Mind Game, the directorial debut of animator Masaaki Yuasa, returned to theaters in the United States on Friday. The 2004 film was licensed for North American release by New York-based film distributor GKIDS last November at Anime NYC.

GKIDS will continue to hold screenings of Mind Game in select cities through the end of March. Following last night's premiere in Los Angeles, the film will open in New York City on March 2 at the newly completed indie theater Metrograph. The distributor also plans to release the film on home video in the spring.

Mind Game, an adaptation of the 1990s manga of the same name by Robin Nishi, won the Animation Division Grand Prize at the 8th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2005. In awarding the prize, judges praised Yuasa's "highly skilled animation techniques and expert sense of storytelling" and called it "the summit of expression" for cel animation at the time.

After winning awards in Japan, Mind Game made its international premiere several months later at the New York Asian Film Festival. The film went on to be screened in the international circuit at a number of film festivals, where it also won multiple awards, but it was never released for home video in the United States.

Official site: http://www.mindgamemovie.com/

Source: Official press release