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| That was... Weird. Really weird. There was plenty of symbolisms but I definitely didn't get anything. Actually, I think the only thing I understood is the symbolism about God and rewinding life, I guess to show that mistakes are made and so it needs to be undone but uh... What's the message ? Or is it just a religious movie about God taking care of us ? That would explain why some stuffs like the magician made me think I was watching something satanical, it was the evil that should be undone by God... I guess ? No it was really weird. That kid was a total psychopath, his sister was half-dead because of him, a poor pig died, an elephant died, a weird guy in a sado-maso outfit tried to kill the protagonists to eat them (explains the title)... THAT'S SUPER WEIRD. I don't even know how to rate that movie because I don't understand what it is supposed to be about, maybe if I understood I would like it better but here I just didn't appreciate it and it didn't even make me want to rewatch it. I usually really like weird, experimental shows (I'm a fan of Kaiba and Tenshi no Tamago for exemple), even if I don't get everything, but this one wasn't even enjoyable, it was too weird. I wouldn't say it was awful or even bad but it wasn't a pleasant experience due to how bizarre everything was. Now I'll read people's interpretations to see if there is something I can understand... (But to be honest I don't think that symbolism can make up for a bad experience... I think at the end I'll just rate the OVA based on how I feel and not what it tried to do.) Edit : I forgot to add it, but something I did the like is the soundtrack, it's a great one, I love it ! |
FafetteMay 8, 2020 10:08 AM
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| Cute meow meows. I especially love the rewinding time sequence. Basically what I got from this is the cycle of life, the journey we take as we powerlessly get swept away along with passage of time that eventually leads to death. There are also details in the short film that tackle different issues in our lifetime, such as problems in our society and such. The length of the film is perfect, not too short and didn't drag out. Also, cute meow meows. |
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| I don't know which part was the weirdest, but I really loved when the cat opened the pig's body to take a slice of beef and cook it. |
| No tomo malas decisiones, solo me gusta apoyar causas perdidas. Disfruté Mayoiga, Ou-sama Game, Evil or Live, Mirai Nikki, Big Order, Arifureta, Ex-Arm, Tesla Note, Shuumatsu no Harem y Platinum End nope les falle con esa, lo siento pero todos tenemos nuestros límites. Así de jodido es mi gusto en anime, ¡Y estoy pinche orgulloso de ello!  |
| Nihilistic tendencies and life in the eyes of humanity. The saddest part is when the work shuts off the viewer's escapism, literally, but then again a tv can just as easily be turned on again, can't it? |
| My favorite part of this trip through images was the water elephant in the desert. I would love to swim inside one looking out at the sand. I guess that makes me as weird as the movie! LOL |
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| It was basically every experimental anime but mashed up with some despicable characters. I didn't like this as much as I thought I would but it is an alright adventure. |
| justice for the pig... |
| That was one of the weirdest things ever. |
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| I felt like dying multiple times while watching this. |
| people die when they are killed lol |
 lets all love lain. |
| That was quite the trippy experience. What happened to the original creator, I'm assuming it's by far the biggest reason why this has a cult following and is fairly well known. Probably the only reason why it was made posthumously. I know she made a lot of stuff as depicted in her dreams, I don't know how else one could come up with stuff like this lol, other than drugs. 6/10. |
| Turn out back in 2008 someone already expressed exactly what I wanted to say here "What did I just watch O_o 9/10" |
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| this was really cool, lots of intersting messages reflecting humanity and our choices as well as our treatment of others. I like how everything was deliberate and the animation was really good. everything fit well together. I would watch again |
My Candies 2025:      Bonus:  |
| Fever dream. I should've smoked before watching this. It was better at 1.7x speed |
As a wise man once said, "No one hates anime more than anime fans"  |
| What the.. Have I seen this somewhere before?? But it's so lowkey... The amount of Deja Vu I got watching this was unreal, I had to have seen it before... |
 My 2024 MALoween Candies:        |
| Damn, they did that pig dirty. Actually stopped rooting for them there (well Nyatta at least, Nyako could be excused), just because he tasted bad doesn't mean you needed to beat him to death. I'm not even really joking, the desert segment was my least favourite because I actually stopped liking them after that. I did find the joke of them cutting up and eating the pig instead of the fish he caught pretty funny, especially since the pig started eating it but I guess this bit of black comedy didn't work for me to put it lightly. Regardless though I did enjoy my time with Cat Soup. I didn't know much about this beyond Yuasa's involvement, and that it was weird (though to an extent, those are basically the same thing) and this wasn't what I was expecting. Like, I was anticipating dialogue beyond some scattered speech bubbles and animal crossing language but I am glad that's all we got. And I have to say, the first time I knew I was going to enjoy this was when Nyatta deflated that person at the person. And I was expecting a narrative that wasn't entirely comprised of these surreal digressions, most of them fittingly sharing a common theme of death (some including a circle of life element to it), but I for the most part, quite enjoyed the surreal journeys we embarked on. Obviously not all of them are created equal. The little bit with the Frankenstein cats where Nyatta gets his arm re-attached I don't care for, the water elephant was just kinda fine, and the BDSM Robot Hansel & Gretel part is another one that didn't do much for me either. Now, some of this is definitely because my personal investment in the characters were soured by them beating the pig to death, it's kinda embarrassing how much that did hurt my enjoyment here, but I will say at least in retrospect I can appreciate elements of them. The Water Elephant segment is neat in the way that it connects back to Nyatta, both his desire to see a Golden Elephant in the Circus, and the fact that he drowned at the start of the film. The Frankenstein cat I think speaks to our desire to preserve or