The Giant Robots of Kokusai Eigasha: Innovators or Oddities?

When you think mech anime there are specific studios that fans will think of: Sunrise, Gonzo, Toei (though they don't do mecha much anymore), & Ashi Pro, for example (though Ashi is now known as Production REED and hasn't made anything since 2007's Dancougar Nova, relying solely on licensing presently).  Back in the 80s mech anime was a gigantically big genre of anime, with all sorts of properties being made during that era and, coincidentally, being a big part of the Super Robot Wars series' history of using actual mech anime.  Anyway, a lot of these mech series followed a similar idea behind them: There was a war going on between humans and aliens/other humans/evil organisations, and space was a battlefield.  But there was one studio that boldly decided to buck some of those trends & try different ideas.  Granted, some of these productions still followed some elements of the usual 80s mech anime, but in general they all had at least one thing that made them identifiable & original...  And that might possibly be part of the reason why Kokusai Eigasha, also known as Movie International Co. Ltd., died out in six years.

Now I know that most of you are probably wondering "Who the hell was Kokusai Eigasha?", so I'll give a little backstory about the company, which I'll be calling Kokusai for short, first.  According to Wikipedia Japan, Kokusai technically started up in 1974, but didn't enter the anime business until 1979, with their debut title being Mechakko Dotakon, a children's title about a robot boy who wants to become a real boy.  After that Kokusai found some success with two titles aimed at girls, Wakakusa no Yon Shimai (which was based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women) & Honey Honey (which was based on the shojo manga Honey Honey no Suteki na Bouken), both of which found TV airtime around the world, including the USA.  During this time, though, Kokusai did get involved in mech anime by helping Ashi Pro out with what is now a somewhat infamous mech anime: 1980-1981's Space Warrior Baldios.

Baldios was the story of Marin Reigan, the main pilot of the giant robot Baldios, & his battle against a race of aliens who destroyed their own world through pollution & were looking into doing the same to Earth.  Yeah, it seems that the show was kind of a "Save the Environment!" message wrapped up inside of a mech anime, and though it was planned to be 39 episodes, the show wound up getting canceled after 31, & the last shot of the TV series would become one of the most infamous "bad endings" in anime history.  The TV series ended in early 1981, & at the end of the year Toei (yeah, not Ashi...  Weird, huh?) made a movie adaptation that acted both as a compilation movie but also as a proper ending to the original story, telling what happened after the "bad end" of the TV series.  It was this movie that was released here in North America by Celebrity Home Entertainment under the name "Space Warriors", and I included the movie in my most recent license rescue list, adding that what we got was a 99-minute cut, while a 117-minute cut exists in Japan.  Technically, Baldios isn't a Kokusai anime since Ashi was the main studio behind it and still holds the rights to it, but it's still worth bringing up.  Kokusai teamed up with Ashi Pro four times total, with this bring the third team-up, and Baldios is likely the most interesting of the four, though Zukokke Knight - Don De La Mancha, an anime adaptation of Don Quixote where De La Mancha himself is a dog-man, comes in at a close second through the sheer odd factor.

In 1982 the company decided to try their own hand at mech anime, & their first attempt is still probably the only one of its kind: Makyou Densetsu Acrobunch.  Inspired by the adventure movie craze Hollywood had in the 80s after the success of the Indiana Jones movies, Kokusai Eigasha thought that mixing that concept with mech anime would bring about a winning combination.  The story focused on the Randou Family, who go on a world-spanning hunt for the lost treasure of Quaschika, while the underground Goblin Clan is doing the same thing, resulting in many battles between the two groups.  The series lasted for 24 episodes & then received a DVD release back in 2001 in Japan, but outside of the occasional figure and/or model kit every couple of years the series seems to have become a more obscure title in its homeland, all the more proven by its sole inclusion in Super Robot Wars: SRW Compact 3, which is mostly known for its oddball line-up of obscure mecha.  Still, there likely isn't anything like Acrobunch today, at least in concept, & there probably won't be anything like it in the future.  And, hell, this title featured the debut of seiyuu Shigeru Nakahara, who would later voice Masato in Dancougar & Trowa in Gundam Wing, as main character Jun Randou & character designer Mutsumi Inomata, who would later do character designs for Brain Powered & roughly two-thirds of the games in the Tales Series of RPGs.  Then there's also the fact that it was the first time where Norio Wakamoto voiced a main character in Hiro Randou.  I have raws of this show and I've really been meaning to check it out sooner rather than later, so hopefully it isn't obscure due to lack of quality.

