Nekojiru-sou

Every once in a while, a truly magnificent and original anime shows up. Being a media everyone relates with silly characters, a fun story and a little ecchi now and then, the typical anime-lover would get a mild shock from a movie such as this.

Through the film, we follow the cat Nyatto on his quest to reclaim his sister's lost soul. They embark on a strange journey filled with mystery, darkness and disturbing obstacles. There isn't much more to say, really.

Nyatto and his sister - and also a few other characters - were all in Nekojiru Gekijou, the series this film spawned from. Although ... this story takes place in the same world as the original series, this is not similar to it at all. All the black humor that Nekojiru Gekijou was built upon have been replaced with a dark and disturbing tale.

When people watch a movie such as this that blends surrealism and symbolism into a lovely mix, they usually react differently. The writer might not have had any ideas behind all of it, and there's a possibility that there are no real answers to the mysteries. In other words, you're free to interpret it as you like. That's what made David Lynch's "Eraserhead" so popular amongst some, while being hated by others.

The only thing I don't like with Cat Soup is that it's a tad too short. There's potential for so much more. One can only hope for some kind of sequel in the future.

-Fred

How could a thirty minute, one episode OVA turn into such excruciating boredom? Simply put, the answer is that this one had no end goal or general direction in mind. It crams - or tries to cram for lack of a better word - several ideas and themes down the viewer’s throat, and tries to present and highlight several topics and issues that aren’t even interminably connected, to the point where it becomes blurry as to what it’s reach and end goal is. It presents several ideas of religion, the circle of life, death and the afterlife, etc. yet it never explains why they are ... there. These are all good ideas, and the presentation is not iffy in the slightest, but the problem here arises from how forced the presentation feels. What is the general point of this short movie other than showcasing several incoherent ideas that don’t even mishmash together properly? None.

Moving on to the technicalities, they do their job well, but they aren’t enough to entirely save this work. The characters and the visuals look appealing and distinctive enough to differentiate them from other works, as is the case with all Yuasa works, but that really doesn’t excuse it’s redundant and unimaginative cat design. The soundtrack is fine as it is, and a short experimental movie of this type needed a minimalistic soundtrack to work and achieve some of it’s cryptic undertones, even when no track particularly stood out.

If this Anime had an end goal in sight, or knew what it was going for and what it wanted to accomplish from the very beginning, then it would have been excused and given a good rating. Unfortunately, interesting visuals and ideas cannot save a meandering work. In fact, the more the ideas the more it’s chances of failing succeed due to becoming more and more pointless throughout, as a quote once said “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”

I hate shows that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I never cared for trippy insanity such as those found in abundance in "FLCL" and "Dead Leaves"... and "Cat Soup" is about as trippy as they come - it makes me wonder what the hell the producers were smoking when they made this. There is no dialogue for starters, and after the first couple of minutes, there is barely any coherence either, just random scenes flashing across the screen. I just don't get it - what exactly is the point of this kind of anime? The art is ultra simplistic, the story is non-existent, and to ... say the characters are zero dimensional would be flattering to the extreme. If it's suppose to be entertaining, then it failed as I found it intensely boring despite its short length. If it's supposed to be funny, well, apart from one scene that appear to be some whacky, gruesome parody of a magic show, I didn't find the anime amusing in the slightest. If you like psychedelic anime, then this is one for you. Otherwise, you'll want to give this piece of crap a *very* wide berth.