Bannou Bunka Neko-Musume (1998)

Each episode centers on Nuku Nuku's adventures and mishaps in high school, and her relationship to students, the overall series plot centers on the evil Mishima Industries' scheme to dominate the world through its products. In opposition to this plan are the slightly nutty Kyuusaku Natsume and Nuku Nuku, the android who acts as a companion to his young son. Nuku Nuku's classmates are all eccentrics, Futaba, the class president, is a domineering control-freak, who cannot leave her authority in school. Chieko Shirakaba is the rich snob with the two yes-girls who always take her side. There is a bookworm, a mystic, a scientist, and a pop singer. All of these are true to their descriptions: the mystic is always foretelling doom via tarot cards, spirits, or some other occult technique. The pop singer never says anything except as a song. The bookworm always has her nose in a book. These eccentricities add to the series' humor.

(Source: ANN)

Nuku Nuku Main

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Natsume, Kyusaku Main

Kamiya, Akira Japanese

Natsume, Akiko Main

Shimazu, Saeko Japanese

Natsume, Ryuunosuke Main

Ikura, Kazue Japanese

Sono, Arisa Supporting

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Ikenami, Eiichi Supporting

Ishikawa, Hideo Japanese

Shirakaba, Chieko Supporting

Yamazaki, Wakana Japanese

Shibata, Rie Supporting

Sugawara, Sachiko Japanese

Maho Supporting

Sugawara, Sachiko Japanese

Michi-Michi Supporting

Hanba, Tomoe Japanese

Ikeda, Shinichi Producer

Fujimoto, Yoshitaka Director, Storyboard

Watanabe, Jun Sound Director

Hanyuu, Naoyasu Episode Director

Reviews

Jan 25, 2009

Sick_Bastard

Recommended

This is one of the most under-rated anime series of all time, do not let it's low average score fool you, this is buried treasure right here.

Story (7/10) -
The story to Nuku Nuku is very simple - Nuku Nuku is a cat in a humans body and is an android. She goes to high school, and fights the evil Mashima Industries. That's about it. This anime is episodic, meaning that things happen by the episode, so don't expect any story arcs here.

Art (9/10) -
The art is a bit dated, but very well pulled off. All the colors and character designs are fitting, and the animation ... quality is wonderful.

Sound (9/10) -
The sound is great. All the character's voices fit and the sound effects are also fitting. The only complaint I have is that often one male main character sings, and his voice gets very old, very fast.

Character (8/10) -
Nuku Nuku is really one of my favorite characters of all time. She is extremely cute and has a very good personality that anybody will grow to love within a few episodes. The other characters are great too, and are all funny in their own way.

Enjoyment - (10/10)
I enjoyed this series massively. Thus the 10/10 rating. I really think if you give this anime a chance, you will love it as much as I do.

Overall - (9/10)
This is a great series that is very under-rated. If you have an open mind and aren't expecting very much, you will love this anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 25, 2014

ktulu007

Recommended

Some of you may recall my review of the hilariously named All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku OVA. During that review I mentioned that, in addition to the OVA, there are multiple TV anime. The first was written by Yamaguchi Hiroshi based on the manga by Takada Yuzo. The Studio behind it was Ashi Productions, which was not the same studio behind the OVA. Let's take a look and see if it's as bizarre and humorous as the OVA.

Story:

There's no over-arcing story. The premise is that our cat-brained android protagonist, Nuku Nuku, begins attending High school in order to learn what it means ... to be human. Complicating matters is the battle she has to wage against the evil Mishima industries. Naturally, this leads to wacky hijinks. Probably a good move since a more serious look at the basic premise would almost certainly be terrible.

Overall, the humour does work pretty well. There are a lot of running gags, but they almost all get enough variation in execution that they do stay consistently funny. I also like the way they handle Mishima, with the young president having everyone dress in ridiculous costumes and going into rants about ruling the world while his employees just kind of go along with it because it doesn't interfere with them producing things too much and he's in charge. The series has a good blend of outlandish elements and ordinary elements that lends itself very well to comedic situations.

That being said, there are some failings to it. The biggest one is the final episode. I won't spoil it, but they try to have a more dramatic moment and it utterly fails. While it is possible to have a comedy with serious scenes, it doesn't work when you have all of one such moment in a series comprised almost entirely of zany antics. There are also some jokes that aren't really funny. For example, one of the reoccurring jokes is having twins declare the snobby rich girl to be correct. It's funny because.... they're minions, I guess? The opening narration is also repeated every episode. The first time, it is a funny moment, pointing out the discontinuity between the TV series and the previous OVA. The other eleven times, it just seems like needless padding.

