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{{trope}}
* Three words: '''''[[
** While the actual series is majorly mind-screwy, it's ''End of Evangelion'' that truly takes trope and flings it out the window into unexplored territory. For the two of you out there who haven't seen it, I'll just give you one quick example- {{spoiler|It involves a giant robot being transformed into the tree of life by a set of nine other giant robots crucifying themselves and a huge tuning fork, then getting plunged into the vagina-forehead of a giant alien who has taken on the form of the male lead's mother's clone. This is to save the world. Probably.}}
*** {{spoiler|And then, everyone gets a hug and turns into glowy [[Fan Nickname|Tang]], there's some conversation about human nature, the giant alien falls apart and spurts a giant stream of blood onto the moon, and lastly, "Kimochi warui".}} Post any segment of ''End of Evangelion'' at or past Lilith's rise for other people to watch and a good portion of reviews will ask "What the **** did I just watch!?!"
**** Disclaimer: {{spoiler|Unless it's Jet Alone, in EVA "robot" means "giant cyborg made by cloning an angel, growing it in a probe, putting it into armor that restrains it to a 80 meters tall vaguely humanoid form, then transplanting a woman's soul into it". And getting her child to pilot it.}}
** And that said Aliens may or may not actually be {{spoiler|Shadow/Light? Archetypes of the rejected/lost Aspects of Humans, Minor Deities that take the form of Eldritch Abominations from under/above the Sea/Lava/Sky/IN SPACE.}}
** Gainax actually has made fun of this in ''[[FLCL]]'' with Kamon, where they [[Take That, Audience!|take pot-shots at fans]] [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory|for overanalyzing it]].
** Just don't even bother trying to figure it out, you'll only get extremely depressed Which is appropriate, in that the creator was extremely depressed and possibly literally crazy at the time he came up with it.
*** Actually, at the time he was going through therapy for his depression and other issues. What we see is the creator dredging up all his deep-seated issues and uncertainties, rather than just the minor impact of a depressed writer. The remake, made years after therapy and with him now married and happy, has a decidedly different tone.
**** Yes, the change in tone and divergent [[Character Development]] enables even the familiar fanbase to hold out hope for that last minute save, the unambiguously happy
* If you think Eva is confusing, watch ''[[
* The ''[[
* Surprisingly for an episodic [[Science Fiction]] [[Film Noir]] anime that's packed with pop culture references and driven entirely by its music, ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' ''loves'' this. This is especially apparent in Pierrot Le Fou and [[Path of Inspiration|Brain Scratch]].
* The movie of ''[[Ghost in
* ''[[Melody of Oblivion]]'', also by [[Gainax]], is a good example of this.
* ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]''. We dare you to try to make sense out of it without help. Or... well, even ''with'' help.
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** The manga is even worse about it. Good luck!
* On those two notes, pretty much anything by [[Studio Gainax]] will have at least some traces of Mind Screw...even ''[[Petite Princess Yucie]]''.
* ''[[
* ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou
** Zetsubou's [[Spiritual Successor]], ''[[
* ''[[Uzumaki]]'' starts getting weird within the first 10 pages. Then things are constantly [[It Got Worse|getting worse]], and it's not until the very last page that things are starting to make sense again.
** [[Apocalyptic Log|Although]] [[And I Must Scream|it's]] [[Kill'Em All|not]] [[Eldritch Abomination|really]] [[Cosmic Horror Story|for]] [[Downer Ending|the best...]]
* ''[[
* ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]''. ''Utena'''s director Ikuhara has expressed particular, almost sadistic, delight in the despair fans have shown over figuring things out. Some of his more famous [[The Walrus Was Paul|replies to fans]] have been "Miki keeps timing things because his watch contains the secret of the universe" and "The reason Utena turns into a car in the movie is because I really wanted to turn a cute girl into a car."
** ''[[Mawaru Penguindrum]]'', also by [[Kunihiko Ikuhara]], has elements of this.
* ''[[Perfect Blue]]'' by [[Satoshi Kon]].
* ''[[
** {{spoiler|[[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] turns guilt and repression into a real life serial killer. Since these are staples of Japanese culture, most of the country (well, [[The Tokyo Fireball|Tokyo anyway]], the rest we don't see much) dies.}}
* ''[[Dead Leaves]]'' takes this [[Up to Eleven]]. It begins with a guy who looks like Canti from ''[[FLCL]]'' and a girl with a weird eye marking waking up naked in the middle of nowhere, and ends with a super-intelligent (?) baby coming out of the girl's panties with [[Guns Akimbo]], putting enough [[More Dakka|dakka]] in the air to kill a bull elephant, and flying off into space to kill a giant worm. Retro, the Canti [[Expy]], frequently comments along the lines of [[Captain Obvious|"This is so screwed up."]]
