Périn directs and co-writes animation with adult subject matter and an unusually confident visual sense. Mars Express is a detective story set on a colonised Mars where consciousness can be copied, and it plays as a genuine noir investigation rather than as a science fiction concept illustrated with a crime plot.
He built a reputation directing music videos with striking and often provocative imagery, then co-directed an animated series adapted from a French comic that mixed martial arts tournament structure with a much darker underlying plot. Japanese cyberpunk animation is an acknowledged reference, particularly its treatment of the body as replaceable hardware.
Recurring subjects: identity when a mind can be duplicated, class divisions built into infrastructure, and characters who are competent and tired. He keeps the animation clean and readable rather than stylistically busy, and he stages exposition through procedure, letting the setting explain itself as the investigation proceeds.
His feature was widely praised as evidence that French animation can work in adult science fiction, a register the industry there had rarely attempted at that budget. It drew significant international attention and won recognition at major animation festivals, and it is frequently cited in arguments that animation is a medium rather than a children's genre.
For viewers who want hard boiled detective fiction in an animated form. Suited to anyone who likes cyberpunk with working procedure, and to those looking for animation aimed squarely at adults.
