Anime: Nekojiru-sou

This movie just proves that J.C Staff (creators of such intellectually-stimulating anime like as Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemi) are certifiably batshit insane. There's only three words to describe Cat Soup: massive acid trip. Good lord, I've never seen anything more bizarre and surreal than this movie.

From what I can make out about the plot, a young cat is at home with his family, when this strange being (assumingly the grim reaper) comes and leads the cat's little sister away. The brother cat follows, and ends up travelling over to the other side. And so begins a strange and pretty disturbing journey. The rest of the movie is just a series of random events, for example the cats go to a circus where the animal handlers strangle this freaky-looking water being which dies and bursts, flooding the entire world.

Cat Soup's art style really sells it's bizarre nature. It looks like that surrealist arthouse film that you saw at 2:00 in the morning on late-night TV, but you're not sure if you were actually awake or dreaming. There's also absolutely no dialogue in the movie, just noises.

Just as fair warning, don't watch this movie if you're easily disturbed. It's really really messed up, for example, at one stage the cats zip open a pig (using a zipper embedded into it's skin), remove the neatly segmented chunks of it's meat and begin to eat it alive. Near the end of the movie, a man ties a bird to a table with a piece of string, forcing it to fly around in circles. He then starts trying to hit it with boiling hot water before he sets it on fire with a candle and lets the bird burn to death. Honestly, I sat there in stunned silence for a few minutes after watching the film waiting for my brain to recover.

Check out this film if you're into freaky arthouse type movies or you just want a good mind rape. Or if you want to permanently warp a younger sibling. :twisted:

The plot of cat soup is simple, but easy to miss without a small summary, so here is a quick one: a young girl kitten is bed ridden with illness, close to death. Her younger brother sees a spirit take his sister's soul with it, and he fights to take the soul back. He only gets half of it, which is enough to keep her alive, but brain dead. They set off on a journey to find a flower that will return her to normal. I made the mistake of not reading a summary. Because the cats all look alike at first and there's no voice acting to help distinguish them, I didn't recognize what was going on. One thing to note is that the brother wears a green shirt and shorts while the sister wears a peach colored shirt and a skirt that looks a lot like shorts. You'll figure this out eventually, but it sure makes a lot more sense if you know this from the get go (I thought the sister was a brother until a text bubble corrected me).[br][br]Cat Soup is a 30minute mind trip. The whole journey is one largely unrelated piece of insanity after another. Like a mumbling senile man, it's hard to translate what he's saying with syntax and logic, but you often get the feeling that you kind of understand on some deeper, yet simpler level, what he's trying to get at. Themes like nature, gluttony, time,god, and how disgustingly sick some people can be are represented. They're there, but there's no way I could articulate in sentence form some message that each scene was trying to convey. The film highlights these ideas viscerally instead of providing any philosophical insights.[br][br]Cat Soup doesn't require a whole lot of dissection to appreciate. There's certainly room for dissection if braving the vagueness of this silent film isn't too daunting a task. The themes are all illustrated clearly, but Cat Soup never dwells. Those who love to deconstruct every detail will have plenty of fodder here, and the rest of us will probably come away with a primal understanding of what the film is trying to convey.[br][br]It's easier on the viewer when the metaphors are direct. When the viewer can pick out a clear and pointed message like "be good to nature" or"life is precious," provided he makes the astute observations necessary to decode the symbolism. It almost adds a layer of satisfaction. On the other hand, pointed messages can often come off as pretentious, treating the viewer like a 5 year old listening to a fairy tale with a moral. Too often is the presentation of these messages unabashedly contrived, or overt. Cat Soup's approach to its central theme of death is decidedly more emotional, which in one sense is more complex than a simple message, but because it tries to tug more at your heart strings than your higher thought processes, it's in a different sense, simpler, more primal. While I would love to discuss it, describing it any further will surely spoil the experience. Like looking at a painting where you can trace the painter's brush strokes, Cat Soup lets you trace the inspirational emotions that sparked the need to make this film.

For all of you out there that like a great story, flawless plotline, beautiful 3D-CGI images, full orchestras backing up a awesome rock band, deep, well inspired characters and gumdrops and lollipops, I got some advice for you. In reguards to this little flick,

Go away.

That's right. You will get none of those things here. "Cat Soup" is essentially a collaberation of a bunch of dream-state short-stories, many from the manga, meaning they are artsey and whimsical, not intending to have any order to them at all. That description on the previous page from AniDB? HAH! You'd think this was about a kid and his sis to accomplish a task!
I assure you it is only an excuse for the creators to be...well, creative. If you listen to the commentary on DVD, in fact, it is admitted that often even they have no clue what is going on! This does have it's advantages, seeing as it makes the story very whimsical and surreal...it has it's disadvantages, though, in the translation of someone's abstract 'vision' for a scene they themselves don't understand. In the visuals and audio, you can just see the animaters and music writers just standing there scratching there head when the visionaries describe what they want. When they get it right, though, it is pretty good.



Not that there's anything wrong with that.