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** It doesn't help that it's a sequel to a novel, which it completely fails to mention. If you've seen that, it becomes a lot easier to comprehend, though still heavily in the [[Mind Screw]] department.
** It also, unlike Evangelion, starts out confusing and gets more understandable (slightly) as it goes along.
* The hentai/horror anime ''[[
** [[Porn Without Plot|What, its fans care for the plot?]]
* ''[[Texhnolyze]]'' is another big recent example, with a ''lot'' of [[Rule of Symbolism|symbolism]] that will require several viewings in order to fully understand everything.
** As a matter of fact, this is rather expected, since ''Texhnolyze'' has ''a lot'' of the original staff from ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]''.
* The "Land of Books" episode of ''[[
* The ending of ''[[
* ''[[Paprika]]'' by [[Satoshi Kon]], notice a trend?
** Relatedly, the director [[Satoshi Kon]] has been much kinder than most and explained the movie as "following dream logic" and that we should just [[MST3K Mantra|go with it]].
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* ''[[Ghost Hound]]''. = Psychological conditions + I can't tell what's real and what's a dream + awesome, creepy ambient music + the supernatural + I can see your butt.
* ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]''. So ambiguous and convoluted at times that official translators admit in the notes that they're basically making a guess and winging it. Unofficial translators do not say such in the notes only because that takes up space better filled by actively and profusely cursing at CLAMP.
** While not ''quite'' as bad, its sister series ''[[
** Making a timeline for this series [[Stable Time Loop|is]] [[Cosmic Retcon|practically]] [[Beyond the Impossible|impossible]]. And don't even think about trying to create a [[Cloning Blues|character]] [[My Own Grampa|chart]].
** Even the ''characters'' are baffled by some of what's going on.
*** Among the characters that have expressed a great deal of confusion ''is [[The Chessmaster]] [[Big Bad]]''. AKA, the man who ''planned'' a decent chunk of the confusing events.
** And believe or not, in a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]], now that [[
* ''[[Genocyber]]'', because there's a totally unexplained [[Time Skip]] between the first and second arcs, compounded by the fact that the first arc has [[No Ending]].
* ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]''. The [[Anachronic Order]] will mess you up, since you cannot relate half of the stuff being said. Furthermore, it gets hard to follow in the 4th novel ''Disappearance'' and its continuance in another novel, where [[Time Travel|time traveling]] is combined with [[Alternate Universe|alternate universes]]. It may take you 2 times to read just to understand ''how'' they actually managed to [[Stable Time Loop|solve it]]. The 9th (current) novel features two realities, ''for no apparent reason'', in which different stuff happens. And it ends with a [[Cliff Hanger]], so we still don't know what's going on.
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** And don't forget about the time where we enter an endless recursion of time. Reading/watching Endless Eight for the first time will have just about anyone trying to figure out what in the world is actually going on.
* ''[[Earth Maiden Arjuna]]''. On one hand, the general theme of letting the earth be and saving the environment from unnatural influences is pretty clear. On the other hand, the details of the plot are rather surreal, to say nothing of the presentation...
* ''[[
** Being the spiritual successor to ''[[Chaos
* ''[[Soul Taker (
** Make that ''[[Devilman]]'' meets ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
** It, Lain, and Texhnolyze all have one thing in common: [[Yoshitoshi
* ''[[Mononoke]]'', particularly the "Noppera-bou" story.
* You have ''[[
* ''[[Night
* ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]'', of all things, has hints of this, though you'd have to look ''really, really'' closely to notice them. Things like showing a shot of a character looking out of an empty window, turning the camera away for a moment, then turning back to the window, only this time the pink-tinted clock tower seen throughout the series is visible through it. Hey, it's made by the same guys as ''[[Utena]]'', what did you expect?
** In the first episode, clips of light bulbs turning on are shown as more of the characters realize [[
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' Season 4. Those three seasons that made it look like your typical [[Gaming and Sports Anime And Manga]] were just deceiving you.
** The fun starts in Season 3, when suddenly the main enemy is a severely psychologically damaged Eldritch Abomination intent on proving their affection by putting the {{[[[Break the Cutie]] protagonist}} through horrendous trauma. That's the straightforward part.
* Once they start talking about the [[Starfish Aliens|Coralians]] in [[Eureka Seven]], get ready to not understand ANYTHING.
* A mild version at the end of the ''[[
* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro
** The sequel, ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
** ''[[When They Cry]]'' in general is a huge [[Mind Screw]] because of {{spoiler|Rika Furude and Frederica Bernkastel, though it's all but confirmed that the Bernkastel in ''Higurashi'' is also the witch Bernkastel in ''Umineko''.}} Well, that and the whole issue with cranking [[Unreliable Narrator]] [[Up to Eleven]]. It's now ''official'' that you can't trust anything but {{spoiler|the parts Battler's narrating in episodes 1-4 and the parts Erika's narrating in episode 5}} of ''Umineko'', and ''Higurashi'' had entire arcs narrated by people who were hallucinating.
