Tentacle-Free Anime: "Mind Game" (2004)Over the 4th of July weekend, I took a trip with my girlfriend's family to a cabin in the woods and we explored a ginormous nearby lake and it was really wonderful. The scenery was beautiful, we spied many deer and their babies. Played in the lake. And the nearby town was pretty damn cool as well. It was a great adventure.
Mind Game is a very, very, very experimental piece of fiction more-so than many of the works of anime we have covered on this site. From its narration choices, to animation style, to overall tone. Everything about this anime feels unique and unlike anything that has ever truly come before or after it. A movie by Studio 4°C, a studio that dabbles mostly in creating artsy anime films, Mind Game strives for individuality and to say something about the human mind, the lengths of which people will go to survive life or death situations, and how minuscule events can change entire paths people take in their lives.
That all being said, I'm not huge on this one. I know, I know, I just hyped it up only to knock it down, but let me explain. The thing about Mind Game for me isn't how experimental it is. I like experimental works quite a bit. It all comes down to the narration choices of the story. If the movie could have stuck its landing better than it did, then I probably would have enjoyed it much more; however, both times I watched the film I walked away feeling like it was just a waste of my time. The first bit of Mind Game takes place mostly in a diner ran by a man and his two daughters. Both of which the main character likes. However, when a gangster and his thug buddy join the party, things immediately begin to go awry. They want to kill the diner owner and they'll do whatever sleazy, evil thing they have to to get his attention. This includes killing our main character after he stands up to them, and the proceeding to attempt to rape on one of his daughters. Then the truly strange things begin. Our main character, Nishi, is returned to the world of the living and is able to keep things from happening as bad as they had before. Him and the two girls escape and, during a car chase, are swallowed up by a whale that gobbles them up after they veer off the side of a bridge. 
Some of that good ole rotoscoping
If this sounds strange to you, well, welcome to the Mind Game. This next section is truly the most interesting part of the movie to me and I'm sure most other people would agree, because it's where the bulk of events happen. Now our three main characters are stuck inside a whale's stomach where they meet an old man who's set up a tree house like home inside the whale. Their time spent here is incredibly fun. We get to see the kids grow up, the man learn to have the will to survive again, and we get to see all of them get into a crap ton of shenanigans. There's sex at one point, Myon dresses up like a fetish doll and prances about with water filled balloons for boobs and a penis. Yan ends up getting her hair to an incredibly boyish length in a rather freeing moment for the character. And these people get to talk, truly, about their feelings for one another. It's really nice and where Mind Game is at the height of its power with its narrative. Where everything falls apart for me is in the ending, and I do feel like that's important to discuss here. Good thing I put a spoiler warning at the beginning. Towards the end there's this obnoxiously long scene where we focus on each individual character as they run at incredibly fast speeds using different debris objects the whale is swallowing in order to escape it. I actually quite like this scene. Though I feel it drags on, I think its a lot of fun to watch. It's so absurd, but not any more absurd than what's already transpired in this film. 
The bellies of the beasts
But then, after they escape, we get an immediate rerun of footage we first saw at the very beginning of the film that shows the lives of our characters as the grew up from babies to adults, all leading up to the moment at the beginning of the film where Myon gets her shoes stuck in some train doors which kicks off this entire film. Only here she doesn't get her shoe stuck and thus we see a bit of how the story plays out differently and suddenly none of the events up until now matter to the story. All the character growth becomes moot and it really stings to see as so much momentum was built up for the story until then. Quite literally in some cases, with the aforementioned running up a whale's throat scene. Perhaps I just don't get it as well as I think I do, and there's some key ingredient I'm missing, but ultimately the time and effort put into the story, sitting through all the admittedly awesome and crazy experimental animation and trying to piece together what all of this means and why all of this bizarre stuff is even happening and what it all adds up to be literally becomes pointless for me when I see that none of it meant anything to begin with. Perhaps I'm also being too harsh on this film, and it's more about the journey than the destination. But if a movie like Mind Game is really trying to blow my mind, which is evident in everything about it, then it can do so truly by making it all mean so much more than just to be there for eye candy. I want to like this movie. But there are just parts about it that grate on me so much. That being said, I really liked the funky animation in all of this, so let's discuss that next. 
Gotta go fast
The animation, to put it lightly, is wild. The incredibly fluid nature of it and how low-budget it looks adds so much to the charm of the film. This really comes across as an artsy film and you can see it in the way everything moves and wobbles, while remaining polygonal all at the same time. There's even moments where the animation is blended with rotoscoped live action people in place of their characters and its quite disconcerting at first, but you get used to it. If anything, my favorite thing about this movie is its awesome out there concepts and usage of animation. And for that I can recommend it, if you're looking for a story that will absolutely blow you away however... this isn't it, I'm sad to say. Final Score: 2 Fetish Dancers out of 5 Have you seen Mind Game? Do you agree with our man Kazekun? Let us know in the comments! 
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