like fight for continuing life, and like the futility of it as well, which I think is fitting considering the ending. And the BDSM Robot Hansel & Gretel part is um, weird? I don't know, maybe it connects to some Survival of the Fittest thing, there's a bit of that in the movie. I don't really have much that one but of the desert segments it was my favourite so I wouldn't remove it or anything. Besides that, I really liked the Circus segment (though the storm chicken bit might've dragged a bit too long imo), and the ending bits with the movement of time would probably be the highlights of the film. The rewind sequence specifically, the animation was really strong here, and I liked continual focus on the rewinding moments before death. For starters this is right before Nyako gets the second half of her soul back, rewind death is essentially what Nyatta's goal here is so it fits parallel to that. But there are also two other thoughts I have following this sequence, albeit they're somewhat contradictory. The first is the people shown here are still going to die. Those car crashes are probably still going to happen, those guys are still going to get shot, they're not being saved, we're just seeing their final moments in reverse. Secondly, they're returned to the time on the boat, but the Pig is nowhere to be seen, which gives death a sense of permeance. My first thought is kind of a "fate can't be changed" type of deal, which would imply the pig would still show up the boat regardless, but it feels to me the reason he's not on there is because he died. Maybe only those alive at the time God started mucking up the time flow where impacted, so the Pig couldn't show back up because once you die, you don't come back. Which brings me to the ending of the film. My take is that Nyatta did die at the beginning of the film, he wasn't successfully resuscitated by his dad, he just died and the movie is essentially his brains final moments before everything ends. Nyako was clearly sick before Nyatta died, so it makes since that in his brain's dying moments, it would sort of reframe it's own struggle to stay alive with a story to save hers. It stands out to me that Nyatta himself doesn't blip out like the the rest of his family or the TV does, feel like it signifies his dying brain, as it's shutting down it's losing the pieces it holds dear. And once the final light flickers out, it's just the static. Like TV it might be on but there's no more signals to project anything, and then the darkness as the credits start to play. I also really liked the credits tbh, something I didn't see myself praising going in. When I saw the credits pop up, I jumped tabs over to MAL and just kept the pretty music playing as I began to read the comments in this thread. But then the music stopped, rewound a bit, and of course I switched back over and rewinded myself to watch the final credits. The constant looping of this one precious innocent memory, the picture itself is from the father's memory so I reckon it's him doing the replaying. Considering in my interpretation, he probably just lost both of his children, it makes sense that he'd want to hold on to a fond memory of his family at the beach (though maybe the beach isn't the best setting since he son drowned). A rather melanchonic credit sequence, but one that I think adds to the story which isn't something you can say about 99% of credits sequences (and no, mid- & post- credit scenes don't count [though I do love those]). You know, when I finished watching Cat Soup I was pretty confident that I was going to give it a 7. And when I started this post I was still thinking I'd end this post with a 7/10. Because personally I really only enjoyed it about 7 when I watched it, which isn't a bad score at all imo. But after sitting down and putting my thoughts to paper, and thinking about it more, I think I'm going to bump this to an 8. There's quite a few anime on my list that I rate higher than I personally enjoy in some attempt to be objective and recognize strengths about work even if it doesn't personally do anything for me. I don't think anything's ever been bumped up more than single point mind you, but it's definitely something that has happened. Usually if the animation is excellent. But I'm bringing this up to say, that's not what I'm doing here. Because the 8/10 is not just representing the experience of watching it. Sometimes the true joy of a piece of art isn't the consumption of the work but in the reflection of that experience. |
| I have no idea what i just watched xD |
| I weirdly love this. It reminds me of old soviet cartoons and shorts, maybe calling this is a 9/10 purely because it makes me feel a sense of nostalgia is foolish but its the rating my heart thinks it deserves. |
| This is by far the most weirdest dark anime I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Even when I type my thoughts out about Cat Soup, I still haven’t a clue about what actually happened in that OVA. The animation I will say is pretty good, the visuals are very striking and they do invoke the mood of what they are going for, which is a very macabre sort of way of things in tone I feel like with this OVA it’s literally got loads and loads of symbolism, a lot of involving the mortality of life but at the same time I’m just more or less seeing this as more as an experience more than a narrative. I mean we are literally talking about an anime where a cat literally in a tub of water while he’s playing with his toy boat and then it’s this WHOLE thing where the brother and sister are going on a journey or something, involving a weird circus, a water elephant in a desert, the titular cats eating their pig companion for whatever reason, a man with GIANT SCISSORS trying to cook the cats, ala Hansel and Gretel style as well as a bearded old dude literally rewinding time and we see gruesome images like people being shot in the head, people falling from the sky as well as a person being hit by a car. And honest to god I’m really not making up half the stuff I’m listing here. It’s literally a trippy anime for a lack of a better word, it did creep me out and yet fascinate with it as it went along but I feel like this is something you need to have your own sort of interpretation on it as a whole because quite honestly it’s hard to figure out what’s going on, on a first watch so it definitely has rewatch ability to it. I will say it’s a great experience watch it if your curious but be warned it’s very dark and very weird so be prepared for no clear explanations and the fact that the characters never speak, they occasionally make high pitched noises like they were Animal Crossing characters but otherwise there’s no dialogue and they literally throw you in the deep end when it comes to the madness of Cat Soup. Overall I will say I will give Cat Soup an 8/10. |
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