Characters:

This is one of those comedic series where the characters are almost exclusively one-dimensional stereotypes. The series, oddly enough, elects to have captions telling you those traits, which they use multiple times. That being said, the specific character tropes that the series uses do mesh well together for comedic purposes. Even the twins manage to have some funny moments on those few occasions when they get more dialogue aside from their standard line.

Art:

The TV series has basically the same early 90s art style as the OVA, in spite of coming out five years later. It is a little smoother and more detailed, but not the marked improvement you would expect. Possibly because they wanted to emulate the look of the original OVA as much as they could. It doesn't look bad, but it hasn't exactly aged gracefully. This series also does a lot less with unnecessary fan-service. By which I mean it really doesn't have any. About the closest you get is a beach scene but there's really nothing sexualised about it so I would hesitate to call it fan-service.

Sound:

The voice acting is excellent. Hayashibara Megumi reprises her role as the titular cat-brained android. Ikura Kazue, Hiramatsu Akiko, Kamiya Akira, Shimazu Saeko and Hisakawa Aya all reprise their roles as well. The acting is surprisingly subtle for a zany comedy, occasionally moving into exaggeration but largely featuring realistic emotions and responses. Odd that a comedic series can have more varied and realistic emotional content than a certain serious series could manage.

There are multiple musical numbers within the episodes, including a karaoke episode and a musical episode. Most of the songs do sound, minimally, decent. Some are outright excellent, Hayashibara Megumi's numbers in particular. Some are deliberately bad and used for comedic effect. Fortunately, those are in the minority so they never really get tiring.

Ho-Yay:

The closest thing you get to ho-yay in this series is the dynamic between Chieko and her minions. At least in the latter episodes when they start getting varied dialogue. There's also one kind of gross joke involving possession and an alien mouse. The Ho-yay factor is a 2/10.

Final Thoughts:

Nuku Nuku TV is a fun little series. It has a good sense of humour, excellent acting & superb music. Where it falls a little short is that some of the jokes fall flat, it tries and fails at having a serious scene and most of the characters are pretty bland. Which isn't a huge issue for a comedy, but it's still a bit of a problem. All in all, the OVA was a little better but this is still good for some laughs. Final rating, 7/10. Next week, Serial Experiments Lain.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Aug 25, 2024

DrMechano

Recommended

All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku is an anime franchise that's had several incarnations - the original OVA, the more serious retool Nuku Nuku DASH, and this one: the Nuku Nuku TV series. Each of the three is its own separate continuity, with a different take on the basic premise: that premise being that an ordinary cat gets into an accident, and her life is saved by a scientist who transfers her brain into a robot body. While all three incarnations of Nuku Nuku use this same basic backstory, each of them is tonally very different.

Nuku Nuku TV is my favorite of the three, ... for having a much wackier, over-the-top comedic take on this premise. The show really leans in to how absurd Nuku Nuku's story is, and just has fun with it. A company full of Japanese salarymen is secretly an evil organization bent on world domination. Characters break into musical numbers frequently. The scientist who created Nuku Nuku has a secret masked superhero alter-ego. The show is unapologetically ridiculous, and I think it's better for it.

Nuku Nuku's classmates are all (by design) one-dimensional anime stereotypes - you have the occult girl, the science nerd, the guitar-playing hippie, the spoiled rich girl, the tough guy, etc. They have one major personality trait - and while you'd think this could get boring or annoying - the show gets a lot of comedy from these (even back in the 90s) overused, trite classmate archetypes. Nuku Nuku TV is very much a parody of high school anime, and it lampoons the common tropes really well.

It's a short series, so you can knock it out in a few days - but I think Nuku Nuku TV is a lot of fun. It's an oft-overlooked little series that I've always enjoyed. Give this one a watch!

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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	Poll: Bannou Bunka Neko-Musume (1998) Episode 5 Discussion Ashhk - Sep 3	2 replies	by Neemesis_2 »» Today, 4:55 AM
	Poll: Bannou Bunka Neko-Musume (1998) Episode 4 Discussion badabass - Mar 12, 2022	4 replies	by Neemesis_2 »» Yesterday, 4:52 AM
	Poll: Bannou Bunka Neko-Musume (1998) Episode 3 Discussion Ashhk - Sep 3	2 replies	by Neemesis_2 »» Dec 16, 4:37 AM
	Poll: Nuku Nuku Episode 2 Discussion Sick_Bastard - Jan 10, 2009	6 replies	by Neemesis_2 »» Dec 15, 5:09 AM
	Poll: Nuku Nuku Episode 1 Discussion Sick_Bastard - Jan 10, 2009	6 replies	by Neemesis_2 »» Dec 14, 5:56 AM