I finally bought Paprika and volume 1 of Phoenix the anime (the manga's out of print).

Paprika was just as good as I thought it would be (might have something to do with my fangirlness over Satoshi Kon) though the first time I watched it the ending made me feel. . .awkward. The second time got rid of that.

Phoenix was great too (this time is was my fangirling over Osamu Tezuka) but it made me feel awkward for a completely different reason: the little kid's voice in the beginning annoyed me, so I switched it to Japanese with subtitles. Then, as I put it back on, I find that Takeuchi Junko, Naruto's voice actor, was the seiyuu for the annoying kid! That made it harder for me to really get into it, as I really didn't feel that bad when the kid's entire village was massacred and how his surrogate father got shot with, like, 80 gazillion arrows (he was like cheese, but not really since it was all Tezuka-y). I did really love it though, even more that it actually DID get me to feel bad. I want to watch the rest of the series.

Interestingly enough, Phoenix (well, the version I watched) isn't on imdb, and not under the seiyuu's list of stuff. But she was in the credists, so I know that I was right.
I love the opening to this series, and this also shows Naruto being all pony-tail-y

does it deal... with food? or spices...??

well . . . no . . . though the robot did want to eat Paprika in order to spice up his people-eating

Wow. I didn't even MENTION the best part of Phoenix. You know where the Naruto kid lives? THE LAND OF FIRE! You know what the neighboring village did to it? THEY SET IT ON FIRE!