Kokusai would do some other non-mech anime before debuting their second mecha, and this one actually came over to North America in some form.  1983-1984's Aku Daisakusen Srungle was about Captain Jance and his SWAT-esque team called Gorilla taking on the evil organization Crime & its leader, Fork Lazer...  Wow, just wow at the name of the enemy group & its leader.  Anyway, Srungle lasted for 52 episodes and was brought over to North America in a very Voltron-esque fashion.  Saban licensed Ashi Pro's Sengoku Majin GoShogun, which was a parody of mech anime at the time, and adapted it & Srungle into a show called Macron-1.  Essentially, Macron-1 was an altered version of GoShogun's story, with Srungle footage making occasional appearance as an alternate dimension war against the same enemy as that of the GoShogun enemies.  Yeah, it probably was as confusing and bad as it sounds, though Crime & Fork Lazer were changed into GRIP & Dark Star (whether that's an improvement is up to opinion).  Anyway, don't go expecting to ever see Macron-1 get a DVD release, as the show used many covers of popular music at the time, such as Michael Jackson's Beat It.  I wish I was making that up, but I've linked the video.  In Japan GoShogun is considered a classic, with a number of novel side stories & sequels being made, one of which was made into the GoShogun: Time Stranger movie we actually got over here uncut, and numerous inclusions in SRW games.  Srungle, on the other hand, got a DVD release in 2004 and was promptly forgotten, with likely it's most well-known "feature" being the fact that the legendary Yoshitaka Amano did the character designs.

This is the cover to the OST, the only physical release Galvion ever got!

1984 was the last full year Kokusai ever had, and their last mech anime ever is also one of the most infamously unavailable titles ever: Chou Kosoku Galvion.  Galvion revolved around the group CIRCUS, created & lead by the billionaire Rei Midoriyama, which takes on all sorts of jobs and gets involved in the shady dealings of an evil organisation called Shadow.  Galvion honestly had some really nice ideas behind it, with an apparent focus on driving sequences (the mechs transformed from cars), a neat concept in that the two main characters, Mu & Maya, are actually convicts who are working for CIRCUS so that they can get their sentences reduced, & even mech designs by Koichi Ohata.  Unfortunately, the ratings must have bombed hard, as the show only got 22 episodes in before cancellation, with a 23rd episode only being partially completed, and the "last" episode featured a short epilogue at the end where a narrator simply explained to the audience what happened to everyone.  The show never received a VHS, LD, or DVD released since it's original TV airing, and the OST didn't get an actual release until 2009...  And it apparently was a horrible release, with the audio sounding like someone simply recorded a vinyl record to a CD and called it a day.  But even without an official home video release, there are some raws floating around, and the first episode did get fansubbed as a one-shot release.  I've watched that episode and I really did like what I saw, so it's pretty disappointing that this title never got any sort of video release.  But, let's be honest, going out of business can do that to a show.

Kokusai wouldn't make it much further after 1984, and by the end of 1985 the company was gone, with their last title being Futari Daka, based on the motorcycle manga of the same name by Area 88's Kaoru Shintani.  But Kokusai Eigasha does have one main legacy behind it...  One series that became a hit in Japan & eventually became known to fans of mech anime around the world.  I'm talking about the J9 Series.

