Mind Game is a 2004 Japanese animated feature film based on Robin Nishi's manga of the same name. It was planned, produced and primarily animated by Studio 4°C and adapted and directed by Masaaki Yuasa in his directorial debut, with chief animation direction and model sheets by Yūichirō Sueyoshi, art direction by Tōru Hishiyama and groundwork and further animation direction by Masahiko Kubo. It is unusual among features other than anthology films in using a series of disparate visual styles to tell one continuous story. As Yuasa commented in a Japan Times interview, "Instead of telling it serious and straight, I went for a look that was a bit wild and patchy. I think that Japanese animation fans today don't necessarily demand something that's so polished. You can throw different styles at them and they can still usually enjoy it." The film received a cult audience and was well received, winning [|multiple awards worldwide], and has been praised by directors Satoshi Kon and Bill Plympton. Allegedly, according to Tekkonkinkreet director Michael Arias, there was consideration for a release of the film on R1 DVD but it fell through. The film is now available to stream on Netflix in Australia as of 2016. GKIDS announced that they licensed the film, which streamed on VRV Select on December 29, 2017 followed by a limited theatrical run in February 2018 and a home video release in spring 2018.
Plot
Nishi is a 20-year-old loser with dreams of becoming a comic book artist. One late evening he runs into his childhood crush, Myon, on the subway. She tells Nishi she is due to marry. Nishi has flashbacks of exchanging love letters and messages with Myon and fantasizes declaring his love for her, but in reality fails to actually say anything. They go to her father's yakitori restaurant, and see Myon's father and her elder sister Yan. Nishi also meets Myon's fiancée, Ryo. Two yakuza gangsters enter, Atsu and a senior yakuza whom Atsu calls Aniki. They are looking for Myon's father, who seduced and stole Atsu's girlfriend, and now hides cowering behind a corner. It is later revealed through flashbacks that the senior yakuza is actually the first boyfriend of the girls' mother, who was also seduced away by her husband during a disco in their youth. As Atsu threatens Myon with a gun, Ryo steps in and tries to punch Atsu, but instead gets knocked out. Atsu then prepares to rape Myon, who calls out Nishi's name. Atsu turns on Nishi, who is rolled in a ball, terrified, placing his pistol against Nishi's anus. Atsu fires when Nishi finally musters the courage to yell, "I will hurt you!", thus killing him instantly. The senior Yakuza, offended by Atsu's lack of control, shoots him dead, and then nonchalantly orders dinner. Meanwhile, Nishi is in some sort of limbo where he encounters a being whose physical image changes every fraction of a second, Kami-sama. Kami-sama directs Nishi to walk into a red portal where he will disappear, but at the last moment Nishi runs for the opposite blue portal in order to return to life. Kami-sama becomes impressed by Nishi's sheer will to live, and so lets him escape. Nishi returns to the moment just before Atsu pulled the trigger. This time, Nishi seizes Atsu's gun with his buttocks, and shoots him dead. He, Yan and Myon all pile into the yakuza's car, leaving the father and Ryo behind. They speed off, followed by the massed yakuzas. The Yakuza boss calls Nishi using the yakuza's car phone and reveals that Atsu was a player on the Japanese national soccer team, threatening to frame the three for armed robbery and murder. Then after further chase the boss has his men force the trio in to a dead end on a bridge. However, Nishi steers the car off the bridge and they are swallowed up by an enormous whale. Inside the whale, they meet an old man who was formerly yakuza and has been trapped in the whale for more than 30 years.. He shows them to the elaborate suspended house he has constructed over the 'sea' inside the whale's belly. Nishi attempts to escape the whale but he fails and they resign themselves to life inside the whale. Yan practices dancing and art, Myon practices swimming, Nishi practices writing and drawing humorous manga and he and Myon finally become sexually intimate. They attempt to leave the whale, again failing. The old man reveals that the water level inside the whale is rising, and he believes the whale is probably dying. They concoct a plan to make a motor boat using spare parts and fuel from the car they arrived in. On the day before the final match of the soccer World Cup, the whale returns to Osaka and Yan, Nishi, and Myon, as well as the Old Man, manage to escape. As the four fly through the air, the film returns to its very first scene, with Myon running from the Yakuza, only this time she does not get her leg caught in the door of the train, and the Yakuza is left behind on the platform. This is followed by a lengthy montage, similar to that of the opening credits, showing the histories of the various characters. The movie ends ambiguously, with the phrase "This Story Has Never Ended" appearing before the credits roll.
The film's accolades include the Ōfuji Noburō Award at the 2005 Mainichi Film Awards and the Animation Division Grand Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2004, outranking nominee Howl's Moving Castle. Outside Japan, the film had its international premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival in June 2005. It had possibly its biggest success at the Fantasia Festival in Canada in July 2005, wherein it beat many live-action films to win all three of the festival's own jury awards it qualified for: Best Film, Best Director and Best Script. It also received an additional Special Award for "Visual Accomplishment", as well as placing first in the audience award for best Best Animation Film and second, behind Survive Style 5+, for Most Groundbreaking Film. Despite these accolades, as of July 2011 the film's only home video release in a primarily English-speaking country is a region 4-locked, "PAL" DVD-Video released in Australia by Madman Entertainment in 2008, though the Japanese DVDs have English subtitles for the feature itself. On April Fool's Day in 2018, the movie aired on Adult Swim's Toonami block with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
