Around 1995, Japanese animation (anime) began pouring into North America, Europe and across the globe in video form. Most of these titles were unknown outside of Japan and never covered by animation journals. Whether a title is highly popular or very obscure, a high quality theatrical feature or a cheap and unimaginative direct-to-video release, they all look the same on a store shelf. Therefore, Animation World Magazine will regularly review several new releases (including re-releases not previously covered) that have merit.

Eye candy is served up in Cat Soup.

Cat Soup
OAV, 2001. Director: Tatsuo Sato. 34 minutes. Price & format: DVD no dialogue $19.99. Distributor: Software Sculptors/Central Park Media

Fine art short films seldom turn up on the commercial anime market. Cat Soup (Nekojiru-so) was an obscure direct-to-video release on Feb. 21, 2001 that went almost unnoticed in Japan. But it won the Best Short Film award at the 6th Annual FantAsia Film Festival in Montreal (July 10-30, 2001; screened July 26), and the Excellence Prize in the Animation Division at the 5th Annual Media Arts Festival of Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs in December 2001. Since its "World Premiere" at the Big Apple Anime Fest 2003 in NYC (Aug. 29-31, 2003), it has become an American anime-fan cult favorite.

Cat Soup is a personal tribute by Tatsuo Sato, the director of many popular anime TV series, to an early 1990s adult manga (Nekojiru-udon) by the pseudonymous artist "Nekojiru." It was obscure but had a devoted following among avant-garde artists and intellectuals until it ended with Nekojiru's suicide. On the DVD's Director's Commentary Track, Sato explains that he has taken a short story from the manga (this story is available in English in Comics Underground Japan, ed. by Kevin Quigley; Blast Books, 1996) and written his own expansion of it.

Since the two main characters are cute cat children (the girl cat Nyatta and her younger brother Nyako), the catchphrase "Hello Kitty on acid!" has become popular with fans. It is closer to a hallucinogenic trip through Orpheus' Underworld or Alice's Wonderland, full of bizarre images, which emphasize morbidity and mutilation although in a dreamlike, non-threatening way. The opening shows Nyatta in a coma with a high fever, while Nyako plays near a large pool and falls in. After he climbs out, he sees Death leading Nyatta's soul away. He runs to rescue her, but in the following tug-of-war her soul is torn in half. The half-soul that Nyako brings home is only enough to restore Nyatta to a lurching, zombie-like state, so the two venture to "the Other Side" to find the rest of her soul.

Sato says that the long time Nyako spends in the pool before climbing out has caused some viewers to wonder whether he actually drowned and that both cats are ghosts. Much of the commentary consists of Sato's recounting different guesses fans have made as to what is "really happening," with his same answer; viewers may interpret it however they want to.

The production crew at the J.C. Staff studio (Sato especially credits animation producer Masaaki Yuasa) have faithfully captured Nekojiru's unique art style, although there are a couple of sequences on the Other Side (especially one where the kittens are invited to dinner by a fetishistic gourmet, which Sato attributes to one of the animators, Tanabe) which show a definite influence of Bill Plympton. Like Plympton's works, or Disney's finally completed production of Dali's Destino, Cat Soup is not intended to have a plot as much as it simply exists as a surrealistic visual treat.