I've talked about the J9 Series before, so I won't go into detail, but if there is anything that Kokusai Eigasha created that has survived & become legends in their own it's the J9 Series.  Running from 1981 to 1984 the J9 Series was comprised of three titles, Ginga Senpuu Braiger, Ginga Reppuu Baxinger, & Ginga Shippu Sasuraiger, and all three are pretty original titles among mech anime.  Braiger's team of merciless-yet-entertaining people-for-hire, J9, is very similar to the later GoShogun in that the show is essentially carried by the banter & general personalities that the main characters have.  In an almost rule-breaking style at the time Braiger doesn't actually have a central plot behind it throughout most of its run, putting all the more focus on the leads & their actions; combine that with some awesome music and it's almost a prototype Cowboy Bebop mixed with a giant robot!  Baxinger was based on the legend of the 47 ronin, a late-Shinsengumi tale of a gang of ronin who went against the government; Baxinger essentially takes this story, puts it in space, and gives the main characters giant motorcycles that combine into the titular robot.  Sasuraiger takes its inspiration from Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days and puts it into space while giving its main characters a giant space train that can transform into a giant robot...  It almost makes the legendary Galaxy Express 999 look really bland.  Of the three series Braiger defintiely is the most well-remembered, with multiple SRW appearances compared to the other two's single appearance (which has the three J9 teams meet up for the first time), but all three just ooze style & memorability just from their opening sequences.  Even though the company is gone, Kokusai's legacy is, without a doubt, cemented solely through the J9 Series.

Nowadays, it's kind of hard to tell who exactly owns the rights to Kokusai Eigasha's titles.  Supposedly the company still exists to this day through Shigeo Tsubota, who was the producer of the company's titles, though it might be simply as a copyright management company.  As for licensing, I mentioned Acrobunch & the J9 Series back when I looked at Enoki Films USA's catalog of titles, and even though Enoki's site isn't around anymore I was able to look at it via the Internet Wayback Machine's archive and I saw that Enoki essentially got Kokusai's entire catalog, as they also had Honey Honey & Little Women, though there was a title or two missing (like Galvion).  Unfortunately, the phone number on that old site isn't in service anymore, much like when I tried Illumitoon's number that one time, so who knows what's going on with Enoki Films.  I've been told that, even though the site is gone, Mr. Yoshi Enoki himself still is in the business and ready to work with others so hopefully that's still the case, because if Enoki is out of the picture there's a good chance that Kokusai's entire catalog has become lost now.

Even if some of their mech titles didn't become big hits they all had something different to offer from the usual mech anime of the time and even today some of them are still originals in a genre that, unfortunately, just isn't getting as much focus as it once did.  They may be oddities, but they were also innovative in that they showed that mech anime didn't just have to just be about war, space travel, or even dead-serious.  Hopefully that streaming/crowdfunding site that professional translator Sam Pinansky revealed was in the works almost half a year ago will debut soon, because if there's someplace that Mr. Enoki can finally get his catalog of titles attached to, it's this site.  It would also allow Kokusai Eigasha's mech animes to finally reach an audience that all but one wasn't able to reach in the past: A North American audience.

Explorer Woman Ray: and the Light of the Ords

I was going into this 1989 OVA expecting a horribly bland & bad anime; afterall, any review I could find of this title wasn't exactly nice (even Mike Toole's old AnimeJump review from 2003 was negative).  But here I am, having watched both episodes, and I honestly liked it.  True, it isn't one of the all-time greats, nor is it one of the best of the 80s, but I honestly enjoyed watching Explorer Woman Ray.

Rayna Kizuki (Ray for short) is a professor & archaeologist who is currently on the search for more info on the mysterious Ord Tribe, who were known to worship the Sun; her grandfather had started this search ten years ago with his assistant Rieg Vader, but he disappeared without a trace & Rieg left shortly after.  During her research two young girls, Mai & Mami, find her and have brought the mirror-like artifact that the Ords used, which Ray's grandfather had possession of, in hopes that it can help lead to them finding treasure.  Unfortunately, Rieg has also been on the search & will do anything to get the mirror and find out the true nature behind the light that the Ord had once worshipped.

