May 1, 2008
"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
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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.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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