Paprika vs. Inception - What's the Situation?

Although I'm not a big fan of anime or any type of animation film, Paprika was a film that really stuck out to me. Yes I can sit here and talk about how the match cut were beautiful and how the composition and coloring by director Satoshi Kon were also impressive. I know nothing about how animation films are made, and if each frame is drawn frame by frame, then animation definitely deserves some credit.

But what really stuck out was the theme of dreams throughout Paprika. The use of the DC Mini, a Bluetooth-like object that allows the users to see other people's dreams was definitely an innovative technique, but also sounds like something I've seen before (I'm looking at you, Christopher Nolan).

Yes, that's right. Inception is Paprika, and Paprika is Inception, right? Yes and no. The premise that both films focus on the dreams and the blur between reality and dream is what shares the similarities, but the way each film blurs these lines are both very drastic. In Paprika, there is each character that connects to every dream and moment, and they are almost like "rewind-able" moments or fragments in time that Paprika and Detective Konakawa share, but they can also switch and take portals into different worlds. But, each world and dream is connected. Inception's use of distinguishing reality and dreams is very different because the fact that it's a dream is not established until the event happens later, and it relies on clues. Paprika doesn't. Therefore, is Inception the new Paprika? In some cases, yes and no.