If you can't exactly tell from the synopsis, Explorer Woman Ray is an Indiana Jones knock-off.  In fact, in some aspects it's a blatant Indy kock-off; Rieg, for example, looks like an anime version of Belloch from Raiders of the Lost Ark and even behaves in a similar fashion to the man.  Ray, likewise, is essentially a female Indy and Mai & Mami are twin girls who are similar to Short Round from Temple of Doom.  Now I can see why some people would find this to be a problem, since it kind of removes much hope for some sense of originality from this production, but the fact of the matter is that I love the Indiana Jones movies (yes, I even enjoy Temple of Doom & Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), and seeing an anime equivalent of it is a fun concept to me.  The fact that it actually succeeds at being an anime version of Indiana Jones is, honestly, just a positive for me.  Of course, I'm also coming off of watching Crystal Triangle, so take that however you want.

Anyway, Ray's story splits up fairly nicely with the first episode being very action-heavy and doing a nice job at introducing the major characters while the second episode is a slower-paced piece, delving more into the backstory between Ray & Rieg (i.e. Ray had a young girl crush on Rieg) and giving the story a climax.  Now while this story is very Indy-like, Ray does differ in some ways, the biggest of which is that Rieg actually is a major focus in the story & actually fights Ray in the end, whereas Belloch in Raiders was only in a few scenes and never actually had a major confrontation with Indy.  The battle between Ray & Rieg isn't filled with too much action & features a pretty silly moment where Rieg's sword loses to a random pipe Ray is given, but it was still nice to see the two actually have a final confrontation.  Also, this title has an interesting twist where a nameless grunt leader (literally, he's named "Head Leader") actually ends up having some character to him and I honestly found him entertaining to watch to the point where I felt that he deserved to have more scenes.  Head Leader at least did more than Johnathan, Rieg's big brute of a second-in-command who actually even got punched out by Head Leader...

But it's not like Explorer Woman Ray doesn't have it's faults, though, because it does.  Much like how some people found Short Round in Temple of Doom highly annoying, Mami & Mai also can get annoying, Mai more than Mami.  Admittedly, they were mostly harmless in the first episode and even were the focus of the OVA's awesome opening scene where they're being chased on a train, but both of them were pretty much useless in the second episode outside of a short fight scene, with Mai even having the gall to say that Ray is helpless without them...  To the OVA's credit, though, when Mai said that Mami looked at her puzzled and wondered if that's really the case, so at least the OVA knows when to poke fun at itself.  Another problem is that the animation hits both really high notes as well as pretty low notes, but they're seperated by the episode count.  What I mean by that is the first episode has some really great & fluid animation (some could argue that the first episode features some of the best short sequences of the 80s, like with the opening train scene), but the second episode features much more limited & error-prone animation.  I can understand the more limited animation, since the second episode is slower-paced in general, but there are a couple of odd moments where the animation suffers, with the most obvious being a shot where Mai & Mami shout out Ray's name, but they're mouths animate like they are saying an entire sentence, complete with mouth flaps still happening after they stop shouting.  It's overall just a noticeable blemish of an otherwise nicely-made production.

The animation was done by Animate-Film & AIC and it was directed by Hiroki Hayashi (director of the El Hazard series & Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040), with the second episode directed by Haruhisa Okamoto & Masato Sato, and that likely explains the difference in animation quality between each episode; Hayashi is a well-known director & creator whereas Okamoto & Sato are small names in the industry, and the budget for each episode likely reflected that.  The character designs were done by Hiroyuki Ochi (director & character designer of Armitage III and character designer of the Burning Rangers video game), and Ochi's designs do work really well for this title, though Ray's hair, which is supposed to be brown, more often than not looks jet black.  The music by Norimasa Yamanaka (of Body Jack, Generator Gawl, & the Appleseed OVA fame) fits the title well enough, but it does admittedly sound more like background music for a video game, though the main theme is catchy enough.  As a neat little bit of trivia, Ray's original mangaka, Takeshi Okazaki, also apparantly helped out with some of the animation work on this OVA.  The voice cast is small but enjoyable, with Mika Doi (Misa Hayase from Macross, Marvel Frozen from Aura Battle Dunbine, Eclipse from Kiddy Grade) doing a very nice job as Ray.  Following her is Katsunosuke Hori (Jiro Nakata in Zetman, Toshio Fukai in Eureka Seven AO), who delivers an appropriately brash Rieg, and Miki Itou (Android #18 in DBZ) & Minami Takayama (Conan in Detective Conan/Case Closed) as Mai & Mami, respectively.  There was no English dub produced for this when CPM released this on VHS & LD in the 90s.

