StoryI am a rather non-typical anime watcher. I don't strive to watch every romance or harem anime that exists, nor do I enjoy generic shounen fighting series. Intellectual and thought-provoking science fiction and fantasy are my favorites, above all else. Thus, when I saw that another title from the legendary Satoshi Kon was soon to be released in theaters, I was elated. The man who created such gems as Paranoia Agent, Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue was sure to produce another masterpiece, right?Alas; watching Kon's newest movie Paprika can be summed up in two words: completely disappointing.Like Ghost in the Shell: Innocence before it, Paprika promises a lot, and delivers little. The "story" (if you can call it that) follows a team of scientists who have created a device capable of allowing the wearer to enter others' dreams. Mysterious accidents and illness are befalling members of the staff due to a dream terrorist, who is injecting a nightmare of epic proportions into people's minds - involving ghoulish parade of dolls, kitchen appliances, drumming frogs, and more! The talented Paprika and her team must discover the source of the dream tampering before more people, including themselves, are damaged beyond repair.The story sounds interesting, right? Unfortunately, the little semblance of a plot which presents itself in the beginning of the movie is soon torn up and smashed to pieces by the ending. At around the mid-way point, events become so confusing and jumbled up that it's hard to tell what's going on. By the end, your brain is pretty much on auto-pilot, waiting for the credits to roll; and consequently, you are left with a feeling of "huh?" having no idea what events just transpired. Don't get me wrong - I love a good confusing anime; Cat Soup, Paranoia Agent, End of the World, Eternal Family and other classics are some of my favorite anime of all time. Where Paprika fails is its choice to move from having a plot, to no plot. It felt like the creators stopped at some point and said "hey, let's just mash everything together and throw as much bizarre imagery in as possible, that'll entertain people! Screw the story!" At this point you might be thinking, "But I don't mind an anime with a poor storyline!" - and that's fine. The problem is, Paprika doesn't start out that way, thus tricking you into thinking you'll eventually receive, I don't know... AN ACTUAL CONCLUSION? An explanation of what the hell just happened? Even a cryptic final message would have been fine; Paprika delivered none of these.Ultimately, Paprika's story ended up as disappointing for me as Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. At least GITS: Innocence had a consistently bad story from start to finish, as opposed to Paprika which followed through with the old bait-and-switch routine. AnimationThere's no doubt that Paprika is masterfully animated. Like Tokyo Godfathers before it, Paprika presents us with a rich world filled with detail and beauty. Often, the imagery looked so real that I felt like I was watching a live-action movie. The dream world's design is stunning, from the background designs to the characters and beyond. Paprika's character morphs from one archetype to the next, simply by moving amongst the items in the dream world. For example, she turns into a griffon by jumping into a painting, then a mermaid by jumping into the sea; all the while, the ghoulish parade marches forward and the creepy dolls gape with a blank stare. One scene in particular stuck out as representative of the mastery of the animation: Paprika winds in and out of an apartment, into a drain which leads to a sewer, and finally out of a hole in the ceiling of the sewer --only to see that she just emerged from a hollow shell of a body, deep in the heart of the forest. Though I won't spoil what that scene meant, it was very symbolic of events happening in the story. Outside of the dream realm, the surroundings and character designs are still good (and more realistic than most), but not nearly as engaging as the visuals of the dream world. SoundPaprika's soundtrack is undoubtedly similar to Paranoia Agent, with a big-band feel combined with heavy synths and odd-sounding voices. The out-of-control feeling you get when listening to these songs fits perfectly with the scenes that they accompany, which usually involve Paprika diving into the dream world. Yet again, as Ghost in the Shell: Innocence proved, sometimes having good animation and audio can make an anime worth watching; Paprika is no different. CharactersPaprika has a varied cast of characters who are very hard to keep track of. Though the initial team of scientists are easy to recognize, once the rampant "are we in a dream world or in reality?" cliché kicks in, it's hard to tell who is who or what is going on in the first place. One of the main villains, for example, is unknown to me. In addition, the relationship between Paprika and a certain team member is somewhat unanswered and unsatisfying, and the cop character seemed to come out of nowhere and remained an enigma. Like the "story", Paprika's characters seemed to be a random mixture that were thrown in to try to further some sort of mood or character development, and ultimately fail, greatly. By the end, I could care less about who is who or why the hell the villain/s acted the way they did (which is lucky for me, as there's no way it was understandable), and thus, this section gets a failing score. OverallI've looked around, and I've seen the reviews. Paprika is being called one of the best anime of this year, and is being hailed as a masterpiece. I can't help but wonder if this is the result of rampant fanboy-ism, and is only occurring because Satoshi Kon is the name behind it. The only other explanation is that these reviews have all been done by non-anime watchers who equate good animation and music to an automatic hit. Story should be an important part of any review of this movie, and it's something that I think is being grossly misrepresented and judged for Paprika. All I can say is that in conversations with my anime-watching friends, the best comment about the story is "well, it's confusing," and nothing more. People tend to agree on the gorgeous animation and audio, but that's it. Due to the animation and audio, I reluctantly give Paprika an overall score of 6. Had these two elements been worse, the score would be much, much lower. So, if you watch anime solely for artistic elements, Paprika might be for you. If I've successfully lowered your expectations of Paprika offering a remotely decent story, and you can go into it expecting nothing but a pretty shell, it might be for you. Else, as excited as you may have been to watch this movie, I'd suggest trying out another title.