* ''[[Baccano
** Wasn't that just a set of [[Match Cut|match cuts]]? He picks up a newspaper in the office, and it cuts to her reminiscing and then it cuts back when he hits the fly. It's implied that he was folding the paper from the office as she was remembering.
** ''[[Baccano
* ''[[Darker
* ''[[Casshern Sins]]'' is kind of hard to understand in general, but you can tend to take all the symbolism in stride. Episode 18, however, just kicks your brains out. It seems a fairly standard episode of Lyuze, who is trying to kill the robot who killed her sister, but actually loves him too. She dreams of her sister telling her not to forget her. But in the middle of all that, we have random photographs of a woman. No, I mean... PHOTOGRAPHS. As in of a human, not an anime character. {{spoiler|Given the themes of the episode, it may be her voice actor, but who knows?}}
* ''Yakuza Girl''. So much. Starts off as a standard [[Fan Service|tits]]-n-[[Gorn|gore]] [[Seinen]] sort of manga, and just spirals into "[[Memetic Mutation|WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN]]" territory. When a psychic preventing the bombing of Hiroshima by freezing the plane in time (and midair) for ''50+ years'' isn't even the ''strangest'' part of the series, you know you've got a [[Mind Screw]] series on your hands...
* ''[[Cat Soup]]'' is one extreme 30-minute instance of this trope.
* ''[[Key the Metal Idol]]'', commonly described as the strangest anime ever made when it was released.
* ''[[
* Urasawa's ''[[
* ''[[Billy Bat]]'', also by Urasawa, is doing well with the Mind Screw aspects, what with the [[Timey-Wimey Ball|timeline shenanigans]], future-predicting/altering cartoon characters, [[Ancient Conspiracy|ancient conspiracies]], and real-life events smashing into each other.
* In ''[[Boku
* Some episodes of ''[[Mushishi]]''
* The manga version of ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' has elements of this, thanks to its [[Gainax Ending]]. For the most part [[It Makes Sense in Context]], but finding out that {{spoiler|what you've been told are demons for most of the series are actually ''aliens'', their "hell" is a [[Space Whale]] under the ocean, and their [[Hive Queen]] was a [[Was Once a Man|human woman]] abducted by them}} ''really'' throws most readers for a loop.
* ''[[Excel Saga (
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
** The [[Wham! Episode|second-to-last episode]] of [[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* ''[[Bobobo-
* ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]''. (''Especially'' the second movie, ''Beautiful Dreamer'', which before ''Evangelion'' could possibly have been called the gold standard for anime [[Mind Screw]].) The fact that most of the first half of the TV series was directed by [[Mamoru Oshii]] should raise some flags. Again, a lot of their Mind Screw moments were [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] (especially to ''[[Star Wars]]'') or just [[
* ''[[Digimon Tamers]]''. It may be a kids series, but since the [[Chiaki Konaka|main writer]] (who is not new to Mind Screw) relies on realistic dialog, often just with quick comments explaining what's happening, often the meaning behind the dialog is lost by the audience. One needs to really pay attention or rewatch it several times to appreciate it.
* ''[[Gregory Horror Show]]'' can and will leave you wondering what the hell just happened in the span of a two-minute long episode. And not just for the viewer,
* ''[[Betterman]]'' on several occasions...
* ''[[Tenshi
* ''[[Pandora Hearts]]''. The series as a whole. With Alice in Wonderland as its template, this isn't all too surprising.
** Not only that, it's getting worse as the series progresses... {{spoiler|Various characters thought to be the epitome of truth were lying, and their truth was what was keeping us all sane.}}
* ''[[Noein]]'' is based ([[Techno Babble|loosely]]) on quantum mechanics and the plot revolves very heavily around [[The Multiverse]]. The main character's [[Reality Warper]] powers allow her to jump freely between the many dimensions, and since a new dimension is created [[What If|whenever somebody makes a decision]], there are a ''lot'' of them, with [[For Want of a Nail|outcomes ranging from slightly off to outright dystopian]]. Also there's a lot of interaction [[My Future Self and Me|between characters from the present dimension and dimensions in the future]]. Naturally, the series gets confusing.
* The ''[[
* ''[[After School Nightmare]]'' is rather hard to explain. At first it seems like a normal manga with an intersexed protagonist.. Then it quickly changes into a psychological manga full of Freudian influence, similar to ''[[Evangelion]]''.
* Genjutsu (illusion techniques) in ''[[Naruto]]'' deliberately invoke this trope in universe. Once you're caught in one, you'll be begging for Evangelion.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Mind Screw]]
[[Category:
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