Now for specifics;


ANIMATION = 7
For the most part, it is choppy animation, but intentionally so. Even though it is done with CGI, there are many points that look like they were drawn by a Junior High student with a new set of colored pencils. Being an artsey piece, it's not the quality of the animation that you're looking for, but how well it fits the images they're trying to portray. They do a pretty good job most of the time, but sometimes you can see that they got a little confused about which way they should be going with an idea...it does subtract a bit from the product they come out with. All in all, though, the art does match well with the...ahem...'story', though does definately lack in some areas.

SOUND = 6
On the most part, the sound is very plain. It is similar to something in a carnival, or the backround music to some phoney kids show on PBS. But, seeing as how the main character is a toddler cat and older sister, this does fit well with the dreamscape theme. There are times, just like with the animation, you could hear some confusion over just what is wanted for sound. It does come over pretty good, though. The credit music was even creative, having an actual old style music box made specifically for it's purpose. Still, in my opinion, the overall score was nothing special.

STORY = 7
Even though it's hard to follow, there is a story mixed in all of the garbled mess. The question is, does it stick to the theme? In this case, even being very random in general, the overlying plot must be followed. Well, it does have a beginning, and an ending (I think), and some form of middle, but the ending is somewhat forced out to end the program. It's a shame that in all there creativity, they couldn't figure out the actual story they were trying to tell.
But, this "Cat Soup" isn't really about the overall story. It's about the creativity of the miniature ones. And they do quite well in that area. I do wish they didn't force the 30 minute deadline, though, as I can tell there are many stories they could've very easily expanded upon and made more interesting. Often, you are introduced to a new scenario and sent straight into the next one without learning anything about the previous scene. A damn shame.

CHARACTER = 3
Alas, there is barely any charater development in "Cat Soup". Seeing as there is only one character worth developing, the fact that he's a toddler makes it difficult to do anything towards development. I mean, do kids even have a personality to develop? Argueably not. While there are many other minor characters all over the place, none are developed even to a tiny bit. I mean, I know this is just a showcase for imagery, but still, they could've done some thought towards this. This catagory's gonna take a hit.

VALUE = 6
This is just a quickie to be strange. That is it. As that, it has value, but only as that.

ENJOYMENT =8
In the beginning, when you're still adjusting to "Cat Soup", you will find your mouth dropping a few times. THAT is worth the trip. Later, though, it gets a little clitchey and blah-zeah. But, a good odd piece is hard to come by. I know I enjoyed it.


CONCLUSION
All in all, you get what you want out of this. It's good to make you sit and stare at wondering what the hell is going on. If you're into oddball things that aren't meant to make any sense, this is great. If you're into organized normality, this is a good break from the norm. But it isn't anything you need to see more than twice.
I would suggest watching it the second time with the commentary on, though. It's not the best commentary, but it does give you a feel for what they were actually going for. A bit odd that they were essentially going for nothing, but still worth hearing.
A descent, quick flick.

I think of all the animes that have been made in Japan's history, Cat Soup is one of the hardest to review. What the hell can one say about something so incredibly bizarre?

With mainstream anime, it's generally possible to talk about things like "plot," "characters," or "moral message." Cat Soup flies in the face of such unnecessary baggage. The anime has no recognizable story, the characters have no names and almost no dialogue, and the OVA as a whole doesn't even begin to make any sort of sense.

Even with the similarly constructed Angel's Egg, one has an ample opportunity to comment on the existentialist themes, the various ways the movie could be interpreted, what the characters symbolized, etc (or, in my case, give the anime all ones and say it was boring as hell). Cat Soup does not pretend to have things like "symbolism" or "themes."

Instead, Cat Soup opts to be an enthusiastically unintelligible mind-f***. To call it nonsensical is actually somewhat wrong - this is dissensical. The anime does not make sense, and things that get too close to it will probably make less sense as well. Cat Soup is not only devoid of logic, it emits an aura of anti-logic... and yet, amazingly enough, despite all of this, the anime remains remarkably entertaining.

For one, Cat Soup sports some of the best, most imaginative animation that I have seen in any work. The imagery really is brilliant; while watching, I felt like I was viewing an animated surrealist painting. Salvador Dali would send his love.

Also, I thoroughly enjoyed the sound of the OVA. When present, the music is a kind of fake cuteness that reminded me of the music from Alien Nine. Oddly enough, this music fits the anime well, and is a good pick by the director. Sound effects are sufficiently mind-warping to match the visuals. Also of note, there is no real "dialogue" in the anime; instead, word bubbles are formed over the character's heads, with garbled gibberish to accompany it (anyone ever play Banjo-Kazooie?).

As for the plot, the first 2 minutes of the show start out with one of the main characters accidentally drowning herself in a bathtub. Her soul is then stolen by Buddha... and well, it only goes downhill from there. Cat Soup is almost completely devoid of a coherent storyline, but fortunately enough, that doesn't make the anime any less interesting. Similarly, though lacking in development, the characters still manage to be amusing and memorable.

Total insanity aside, Cat Soup is a very good way to spend 30 minutes. The OVA as a whole is remarkably funny, and this really has some of the best animation around. All in all, I thoroughly recommend it; however, when you see this anime, make sure that comprehensibility is not high on your "priorities" list.