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

Yan Supporting

Takuma, Seiko Japanese

Yakuza Supporting

Nishi, Rintarou Japanese

Atsu Supporting

Chuujou, Kenichi Japanese

Watanabe, Shinichirou Producer

Tanaka, Eiko Producer

Yuasa, Masaaki Director, Script, Character Design

Fayray Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Jul 22, 2008

Beatnik

Recommended

Contrary to the title, this doesn't so much play with your mind as it rubs its crotch against it furiously and dunks it in an ocean full of hallucinogen.

Produced by one of the most innovative animation studios around, Mind Game takes an abstract approach to a theme that a lot of mainstream anime has been promoting to viewers for decades: Don't give up, live life.

You see it everywhere, from Naruto to Mobile Suit Gundam to Ghibli. Anime is always reminding you of how short life is; encouraging you to stop watching it and go outside. Stop being self-conscious, act freely, chase your ... dreams, jump into the melting pot of humanity!

Mind Game's humorous approach is through a breezy kind of animation style that isn't afraid to become inconsistent at random moments. The most striking moments are when characters' faces are replaced by actual real life actors, which gives a surreal charm to the whole thing. A reason why I keep thinking of obscure quirky live action Japanese films, like Survive Style Five+, instead of other anime, because that's where Mind Game's sensibilities lie.

It is both aware and ignorant of the fact that it's animated, taking full advantage of the medium to show us wonderfully insane visuals, and ignoring it to use a narrative template that is underused in anime-land which is obsessed with plot driving the characters rather than the other way around, and whenever it is the other way around its labelled as 'slice of life'.

Not so much slice of life in Mind Game as it is a gigantic bite. We follow Nishi as he hooks up with a childhood sweetheart, we laugh at a violently ugly encounter in a restaurant, we grin stupidly at a loony action scene and spend the long remainder of the film captivated by a couple humans stripped bare, their hearts naked for all to see, and with that freedom enforced on them they're truly able to live life like they never were before.

The enforced freedom ultimately has to be taken away, which results in the film's powerful climax which is basically a race for life. A metaphorical dash across the debris of 21st century living; a furious rush that takes everything in the characters to achieve a future full of life and possibilities.

Mind Game itself shows the future and possibilities of anime. Another accomplishment for Studio 4C.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Dec 17, 2008

Redward

Mixed Feelings

This was a 'solid' effort. Fair. Decent. Average. 6 out of 10. There isn't a modest and balanced review for this movie on this site yet, and I feel its fair to those who are interested in it to realize its not the '10 OUT OF 10 FIVE STARS 1000%!!!!' bonanza its been made out to be. However, if you're convinced this movie is just that, don't read on.

Despite the title, this isn't a movie that will mess with your head or challenge you to think. It has a very simple message, one that was clearly stated: Live Life. The characters go on ... a journey that, while being fantastic, ended up feeling like a hollow victory come the climax. You can either blame that on the "reset button" ending or on the fact they chose to send us on acid trips over fleshing out the story.

The characters themselves were very much the same as the story. Decent, with some depth, but you could feel as though there was a wealth more to be explored that simply wasn't for one reason or another. Again, more time was given to the exploration of the art.

But what about the art? This movie is probably best known for its atypical style and beautifully executed animation. The problem though is its not a matter of execution, its a matter of content. Yes, the animation was expertly done, but the animation itself was a Wal-Mart bargain bin of good, bad, and indistinguishable. In this department, it really relies on the person watching and their preferences. Personally, I found it to be distracting and in some cases, absurd.

Basically it should come to this. If you've seen the movie or if you're thinking of watching it, ask yourself this one question..."Did I enjoy it?" . No, don't ask yourself if you 'understood everything' or if you 'appreciated the art'...ask yourself if you truly and honestly 'enjoyed' it.

Personally, its not a movie I'll watch again nor a movie I'll forget. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't that one amazing movie that its hyped to be either. It falls in the middle of the road.

It was fair. Decent. Average. 6 out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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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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	Is that a one piece reference? PurpleAki - Feb 6	5 replies	by HenryTheWorm »» Feb 22, 5:31 AM
	Poll: Mind Game Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Beatnik - Jul 22, 2008	97 replies	by DarkSageRK »» Jan 15, 1:51 PM
	Best sex scene ever!! Oreki777 - Jul 5, 2021	5 replies	by aru4l »» May 12, 2024 2:40 PM
	Do the protagonist end together? theanimefreak95 - Nov 14, 2015	5 replies	by R0ak »» Apr 1, 2018 12:13 AM
	Masaaki Yuasa's debut film Mind Game getting a Kickstarter GoldNautilus - Mar 27, 2017	2 replies	by GoldNautilus »» Mar 30, 2017 8:30 PM

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