Cat Soup is not something you'll want to read a review of before watching. It's completely pointless, and will make the actual watching less enjoyable. Instead, I'd prefer you to read this AFTER you have finished watching, be it because you want to see others' thoughts or shape your own, or to understand what you've seen or whatnot.
The first thing that comes to mind while watching is that this is not a story told, nor an idea that can be put to words being conveyed, but rather a "journey of the state of mind". I believe this is the best way I can describe the
...
experience of watching Nekojiru-sou. Or so I would like to say, but there are two ways to watch the OVA. And both I believe are equally as important, and so I feel was meant by the author; don't quote me on that though. The two ways are:
• "The journey of the state of mind"
• Seeing the actual plot
Although much depends on the viewer, the way you watch Cat Soup gradually changes by itself, from the "Journey" to "seeing that the author(s) actually meant a lot of things". It changes from an abstract painting into a book.
Let me first describe "the journey of the state of mind" part.
Just as with any abstract work of art, once you've "tuned into it", for the lack of better term, it can become a most powerful medium. If you can't, or won't "tune in" however, you'll just see random crap. Period. Now... If you let your mind be guided by the atmosphere, shape and ideas of the movie, you are guaranteed to get a ton of enjoyment. It's hard to describe this kind of enjoyment. You know how it feels good when you watch a good Mecha with a lot of fighting? Now compare this to the "feels good" of a quality love story... Well, the feeling is just as different for Nekojiru-sou. The best I can do to describe it is, I feel refreshed. In a way that my mind feels... clean? Blank and clean, but very pleasant. Don't confuse for "What." blank, as after a mindfuck or anything of the sorts please.
The actual plot, or rather the "idea", is a whole another thing to discuss. Now this is important: this is an abstract work of art. You must know by know that any perception of it depends more on the consumer than on the author, even. Keep it in mind. My opinion can't be "right" by default - I'm conveying how I saw it.
Now, let me rephrase the movie's name for a second: "The Story of Life". That's all. This is the most simple, the most beautiful way you can describe the thing. As the two (one and a half?) kittens make their way through the somewhat bizarre world, they witness life, naked. The story makes no remarks about the cruelty of it. Since I have to put this into words... The cruelty here strikes more than any violent movie, anime or other medium would do, because, among other things, it's shown without excessive emotion to hide behind, without reason... It's stated, it's a fact. Yet, it doesn't hurt at all. You know how in a good story, a character's death (if put right) can be extremely depressing, sad..? It's not the case here. The anime makes you experience extreme acceptance. You see and accept the way of life - you're born, you live, you die. You kill to live. You die to feed somebody, you want it or not. So? It's the way it is - it's not anything you have control over, anything you'd want to take control over. Not anything to be happy or sad about, just a fact. That's the feeling I experienced while watching this. It might seem far fetched, or maybe weird, or alien to somebody perhaps, but if you've watched the OVA by now, maybe you'll know exactly how I feel.
In other words, Cat Soup is a perfect depiction to the "Circle of Life" - capitalized to emphasize how it's the idea of the anime. Not only life ends and rises, but so does time and existence, and Earth along with them. There was a very interesting concept of God too, but putting that into words seems unnecessary to me - even I don't exactly know what I'd say - it only imprinted on my subconsciousness.
But broad and general ideas are not the only thing about this work of art (both in the way you'd call any anime a work of art - by definition; and Cat Soup in its own special way). There is a huge amount if miniature episodes, conveying different, often very deep ideas.
The biggest of them all was the circus episode. *To understand what I'm actually talking about, you'd want the whole OVA watched by now.* You should remember God showing miracles, right? It's all the same for him, either to create a chair, or an elephant made of gold. Come to think of it, it's nothing weird - regardless of what you believe in, the sole idea of God implies no difference to him between these objects. Whether he actually exists and thus is there really a difference is a completely different topic though. Now back to my story - shortly after that, people adopted his way; enter the giant bird. And here's the idea, as people tear its left off just to see a little magic. That's us, people; that's how we roll. And then Earth got flooded - isn't it similar to our present world? Although not literally, but you won't find a person who hasn't heard of the story of how we are draining nature's resources and doing reckless things just to live in comfort for a little longer. Shall we keep this up, and there's not much future to await us - be it natural disasters, ecosystem's collapse, a war caused by the ever rising economical and political tensions...
This idea's nothing new... However not only it's relevant today too, but the way how beautifully it was conveyed grants it my mention all by itself.
Also, the flood is not mere coincidence I believe - but it's very symbolic. Don't look at "pulling the bird's leg" as something we are doing right now - it's what will happen in the end, soon or not. It's the "final sin" that's followed by a global flood. Doesn't it remind you of anything? That may be the authors' message regarding our human nature, our "global" lifestyle - and they portray people pretty accurately - at least right now we mostly consume... The boat that the characters use can be perceived as none other but an arc, too. So, pretty symbolic among other things.
All right, that's one of the anime's "human nature" depiction. Note how people perceived "God's" miracles as mere entertainment too.
There's much more to it, but I believe I can begin to conclude my review already. Besides, you'd get 10 times as much if you watch the real thing instead of reading my analysis. I tried not to use cliche'd expressions as "beautiful" when talking about the story, but forgetting about that, the story is indeed "beautiful". And you know, this anime reminds me of a piece of music - in a lot of ways. And what impression did it leave on me? This is something that goes broader that the term "anime" provides. I don't see it as an "anime", but rather as a separate piece of art. Something in between a painting and a musical composition, all animated and given a soul. That creates a problem, though; when I began to rate it. You see, this is not something you can rate the same way you rate other anime, exactly due to the reasons I stated above. I can't put it on the same scales as other anime I've watched.
I usually compare my anime depending on the emotional footprint they left on me. I had a big big depression after watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for example (prior to that too... but NGE propelled it exponentially), or when I read the Deep Love series I cried like a little girl... In other words, I was overfilled with emotion. This isn't the case here, but it isn't the anime's goal either. It's silly to blame a car for being unable to swim. So, if you rate this independently, it's 10/10. Since I (try my best to) approach every movie, anime, book or manga in its own way, looking at what it really is without the interference of genres' cliches and whatnot, Nekojiru-sou is indeed a 10/10. Not the 10/10 you see on every other review, but a special, meaningful 10/10 that reserved the place for this anime in my heart forever. When I put it in my list though, I hesitated for a while. 9 or 10? Because, I'll tell you - it's not as big as NGE, no matter if you loved NGE or not. It's not as big as Gurren Lagann. That's not bad or good. It's different. And there's a lot of things to love it for that you won't find in any NGE or TTGL.
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Nov 13, 2012
Nekojiru-sou
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Cat Soup is not something you'll want to read a review of before watching. It's completely pointless, and will make the actual watching less enjoyable. Instead, I'd prefer you to read this AFTER you have finished watching, be it because you want to see others' thoughts or shape your own, or to understand what you've seen or whatnot.
The first thing that comes to mind while watching is that this is not a story told, nor an idea that can be put to words being conveyed, but rather a "journey of the state of mind". I believe this is the best way I can describe the ... |
