Mind Game

Nishi, an awkward young manga artist in Osaka, has had on longstanding crush on Myon. Thing is, Myon's got a thing for rugged Ryo. Matters come to a head at her sister Yan's yakitori restaurant, in the presence of the girl's dissolute father — who happens to owe a bunch of money to a pair of creepy gangsters, who've come to collect. Things get ugly, and Nishi gets killed in a brutal, graphic fashion. End of the story? No way, that's just the start. Pulling a fast one on God (in all his/her/its infinite manifestations), Nishi hightails it back to Earth, where he replays the crime to his advantage, steals a car and grabs the girls. Under a hail of yakuza gunfire, he bails off a bridge — and into the mouth of a whale. There, he and his two female companions encounter a tenacious and lively old man who has set up camp in the beast's belly, longing to someday return to human company on dry land. With no immediate exit available, the quartet make do — fishing, fighting, making love, weaving tales of strange happenings on faraway planets and dreaming of life in the real world. Will they ever set foot there again?