Paranoia Agent

@Langolier: I carefully reviewed first, after I realized about the shadows. In general, yes, they got drunk in the house. After that, there were no shadows, and the dude who got out from under the train was probably already a ghost, too.

Still, Satoshi Kon was a genius.
Apparently, not everyone looks and thinks about what they see. Unfortunately, the visual, typical of Satoshi Kon's works, sometimes interferes with this, but the whole problem is that without it, the thought will be even less obvious.
I mean all this to the fact that among the commentators there were those who clearly did not see a rather obvious thought. What is the interest of this director's works, he usually reveals topics about the influence of something from the outside on a person's life and soul.
Let's remember the "Perfect Blue". There, the life of a young actress and a former idol almost goes downhill just because of one crazy fan and the image of the heroine that he invented for himself. The actress of the millennium shows us the life of one woman at all. Paprika thinks about what terrible things can be done if you just get access to other people's dreams.
But now Satoshi poses a diametrically opposite question. And how can our own escapism affect our life, soul and psyche? Yes, the guy with the bat was created by a girl who lied out of fear of an excessively strict father, but life was given to him not by this girl alone, but by everyone who runs away from an unpleasant and sometimes harsh reality. Stress at work, a sudden rival who shouldn't be so good, a split personality and everyone else who somehow found a reason to say to themselves, "It's not my fault. It's all the guy with the bat"
Satoshi Kon poses the problem that people are not ready to accept their mistakes as part of themselves and try to distance themselves without learning anything. Which in the end leads to the death of an entire city that is mired in self-pity.
As for me, this stream of living, devouring dirt is an excellent illustration of what self-pity and self-justification really are. You don't need to look for a guy with a bat to say that "He's a villain, and I'm good," but just accept your imperfection and become better today than you were yesterday.

@die-please: grandpa noticed that they do not cast shadows, which means they have already died. If you mean a shot with a machine gun in the last seconds, then perhaps it means that the gum that the old man is wearing is no longer for sale, which means they have been wandering around for a long time. Although I'm not sure, since they lost the shadows only after the scene in the destroyed house.

She laughed in the face of fear! She's strong, she's won!

What's going on here?...