Paranoia Agent is a 2004 Japanese anime television series created by Japanese director Satoshi Kon and produced by Madhouse about a social phenomenon in Musashino, Tokyo caused by a juvenile serial assailant named Lil' Slugger. The series first aired on Japan's WOWOW between February 2, 2004 and May 18, 2004.
The three members of an Internet suicide pact meet each other for the first time in attempt to come up with ways to commit suicide, but hope to see Lil' Slugger. The trio includes "Fuyubachi", an old man; "Zebra", a young man; and a little girl, "Kamome". The two men are shocked at her young age and try to run away from her. She finds them in a house trying to gas themselves with carbon monoxide, but the house is suddenly demolished. They then try to jump in front of a subway train, but someone else throws themself in front of the train first, ruining their chance. Afterward, Zebra sees the spirit of the man who jumped in front of the train walk away from the accident into the crowd of people on the platform. Finally, the trio try hanging themselves from a tree on a mountainside, but the branch snaps. The men fall down a slope and get separated from Kamome, but then decide to go back to her because they fear she will get lost in the forest if she's alone. At a bathhouse, the three try to sleep when they see the silhouette of Lil' Slugger. Delighted, Kamome and Zebra run at him with open arms, with Fuyubachi trailing behind, but a horrified Lil' Slugger flees the building. At the end of the episode, Fuyubachi notices that the three of them do not cast shadows when a man walks between them without noticing them. None of them had shadows throughout the episode save for the two men in the first few scenes. While singing and skipping hand in hand in the last scene, the three stop behind a group of girls getting their picture taken by another girl with a digital camera. When the girls check to see how their picture turned out, they are shocked and frightened by what they see in the photo which is not shown to the audience. The scene then zooms on a vending machine behind the girls which is for a condoms: "Happy Family Planning"