I WARN YOU THERE ARE ALOT OF SPOILERS!!!

REVIEW

Paranoia Agent is an extremely surrealistic and a mind-bending anime made by Satoshi Kon. This Anime is my introduction to his work, and I have to say my reception of this anime is mixed. I was interested to watch this anime because the concept was something which interested me, and personally, I had a lot of expectations, and a lot of em weren't really met.

The show in a way is a social commentary, on the nature of media and how a rampantly growing social phenomenon can affect the society and give birth to urban legends, which can force societies to practice escapism. The themes that are explored in this anime in regards to media, society and myths are very true in nature and are shown realistically. In my opinion, it's nearly impossible, to not connect or relate to at least one of the show's numerous characters and the scenarios shown in this anime. A lot of characters and their internal and external conflicts portrayed in this anime are excellent as well, and even if on the surface this anime is 'a detective story' a lot of the show's depth and focus comes from focusing on its characters and providing subtle satire/criticism of the contemporary society we live in.
The first 6 episodes of this series were really good and intriguing, and I was eager to know more about this story. However, after episode 7, there was a major tone and narrative shift in this anime. Which by itself, is a bit disappointing to viewers who liked the first half of the anime. Kon decided to take a very surreal artistic direction after 7th episode and shifted his focus entirely on characters and scenarios which weren't relevant to the main plot. In itself, these episodes are quite artistic, and served their purpose well as a creative yet satirical piece of fiction, however in a way the shift was really disappointing and sudden and the characters in these episodes weren't developed, which made the anime boring to watch. To say, metaphorically the last few episodes were deep and rich, thus they had a lot to offer, but from a narrative and entertainment standpoint, this direction didn't really work and kind of the betrayed the expectations of the viewers. (Again this is highly subjective and if you like surrealistic work, you'll love it)
The point is the buildup was great, but the climax of the show wasn't.

Final Verdict- Paranoia Agent is still a must-watch, given its flaws. For me, the first 7 episode of this show was when it was at its peak, after that I had to force myself to finish it. But I guess, the purpose of the show is not to necessarily be a neatly structured, well made, narrative which follows your established narrative rules, It's more about taking artistic liberties and conveying a message to its viewers. It's about understanding the crucial message Kon wanted to convey. And if you give a thought to this anime, you won't necessarily enjoy it as much, but you will certainly appreciate what it was trying to say. And that's really something that matters.
So on that note, I give this anime a score of 76/100