ShatteredMinds

Wow, don’t really know where to begin with this. Cat Soup is a one of a kind anime, that reeks of dementia and weirdness. I would describe it as a 32 minute long LSD-trip, along with the final episode in Neon Genesis Evangelion (seriously, it’s a mindfuck).

Rating:

Cat Soup is a really hard anime to review, due to it being bizarre and awkward. It doesn’t have any story, characters or morale, or anything that makes a lick of sense. Not one of the characters have any names, and their dialogue only consist of squeeking or other noises you can’t possibly recognize as speech. The whole peice is very surreal, like if you were in a dream-like state.

The animation is quite alright and goes between almost childish to CGI. At most times, the animations are not jawdropping quality but rather what they want to portray. But even the animators had problems following what was going on and that makes the animation pace between different rythms and qualities. In the end, it fits well with the whole setting.

Speaking of story, it’s a mess. You have between slim and no idea what is really going to happen, and it is pretty random at times, while still trying to follow the “plot”. Cat Soup is sort of filled with multiple sub-stories, and it seems like the 32 minutes of animation could have very well ended up being several hours, but then I guess the animators would’ve been completely lost!
With such little material to go on for a review, I can’t go any futher on the subject of a story.

If you’re still wondering “Who the hell are the main characters then?”, I’ll answer that. At the beginning of Cat Soup, we’re introduced to a young toddler, which is a cat. That walks on two legs. Along with every other character in the anime. And then comes his older brother, who’s also a cat, and is retarded (seriously). These two persist through the whole anime, and are placed into one situation to another.

Anyhow, this is half an hour you will strangely enjoy. It feels trippy, and you’ll be amazed by the bizarre creativity behind the scenery and characters (like the huge cloud-making-bird-thing) in Cat Soup.
It is short, but it’s worth it.