Cat Soup

Cat Soup (ねこぢる草, Nekojiru-sō, lit. Nekojiru Grass) is a 2001 Japanese animated short experimental film[1] directed by Tatsuo Satō, inspired by the work of manga artist Nekojiru. The surreal film follows Nyatta, an anthropomorphic kitten, on his travel to the land of the dead and back in an effort to save his sister's soul. Cat Soup was released direct-to-DVD in Japan on 21 February 2001. Central Park Media licensed the film in North America under its Software Sculptors label and was released on DVD on September 9, 2003.

Cat Soup
Japaneseねこぢる草
HepburnNekojiru-Sō
Directed byTatsuo Satō
Produced byYuji Matsukura
Screenplay byMasaaki Yuasa
Tatsuo Satō
Story byNekojiru
Music byYutoro Teshikai
CinematographyMasaru Takase
Edited byKan Onoshima
Production
company
Distributed byStarchild Records
Release date
21 February 2001
Running time
34 minutes
CountryJapan

Plot

Nyāko (にゃーこ), the older sister of Nyatta (にゃっ太), lies very ill in her room. By accident, Nyatta drowns in the bathtub and, whilst being clinically dead, sees his sister leaving the house holding hands with the Japanese version of Ksitigarbha (known as Jizou in Japanese) and proceeds to follow them. Nyatta tries to take his sister back from Jizou but it holds on to her refusing to let go. Nyāko splits in two leaving Jizou with half of her soul while her brother runs away with the other half. Jizou sends a clue about a flower they must search for in order to retrieve the missing half-soul, then walks away with it.

Meanwhile, Nyatta's father finds his son in the bathtub and revives him. Then, all the family members gather in Nyāko's room to find out that she is dead. Nyatta gets closer with the half-soul in his arms and puts it back in his sister's body through her nose. Nyāko wakes up, but she remains despondent and semi-catatonic. After that Nyatta and Nyāko begin their journey (because their mother asks them to go and buy some abura-age or fried tofu). During their outing they visit the 'Big Whale Circus', the final act of which is a giant penguin-looking bird "filled" with various weather, causes a flood of water which covers everything. The two of them end up on an Ark-esque boat with a pig, which they eventually begin to eat (by unzipping his stomach and pulling out butcher slabs). God drains the world of the oceans (by holding up the world so the water on it runs down his arm), leaving the cats and pig stranded in a desert. The pig is beaten to death and bites off Nyatta's arm, which is repaired by a desert-dweller who makes dolls from the pieces of other cats.

Traveling across the desert, they are brought to a house by the smell of food, and are invited inside by a man. They are fed, and when full the man attempts to turn them into soup, attacking them with a pair of scissors. He ends up falling into the cauldron, Nyatta cuts him into pieces with the scissors and the cats escape. Wandering further across the desert dehydrated, Nyatta digs and finds an elephant made of water, which cools them off and travels with them, though the elephant eventually evaporates from the heat. God accidentally stops the flow of time and disrupts space, and the cats play with the time-frozen scenes. Father Time turns time back on, shooting it forward and reversing it, showing various scenes of random events either rapidly going forth in time or back. Eventually the cats find themselves back on their boat in the ocean. They drift into a marsh of metallic plants and creatures, coming across the flower they were seeking. Nyatta places the flower on Nyākos face, which restores her to normal. Together, they go back home.

In the end, the entire family of cats are gathered in their house leisurely watching TV. Nyatta leaves them to visit the toilet, and while he is gone, the other family members disappear one by one into thin air. The show on the TV also disappears, leaving only a flashing screen behind. Nyatta returns to find everyone gone. Outside the nearby lamppost extinguishes leaving the house in darkness. Finally the movie also "turns off", leaving behind a flashing screen of static before the credits roll.

Background

The characters of Nyāko and Nyatta first appeared in the June 1990 issue of the monthly manga magazine Garo. They also appeared in a series of 27 two-minute television episodes, collectively titled Nekojiru Gekijō (ねこぢる劇場, Nekojiru Theatre). The series appeared in 1999 as a segment on TV Asahi's Bakushō-Mondai no Boss-Kyara-Ō (爆笑問題のボスキャラ王).

Nekojiru (the artist) was born on January 19, 1967 and died by suicide on May 10, 1998.[2][3] Her actual name was Chiyomi Hashiguchi (橋口 千代美, Hashiguchi Chiyomi, née Nakayama (中山)).

Awards

Cat Soup won an Excellence Prize (Animation Division) at the 2001 Japan Media Arts Festival,[4] the "Best Short Film" award at the 2001 Fantasia Festival and the Silver Award for Animation 2003 New York Exposition of Short Film and Video.[5]

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References
  1. McCarthy, Helen. 500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide. — Harper Design, 2009. — P. 515. — 528 p. — ISBN 978-0061474507
  2. Yoshinaga, Yoshiaki. "Yoshiaki Yoshinaga on Nekojiru - pt. 2". Anipages. Benjamin Ettinger. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  3. Patten, Fred (November 21, 2003). "New from Japan: Anime Film Reviews". Animation World Magazine. Retrieved 23 May 2009.
  4. "Excellence Prize Nekojiru-So". Japan Media Arts Festival. 2001. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11. Retrieved 2007-07-01.
  5. "Awards Winners". New York Expo Film and Video. 2003. Archived from the original on 2007-07-07. Retrieved 2007-07-01.
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