This movie is to a human mind what solving a really complex formula is to a physicist: an eureka! What I mean by this is this movie has all the elements of a life changing experience. You go expecting another entertaining dime-a-dozen type of film but you come out bewildered instead. Okay sure maybe this is a bit of an overstatement but it deserves some overstating since it only gets a poor review of not even 8 stars here on IMDb. I decided to give it a full 10.I am not going to spoil the experience for you and I will just to sum it up in a few short words. This is the story of a loser named Nishi who bumps into his old flame while she's being chased by some bad guys. They eventually end up the girl's family restaurant where bad guys show up things go horribly wrong and everything changes for everyone.I found the little snippets in between the story to be most valuable rather than the story itself. Although you need to follow the story closely to understand the snippets. Is is the little things that count. This movie is a lesson. Maybe some sort of don't do what I did type of lesson I don't know. But whatever it is I feel is the only drug you can take visually. Enjoy.

Purely form over content anime that combines a variety of styles to tell the story(?) of a guy in love with a girl and the gangsters who chase them and the people they meet and...your guess is as good as mine since the film restarts and shifts and goes in out out of thoughts and hopes and minds. I can't describe it you really have to see it. Violent, sexually frank and with other material that people might find offensive (this would get an R rating) this is a film thats in your face and in your head. I kind of understand why this film was a big to do a few years ago since as an experience the film is simply overwhelming. I got to a certain point and wanted to raise my hand and say I'm full now. Actually I had to go through this in pieces since it was too much.Its the sort of thing that I wish was more readily available for people to see (I had to get a region 4 Australian DVD in order to see it) but at the same time I completely understand why it hasn't been released widely in the US and elsewhere, its a film that I think companies would have a hard time marketing with many people loving it and many more going "WTF?" Actually in saying all of that about the experience of seeing the film I haven't said how it it is. As a movie, or as a story its a mess. Its scatter shot and rambling taking odd turns in order to come up with great sequences, many of which look great but don't hang together. Its a film that leaves the audience wondering what in the hell is going on. Is it any good? As an experience yes, its great, I mean who needs drugs? As a story its up and down. I'm mixed. That said if you want an experience you really have to see this.

This movie is really what the title says it is. At first I thought the title was bad, since it didn't say anything about the film, but in the end I realized it does.If you are looking for a normal story (you know, with a start, an end, a punchline) you are not going to find it in this anime. The animation is coarse, not like the classic Japanese animation, a bit like Tokyo Godfathers, but even more symbolic. So why is this film so great?Because of the feeling. Plot and animation separately don't make this great, but together they do. The moral of it all is that you must live your life to the fullest and enjoy everything life throws at you, since it is all you have. No one else is going to live your life or enjoy what you have.My thoughts are that this story is deeply personal to Robin Nishi and, even if a lot of the symbols in it can be singled out and understood, most of it you are left to guess. An argument for this is the torrent of animation sequences that don't make sense in the beginning of the movie, repeated at the end of the movie and suddenly making sense. I believe that is the greatest innovation of this anime.Bottom line: this is an art film. This time I mean it in a good sense :). Perhaps because it has a positive view on live and it is more accessible. Anyway, if you are ready for its message and are in the mood for a fun carpe diem story, you gotta see this. If you've enjoyed Tokyo Godfathers, then you will also like this movie.

Like most people here, I saw Mind Game on a festival - in my case, Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2006 and was simply blown away. I am no fan of anime (I wasn't before Mind Game), because the ones I have seen before seemed either too violent (Akira) or difficult to appreciate because of the Japanese cultural peculiarities (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke).Mind Game seems to be a blend of Japanese and Western cinematography with only a few cultural barriers for westerners. I believe there are influences by Coen brothers (the hilarious episode with milk vs. "Mr. Mussburger is such a nice man, I give him double stitch anyways"), Run Lola Run, even Amelie. Perhaps the plot is inspired by the book of Job? Add to this Japanese imagination and intentionally left space for interpretation.While the plot is inventive and complex enough, it is not what makes the film, in my opinion. It is the ability to focus on tiniest details and create, well, a detailed consistent absurdist universe.Hopefully, it will be easier to find future creations of the same authors.