Ah, don't you love covers that change everyone's hair color?

After the less-than-stellar reception I was seeing online I was expecting to not enjoy Explorer Woman Ray, or at least feel that it dropped the ball in the second episode, but I actually came out of having a fun time with this title.  Yeah, it won't be a part of my favorite animes of all time anytime soon, and it doesn't quite hold a candle to most of the Indiana Jones movies, but I still ended up liking Explorer Woman Ray.  I like adventure stories like these, and Ray certainly scratched that itch just fine, maybe even a little better than I expected.  From what I could find out, the Ray OVA actually isn't a 100% accurate adaptation of Takeshi Okazaki's original two-volume manga, which apparently tells a completely different adventure & even features some slightly different character development.  I had brought up the original Explorer Woman Ray manga as part of my "JManga 13", and after seeing this OVA I really do want to read the manga now.  I do love me a good archaeology adventure, afterall...

Crystal Triangle: And People Badmouth Indiana Jones 4...

I am almost at a loss for words...  I have just seen an anime that has blown my mind.  Not because it's so amazingly excellent, because it's not (in fact, it's downright dumb), but rather because I honestly couldn't think that such a title could be made.  This is Kindan no Mokushiroku/The Forbidden Apocalypse (or, as CPM translated it, The Forbidden Revelation) Crystal Triangle.

Koichiro Kamishiro is an archaeologist who is on the search for the mysterious "Message of God", which is the supposed lost "11th Commandment" that can save the Earth from its greatest calamity.  With the help of his assistants Isao & Mina, newcomer Miyabi (the daughter of the man who taught Kamishiro), & a yakuza named Ginji Kamishiro will discover the truth behind the "Message of God" and how it relates to the mysterious Hih Tribe.  Unfortunately, Kamishiro also has the CIA, KGB, & even the Japanese government hot on his heels.

It's almost hard to choose a starting point to talk about Crystal Triangle, because this 86-minute OVA essentially tosses in everything but the kitchen sink.  Literally, there's an Indiana Jones-style adventure, explosions, international intrigue, yakuza, religion, mysticism, actual monsters, mystical powers, a spaceship ("What does God need with a starship?"), a potential start to World War III, Japanese, English, Russian, a forced love, &, finally, lots & lots of nonsensical moments!  Right from the start this OVA decides to essentially remove logic except for when the story decides that it's worth using it; for example, early on Kamishiro & Juno, the CIA agent (though he doesn't know she's a CIA agent then) are in the desert and are running late to get on a plane...  So Kamishiro simply drives their jeep through the airfield's chain link fence & stops in front of their plane, which is about to take off.  The plane, in turn, stops before hitting the jeep and the next shot shows Kamishiro & Juno on the plane & in their seats.  Oh, and I can't forget the point in the beginning where Kamishiro essentially destroys some ruins to stop guerrillas from shooting at him & Juno, complete with a scene where some guerrillas try to escape from their car before it gets crushed by a falling rock...  Only to have them crushed by rocks & the car survives untouched.  Then you have Urga, Kamishiro's archaeologist rival who is also a KGB agent, who wields a rocket launcher & has a seemingly infinite amount of rockets on hand; oh, and he's the grandson of Rasputin, which has no impact whatsoever on the story.

But the craziest and most nonsensical stuff comes from the involvement of the Hih Tribe.  The Hih Tribe essentially tells Kamishiro & his crew where to go for their first investigation by possessing Miyabi and having her tell them where to go.  Then they create a giant earthquake that reveals a hidden temple when the group gets to the location, so the Hih Tribe must be helping Kamishiro, right?  Wrong, since after that part the Hih Tribe then tries to kill Kamishiro for finding out too much.  Their leader even says that Kamishiro is getting too close to finding out the truth, but his own tribe essentially shoved him there!  But at the end you find out that the Hih Tribe always wanted Kamishiro to find out the truth, so it's like the Hih Tribe is double-crossing themselves multiple times.  If you can't tell already, Crystal Triangle's biggest problem is that it is trying to do too much all at once.

