Cat Soup
(2003)
review by Big McLargehuge

Krusty the Klown: "And now, the Soviet Union’s answer to Itchy and Scratchy... Worker and Parasite!!"

Tatsuo Sato (Nadesico) offers us an animated take on surrealist Manga “Cat Soup (Nekujiro Udon)" which first appeared in an early 90’s edition of Garo Magazine. This short film (33 minutes if my watch wasn’t broken) follows a kitten and its older zombilike sibling
traveling a Dadaist landscape in search of the sibling’s missing soul.
That’s the entire plot of the film.

Thus Cat Soup is anything but a traditional anime eschewing linear
time, setting, and narrative, the film is both a feast for the eyes and
for the mind. However, if your the type of anime/animation fan that
needs a foot in a recognizable world to effectively suspend your
disbelief, Cat Soup isn’t for you.

I have no doubt that every viewer will come away from Cat Soup with
something different. I appreciated the detail, especially in the ornate
backgrounds that called to mind both Salvador Dali and Otto Dix while Mrs. McLargehuge appreciated me taking the tape out of the VCR.

To each his/her own.

Tatsuo Sato’s visual style is striking and moves from Myazaki-esque to Heavy Metal to Ralph Bakshi and back again. This visual influence tableau is disconcerting, enigmatic, luscious, and baffling.

It’s no surpise that Cat Soup took top honors at the Fantasia Film
Festival as it has all the avant gard trappings that tend to stimulate
excess drooling in film critics. To some extent I guess I can
empathize, but there are a whole lot of better anime titles out there.
Cat Soup is more an artistic oddity than anything else, it’s art for
arts sake and surreal for surrealism’s sake.

I watched Cat Soup twice and liked it a little more the first time than
the second because during that first view I had to work to make sense of the story, and I appreciated the simplicity of that story. By the second view I understood the linear narrative and concentrated on the animation, and although it’s very good, it isn’t as lush or engrossing as many other titles currently available.

One good use for Cat Soup would be to spring it on unwarry friends and watch their brains twist into knots trying to decypher the images
spooling out on the screen. My guess is you’ll probably get a 10-90
split between those that like Cat Soup and those that hate it.

If you can accept the Dadaist take on reality then Cat Soup is the
perfect visual meal, if not it’s barely a palatable appetizer.

Krusty the Klown: "What the hell was that?!?"