Kuro Nyago

This is a very old anime, and as such seems to be rather unknown and receives low ratings on anime sites, thus sinking to the bottom. (Let's be brutally honest though—this is probably mostly from younger audiences who care little for the origins of anime.)

It should also be noted that this isn't just normal hand-drawn animation, but made from cut-out pieces of paper.

The Black Cat is a record talkie from the silent film period. A record talkie was a silent film played synchronously with a phonograph record. Like today’s music videos, record talkies were designed as promotional devices for record companies ... and their songs. People who enjoyed The Black Cat animation could have bought the record and played it on their own gramophone (record companies also manufactured gramophones) at home.

I didn't have the heart to rate this below a 6 being as this is anything but average due to the historical significance of this short anime. However, it's also very simple (and no, I'm not just judging against today's standards, but as a story and a piece of art).

It's only about 3 minutes, aimed towards kids, but because of its age, has the unintentional factor of being slightly creepy. For me though, that's part of the charm since I like that sort of thing. But beyond a "huh, that's neat", taking out the historical importance of this anime, I feel like this was pretty ... substandard.

It's said to be the first post produced sound anime, and it used what's known as a record talkie. The short came out a year after Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, although, the animation isn't as fluid, and it was created using cutouts. But for a quick 3 minutes, and because it's historically important for Japanese animation, it doesn't hurt to check it out.

Entertainment comes in all shapes and forms, and even more so, vary throughout the ages. Since the first ever animated movies were a thing, the medium has known massive changes, and if we would compare what we have nowadays with what came first, the differences would be shockingly massive. What primarily cause these differences are is culture influence, and that's a variable that changes every now and then.

- Story (1.0/10):
Kuro Nyago tells a short tale of four brothers to get told by two cats that they are descendants of some tabby tiger, that sounds like something any underdeveloped toddler can come up with. But seeing ... how many Japanese folklore fables got to get animated first in that fashion makes a perfect excuse for the odd nature of this short.

- Art (1.0/10):
I going to be hard on this one, I do understand the rough aging this animation came through, but in term of its quality, it doesn't hold a single bit for today's standards. The movements felt very static, as simple as moving a still image in 5 FPS at best.

- Sound (3.0/10):
For being a musical, I gotta give it a solid score for being catchy as old as it is, but the quality was still horrible, I can already feel the pain the translators went through to make out what they were saying as all I could hear was distorted cat noises ironically enough. Unless it was in fact translated by a secret regiment of cats ruling us from the shadows.

- Character (0.0/10):
Well, other than four human figures that are all identical in form, and in complete sync in movements, they were all quibbling about getting a cat, so that also makes it clear they have the same likes. It all sounds like an easy copypasta in more than appearance.

- Enjoyment (2.0/10):
“Why are we here? Just to suffer?” that was me all the time watching the short begging for it to end as soon as possible. There was zero catch for me at the end other than getting the tone stuck to my head for how catchy it was.

- Overall (1.4/10):
There's no way I would recommend this outdated piece of work unless somebody was super interested in some old Japanese animations, I don't know how successful this was in its time, but if it was that big, then the tastes of people have come to know a massive development. Many would call it creepy in the modern day, but I kind of understand what was behind it back in the day.