Mind Game

After seeing her jump onto a subway at the last second and getting her ankle crushed between the doors, Nishi reconnects with his high school sweetheart, Myon. Nishi is still very much in love with Myon, but is shocked to learn that she is engaged to another man. Nishi agrees to meet Myon's fiancé at her family's Yakitori restaurant, but members of the Yakuza storm the joint and murder Nishi when he tries to stop them from raping Myon.

Nishi, now dead, wakes up and meets a constantly shapeshifting god, who mocks him for dying. The god tells Nishi to walk into a portal and disappear from existence, which Nishi rejects, choosing instead to sprint past the god and reanimate. With a new outlook on life and knowledge of how the Yakuza are going to attack him, Nishi kills one of the Yakuza with his own gun, fleeing in a stolen car with Myon and her sister.

Acclaimed director Masaaki Yuasa's debut film, Mind Game's constantly shifting visuals tell a story about living one's life without regrets that is unlike any other.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nishi Main

Imada, Koji Japanese

Myon Main

Maeda, Sayaka Japanese

Jii-san Supporting

Fujii, Takashi Japanese

Yakuza Supporting

Nishi, Rintarou Japanese

Atsu Supporting

Chuujou, Kenichi Japanese

Yan Supporting

Takuma, Seiko Japanese

Watanabe, Shinichirou Producer

Tanaka, Eiko Producer

Yuasa, Masaaki Director, Script, Character Design

Fayray Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Oct 15, 2024

Nu-Metal_Logical

Recommended

Mind Game is a gem from a time when experimental and creative anime were not so scarce, a work that demonstrates why animation is such an incredible medium, mixing different art styles, and making the most absurd and unbelievable things possible.

Plot (10/10): It is a creative and profound work about carpe diem, that we should enjoy every moment of life, have perseverance and try to see the positive side of every situation, because once you die, it's over.

Characters (10/10): The characters are extremely vivid and unique, each of them has their own motivations and issues, and they are all captivating.

Visuals (10/10): As if Masaaki's unique ... art style wasn't enough, the way the anime mixes it with other forms of animation throughout the movie to create excellent scenes is absolutely mind blowing.

Soundtrack (9/10): This anime has a not so conventional soundtrack that fits in very well with the rest of the anime, and it has some interesting songs like "Viva!" and "Como Estas".

Enjoyment (10/10): It's a mesmerizing anime from start to finish, with no moment that doesn't capture your attention, which is excellent for an anime in movie format. It provides an experience that very few anime can offer.

Overall, this is a magnificent work, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys not only anime but art as a whole.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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May 19, 2024

SmokingTire

Mixed Feelings

This animated movie is definitely unique in style, however in lacks a narrative through line (specifically the ending). At the last stage of the movie it seems to end twice? meaning it showed us the title card two times along with a assortment of short animated sequences we have already seen before from the beginning of the movie.
I think with some light editing work this movie could valued much higher than it already is. I enjoyed the direction style and shot composition, the usage of colors was great to see. I think we spend to much time in the whale and the movie cuts off ... at an interesting point (what happens when they leave the whale?!) ie the gangsters coming after them. Of course there is some character progression with the MC.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 9, 2012

mjharper

Not Recommended

I like arty and pretentious anime as much as the anyone. I think Neon Genesis Evangelion, whose seemingly innocuous mecha beginnings give way to stream-of-consciousness psychoanalyzing, is a high-water mark. Confusing or confused, it's worth it. And I'm a huge fan of Satoshi Kon's work, all of which pushes the limits of anime. I enjoy the challenging stuff.

So when I read several fairly glowing reviews of Mind Game, I was curious. But I'm not sure if we were all watching the same film. Yes, the art and animation are spectacular, shifting between contrasting styles with grace and ease. It's certainly a visual showcase. Yet none ... of the reviews mention the aspects I'm going to talk about below; and I'm inclined to think that beyond the artwork, Mind Game is really just art-house by numbers. Fill in the dots between seemingly edgy elements, and you'll have a great piece of cinema. Or not.

Take the characters. Nishi is a wannabe Manga-artist. Fine. Myon wanted to be a swimmer until her breasts got in the way. Um, fine. The old man prepares gourmet dinners and talks to his friends, the dinosaurs. Whatever. And Yan wants to be a performance artist and likes nothing more that taping balloons to her chest, covering herself with paint, and throwing herself at canvas. While trapped inside a whale. Er… what?

This is all meant to be psychedelic and avant-garde, I suppose. Subtle it isn't. For example: Nishi tells Myon a story about space explorers for whom the only source of food on the planet they were stranded on was alien excrement. But then it turns out that the space explorers were actually on a cell in Myon's body, and they grew larger until being flushed out of her system. You can imagine the details, I'm sure. This charming tale has the inexplicable effect of seducing Myon; I can only suppose that her eyes were so clouded with love that saw in it the unrestrained imagination of her beau, and that the story was meant to have the same effect on the viewer. Personally, I just thought it was tasteless.

Duly seduced, Myon and Nishi have sex. Fortunately, there isn't any nudity, as their bodies dissolve into a kaleidoscope of lines, colours and images. Unfortunately, this sequence resembles nothing so much as a 1969 sketch by Monty Python: trains entering tunnels and then crashing, waves lashing against the shore, that sort of thing. Only in the sketch, we ultimately pan away to reveal an inept guy playing the film to his increasingly frustrated girlfriend. See, the Python sketch is a parody. Which says a lot for the sequence in Mind Game.

It's as if the whole thing is trying too hard to be different, to be absurd, to be psychedelic. Towards the end all four of the main cast pool their resources to escape, rowing as hard as they can through the water-filled stomach of the whale—until their boat is broken. With only the momentum to carry them forward, they use whatever comes their way as leverage to propel them forwards: bits of wood... fish... a fly... Onwards they run, as the whale swallows successively large objects: a ship, an airplane (which explodes behind them), an office block, which Nishi has to navigate his way through, leaping over tables and through windows…

Then finally we see a almost identical stream of images to those which opened the movie, only with slight differences; so whereas at the start Myon caught her foot in the door of an underground train, now she doesn't. This is art-house by numbers again: repeat the same four minutes of footage with minor changes and in so doing give 'meaning' to the changes. What it actually means is not actually the issue; the fact that it's meaningful is all that's important.

In the end, Mind Game is a hodgepodge of highbrow and lowbrow; of comments about breast size and toilet jokes combined with literary references and pseudo-symbolism. Perhaps it wants to exploit the contrast in a kind of cinematic magical realism; but in my view it fails completely. Nothing represents the film better than Yan's paint dancing: it wants to be art, but it's mired in vulgarity.

Bought, watched, and offered for sale on amazon marketplace before I'd even finished it.
__________
Poor; I wish I'd done something better with my time. Its merits are few and far between.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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