Pafekuto buru
Mima Kirigoe, the lead singer of the fictional J-pop idol group "CHAM!", decides to leave the group to become an actress. Her first role is in a crime drama series, Double Bind. Some of her fans are upset by her change in career, including a stalker known as "Me-Mania". Shortly after leaving CHAM!, Mima receives an anonymous fax calling her a traitor. She finds a website called "Mima's Room", which features public diary entries that claim to be written by her that discuss her life in great detail. She brings the site to the attention of her manager, ex-pop star Rumi Hidaka, but is advised to ignore it.
On the set of Double Bind, Mima succeeds in getting a larger part. However, the producers decide to cast her as a rape victim in a strip club. Rumi warns Mima that it will damage her reputation, but Mima accepts the part. The scene traumatizes Mima (as well as Rumi, who leaves the production control room crying), and she increasingly becomes unable to distinguish reality from her work in show business.
Several people involved in creating Double Bind, including the show's writer and photographer, are found murdered. Mima finds evidence that makes her a suspect in those murders, and her increasing mental instability makes her doubt her own innocence. Meanwhile, Me-Mania is constantly shown standing amongst the Double Bind filming crew, and his further obsession is revealed when he is shown receiving emails from Mima's pop idol persona through the Mima's Room website. It is at this point that reality starts breaking down for the viewer as well: in one scene, Mima is revealed by a police psychiatrist to be the split personality delusion of a woman named Yoko Takakura, only for the Double Bind camera crew to yell "Cut"; in another, Me-Mania finally confronts and attempts to rape Mima, stopped only when Mima hits him in the head with a hammer, knocking him unconscious. Rumi finds Mima backstage immediately afterward, and upon both returning to the scene, Me-Mania's blood and body are not found on the now-empty set. This causes Mima to further doubt her perception of reality.
Rumi offers to drive Mima home. Upon arriving, Mima tries to call Mr. Tadokoro, but he doesn't pick up the phone as he has also been murdered, along with Me-Mania. Mima drops the call upon realizing that she is actually in a completely different apartment, decorated to resemble her own pop idol apartment at the beginning of the film. When Mima encounters Rumi, her manager is wearing a replica of Mima's CHAM! costume and, in a psychotic break, fully believes that she is the "real Mima"; Rumi is in fact the diarist behind Mima's Room and the one who committed the murders. Rumi is angry that Mima—who has been suffering from folie à deux throughout the film—has been ruining the "real Mima's" reputation and decides to save her pristine pop idol image by murdering the "fake" Mima. After a chase through the city, Mima, despite being wounded herself, manages to rip off Rumi's wig, causing Rumi to impale herself on a glass shard trying to grab it. Mima then saves Rumi from an oncoming truck, whose headlights she mistakes for stage lights. Both parties collapse as the truck's occupants call for an ambulance.
Mima, now an accomplished actress, shows up at a mental institution to visit Rumi, who still believes herself to be Mima. As Mima leaves, she overhears the nursing staff believing that she is a Mima look-alike, as Mima would have no reason to visit an institution. Mima enters her car and, looking into the rear view mirror, declares "I'm the real thing" and smiles.
insanity, psychedelic, psychological, murder, violence