Mind Game (2004)

Director Masaaki Yuasa
Studio Studio4°C



Yesterday, we saw MindGame, which was such a mindblowing experience that I had to share this. I will not get into the story and I don't recommend going to wikki since there is a serious amount of spoilers in the summary.

Being a huge fan of the studio which had done astonishing work on the Animatrix series and one of my all time favorites Tekkon Kinkreet (2006) and Spriggan (1998), amongst many, I was craving to get my hands on this piece ever since I saw the trailer. The Trailer gives a pretty good impression on the visual and artistic ballistics which are fired upon your brain in an unbelievable manner for 100 minutes, nothing I have seen since The Flying Circuis Series comes even close to this. For the visuals alone, this film is worth a cheggedicheck.

To be honest, I did expect the story to be somewhat complicated and hard to follow, which is not uncommon for Japanese animation and also the reason I have to see these movies more than once to grasp them. So I got myself in the David Lynch mode and put it on. The film throws many nonlinear sequences at you, brakes lines of thought here and there but it is a genuine plasant and easy to follow ride. Storytelling is deliberately confusing at first to give the viewer this sense of being lost, but the narration pulls it together nicely which enhances the joy of the conclusion even more. The film surfaced in 2004 and I am somewhat sad that it took five years to be released in Germany but I guess for me, the film comes just in the right time. Just when I was coming out of a rather annoying illness and trying to get my ass back in gear to tackle all the issues that build up when I was physically and mentally incapacitated, this film reminded me of what it is that I love about animation and why I want to invest so much of my life into this art form.

Go rent and buy the DVD now.