Kuro Nyago

When I started Kuro Nyago I initially didn't know what to expect. I initially believed this to be another part of that "moe" craze that's been infesting youngsters these days, what with the dancing loli catgirls and all. With that in mind, one can only imagine my cap flying off my head when I sat down with a bucket of popcorn and pressed the play button.

It only took 5 out of the 181 seconds this animation presented until I realized I stumbled upon the equivalent of the gold of Fort Knox participating at an Elvis concert celebrating the latest pyramid the aliens had built.

At first, ... my mood was calm when "The Black Cat" flashed on the title screen. The background appeared, and my eyes widened. The first pair of cats appeared and started dancing, and my eyes just about blew out of my head as my jaw hit the floor. The cats danced, "Meow meow" and I sank into my chair, lower and lower as the spectacle of the white cats, the black cats, and the black cats with the red collars hit me with the force of an atomic bomb.

All I knew was that I couldn't dare take my eyes of the kitties. I wanted to dance and sing with them. I wanted to play hide-and-seek around the trees with them! I could not be the tabby. I could not be the tiger. But I knew it was my calling in life.

At the end of the film I was bawling more than I ever could have managed when I was a wee lad in diapers. With my basement flooded in tears, I knew there was only one thing to do. I had to join these cats in eternal dancing and singing harmony. That night, I hung myself from the ceiling. As my eyes rolled back into my head, I sang, "Meow meow."

Watch this, everyone. Seriously.

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.