Satoshi Kon RIP

Yesterday, Satoshi Kon passed away. In a field of hacks and copycats, he was a true visionary and artist who made complex yet entirely human stories. While his works are absolutely originals that stand on their own, Tokyo Godfathers recalled Capra, Millenium Actress channeled Kurosawa, and in many ways Paprika predicated Nolan's Inception. I had the opportunity to interview the anime director one afternoon at the Hawaii International Film Festival in 2006 when he was promoting the latter. I have to admit that while he was nothing but cordial to me, his answers were pretty boring and actually bordering on lame. However, by the time the screening ended, he was pretty sauced, his thoughts were sufficiently lubricated, and he totally went off in the Q&A, giving me plenty of extra material to spice up the article.