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Ani-Marathon: Mind Game

Japan | 2004 | 103 min. | Massaki Yuasa, Koji Morimoto

Opens April 19, 2026

After a deadly encounter with two yakuza, a loser with a crush on his childhood girlfriend goes to heaven and back, embarking on a psychedelic self-discovery experience with her and his friends.

Tickets

Select showtime for pricing, tickets, and reserved seating selection (see floor plan).

Sunday, April 19, 2026

SIFF Cinema Downtown

8:00 PM

Friday, April 24, 2026

SIFF Cinema Downtown

9:00 PM

Buckle in and prepare to surrender yourself to an exhilarating and wildly entertaining ride. Cult classic Mind Game is an explosion of unconstrained expression – gloriously colorful mages ricochet in rapid fire associations, like Masaaki Yuasa’s brain splattered onto the screen in all its goopy glory.

Audiences will begin to grasp what they are in for early on as loser Nishi, too wimpy to try to save his childhood sweetheart from gangsters, is shot in the butt by a soccer-playing psychopath, projecting Nishi into the afterlife. In this limbo, God – shown as a series of rapidly changing characters – tells him to walk toward the light. But Nishi runs like hell in the other direction and returns to Earth a changed man, driven to live each moment to the fullest.

  • Director: Massaki Yuasa, Koji Morimoto
  • Principal Cast: Koji Imada, Sayaka Maeda, Takashi Fujii, Seiko Takuma
  • Country: Japan
  • Year: 2004
  • Running Time: 103 min.
  • Producer: Rika Hatakeda
  • Screenplay: Masaaki Yuasa
  • Language: Japanese
  • Has Subtitles: Yes
  • US Distributor: GKids