Cat Soup
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| Cat Soup | |
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| Directed by | Tatsuo Sato |
| Produced by | Yuji Matsukura |
| Written by | Original story by Nekojiru Screenplay by Masāki Yuasa Tatsuo Sato |
| Music by | Yutoro Teshikai |
| Cinematography | Masaru Takase |
| Editing by | Kan Onoshima |
| Distributed by |  Starchild Records Software Sculptors |
| Release date(s) | February 21, 2001 |
| Running time | 35 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Official website | |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Cat Soup (ねこぢる草 Nekojiru-So?, lit. Nekojiru Grass) is an award-winning animated short film directed by Tatsuo Sato, inspired by the work of manga artist Nekojiru. The surreal black comedy follows Nyātta, 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 on February 21, 2001.
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[edit] Plot
Nyāko, the older sister of Nyātta, lies very ill in her room. By accident, Nyātta sees his sister leaving the house holding hands with Death, and follows them. Nyātta claims his sister's soul by pulling one arm, but her memories are erased by Death, who held the other arm. Nyāko's soul gets split in two, and her brother runs away with one half. Death sends a clue about a flower they must search in order to retrieve the missing part, then walks away with the other half.
Nyātta returns home to find the doctor telling his parents that his sister is dead. Nyātta gets closer with the soul in his arms and puts it back in his sister's body through her nose. Nyāko wakes up braindead. Nyātta and Nyāko travel together and visit a circus. The final act causes a flood of water, which covers everything. The two of them end up on an Arc-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, leaving the cats and pig stranded in a desert. The pig bites off Nyātta'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, and the cats escape. Wandering further across the desert dehydrated, Nyātta 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. God turns time back on, shooting it forward and reversing it, and 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 that restores Nyāko to normal.
[edit] Awards
Cat Soup won an Excellence Prize (Animation Division) at the 2001 Japan Media Arts Festival,[1] the "Best Short Film"[2] award at the 2001 Fantasia Festival and the Silver Award for Animation 2003 New York Exposition of Short Film and Video.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Excellence Prize Nekojiru-So. Japan Media Arts Festival (2001). Retrieved on 2007-07-01.
- ^ Cat Soup trivia. Anime News Network. Retrieved on 2007-07-01.
- ^ Awards Winners. New York Expo Film and Video (2003). Retrieved on 2007-07-01.
[edit] External links
- Cat Soup reviewed by Beyond Hollywood
- Cat Soup (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
