Ranked #3648

Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space

"Tamala - Punk Cat in Space" is quite a trip, and for any who enjoy this genre, I highly recommend this anime.

Story

Tamala is about a pretty little female Cat, Tamala, who sets off from Cat-Earth on a journey to get to her home planet where she was born, Orion. Along the way her spaceship is damaged and she lands on a Planet, where she meets a male cat Named Michelangelo(Though Tamala keeps calling him MoiMoi). The movie basically follows what happens while Tamala is on that planet.

At first the story sounds very simple, and the animation style can trick an individual into thinking its an anime for younger audiences. That is far from the case. Despite its initial appearence, Tamala has loads of adult themes in it and there are deeper mysteries behind the plot. The biggest of these mysteries is "Who/What exactly is Tamala? Who is the Robot in the dream sequences in the movie?" There are other mysteries too, many concerned with the omnipresent Catty & Co. company that dominates the commercial/political universe of Tamala.

Art

As I said before, don't let the art decieve you. As a matter of fact, though many seem to be put off by the simplistic art style, I think that for this movie it fits nicely because it lends beautifully to the Surreality of the atmosphere. Add to this the fact that there are spots in the movie that suddenly shift from the standard, simplistic style to CG rendered hyper reality, and it completes the formula that makes this movie such a strange and interesting journey.

Sound

Unfortunately I didn't really notice anything special about the sound, though it didn't seem to detract from the movie either. There is one song that recurs at multiple points in the movie that has an ethereal sound to it. I thought it was okay.

Character

The character development was very well done for a 1.5 hour movie. Tamala comes across as a very spicy character despite her youthful appearence and childish way of speaking. That too is part of the surreality. Tamala speaks like a small child in the way she pronounces her words and phrases her sentences, like at one point in the movie when she says he has to go to the bathroom. She uses the japanese word a child would use, kinda like a little kid telling his parents he has to make pee-pee. But then there are times where she says some really adult things in this childish tones, even dropping the f-bomb(in english, mind you). This uneven matching of innocence and maturity makes Tamala an interesting character.

The supporting characters come across very nicely too. Michelangelo has a common-sense, mellow feel to him, and it's cute at times to watch his growing attachment to his new friend Tamala. Kentarou comes across well as being the mean jerk he is, though even he is shown to be a human character in the end.

Enjoyment

I gave this a little lower scoring because of the fact that it took me a good half hour of thinking "what in the world am I watching, and why?" before the pieces started to fall together sufficiently to get me interested. The harsh language/content matter combined with the simplistic style almost threw me off. Once I started to get interested, though, I enjoyed this movie thoroughly. Other than that My only real complaint is that the movie seemed to end on to much of an open note for me.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie and hope that others manage to find it and give it a good shot. read more

First review.

Tamala 2010 is pretty much what I would call an experimental movie, likely auto produced. As such, the movie possesses strong points and weak points, which makes it hard to give it an overall mark.

Looking for qualifiers, I first thought of "cyberpunk", but the visual simplicity makes it barely adequate here (compare to Tetsuo), plus the usual cyberpunk questionning of existence also lacks. Tamala nevertheless has a punk attitude, and is akin to a somewhat dreamlike SF black and white Happy Tree Friends (without the gore).

That said, the mix is quite effective, and would probably have been awesome if not for the lacks in direction/writing, with a cool but thin plot, cool but underdevelopped characters and an overlong moment which could have been splitted or handled differently. But then again, these things are secondary to an experimental movie probably realized with a very small team (2D Flash animation could have been done by 3-4 people), and shouldn't be judged with the usual anime eye.

Fritz the Cat was my immediate comparison, but Tamala 2010 isn't as talkative, or as thought provoking. Its strong point is the art, and the clever use of contrasts and colours, which made me wish more than once wish I had experienced it in a movie theatre instead of my laptop. The OST is another very strong point: through drones and pads it succeeds in setting various moods that keep the viewer entertained.

Overall, the parodic/symbolic elements inherent to punk entertainment (compare to Sunabouzu, Tank Girl) had a certain fun value, as had the visuals. So a lot of unrealized potential, but as far as experimental anime goes, an interesting experience . read more