned by males. His application of feminist elements has a pioneering significance in the field of animation film, and also gives his works real depth.

Feminism in Millennium Actress

Among Kon’s movies, Millennium Actress is my favorite and also the one with the strongest ideology of feminism. In Millennium Actress, Kon used montages to depict the life of a legendary Japanese actress Chiyoko. The series of match-cutting editing brings the audience across time and place vividly to see the history of the Japanese movie industry with Chiyoko. Outwardly, Chiyoko may seem to be chasing after a man persistently her whole life. But actually, she is spending her lifetime pursuing self-identification and self-value.

Chiyoko in Millennium Actress

‘After all, it’s the chasing after him I really love.’ Chiyoko said to herself at the end of the movie. It reveals that the thing Chiyoko kept chasing after is not a man, nor fame, but her real self. She admired herself when being brave regardless of anything. Besides, she always acted as unconventional female characters to break traditional chains on women through her actress life: She was a princess holding a katana to fight till death; a student not scared of punishment from soldiers; a teacher not willing to get married easily; a scientist bravely confronting Godzilla… Her spirit gave me the courage to chase my true self whatever the result might be. I hope I can define my own beauty as a female just the way she did. No matter which era, which position she was in, she always showed beauty through her bravery, perseverance, and independence.

Chiyoko at the end of the movie