But for all of this over-ambition, it truly doesn't hit its stride until about halfway through, when (spoilers) the Hih Tribe reveal themselves to be a race of monsters that have been waiting in hiding for a giant space rock called Nemesis to strike the Earth in the year 1999 & kill humanity, like how the dinosaurs were killed, which will allow the Hih Tribe to thrive (end spoilers).  This reveal just comes from out of nowhere and turns the story into seemingly something else, complete with Kamishiro revealing the mystical powers he always had but didn't use before because he had no reason to use them before.  This all comes to a head in the climax, where it's revealed that the "Message of God" is hidden inside of a giant spaceship that's been buried in the ground of Hokkaido for-seemingly-ever.  Oh, and you won't believe what God looks like!  No really, I'm not spoiling this part, go see for yourself...  You'll never guess what God looks like, nor will you guess exactly what happens to God.

To be honest, though, it's this same over-ambition that makes Crystal Triangle so entertaining to watch.  So much stuff is happening & the movie tries to be so many different types of titles at once that it becomes absorbingly enthralling in how ridiculous & dumb it becomes.  Now, yes, I do legitimately enjoy stuff that goes into ridiculous territory, but even with those titles the ridiculous moments work in the context of the world that those titles create.  Crystal Triangle, on the other hand, is the equivalent of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.  For all intents & purposes this method shouldn't work & from a practical perspective it doesn't, but at the same time this impracticality is what makes this OVA so absorbing; you just want to know what crazy, nonsensical thing will happen next!

Unfortunately, all of this craziness essentially kills character development.  Kamishiro gets a vague but kind of explained backstory, mainly in regards to where his mystical powers from, & Miyabi gets some reveals, but everyone else is barebones.  Hell, Isao & Mina are essentially useless characters, while Ginji & Urga mainly rely on their respective badassness, though Urga's comes a little too late for him, & Juno is simply there for her apparent good looks (she's supposed to be protecting Kamishiro for the CIA, though she really doesn't do much of that).  The surprising amount of Engrish & Russian used by Juno & Urga, respectively, is worthy of brownie points, though.

One can only imagine what was going through the minds of screenwriter Junki Takegami & director Seiji Okuda (both of Dancougar fame) when they were creating this nonsensical trainwreck.  The music, done by Takeshi Ike (also of Dancougar fame) & Osamu Totsuka (of Dancougar & Ronin Warriors fame), isn't bad by any means, but it also screams "Indiana Jones knock-off!", except for the more subdued songs, one of which is oddly used during the climax while USA & USSR jets are shooting each other down over control of God's spaceship.  The characters at least look nice, which is due to the abilities of Kazuko Tadano (of Dangougar & Dancougar Nova [as KAZZ] fame) & the late Toyoo Ashida.  Rounding out the cast are the likes of Masane Tsukayama (Kamishiro), Kazuki Yao (Isao), Yuusaku Yara (Urga), Mayumi Shou (Mina), & Norio Wakamoto (Ginji), among others.

Crystal Triangle is a dumb anime...  But it's also an admirable one.  It's greatest flaw is that it tries way too hard to be a lot of stuff all at once, but at the same time it culminates in possibly one of the craziest & most nonsensical movie-length anime ever created.  Supposedly even CPM, who released this in North America, admitted that this is likely the craziest anime they ever did, and coming from CPM that's saying a lot.  I am no way saying that this is a good anime, because it's not, but at the same time it's definitely worth watching if you want to see something so crazy that it might blow your mind that such a thing could be created.  CPM's VHS release is pretty cheap, while the LD is really rare (as of this writing, there's only one listing for the LD on eBay, and it's going for, with shipping, ~$30); it also has never been given a DVD release anywhere, even Japan.  But, honestly, this anime should be legally available on DVD...  If Mad Bull 34 is considered "so bad it's good" that it's worthy of a license rescue via Discotek, then I see no problem in Crystal Triangle getting a license rescue.

Cat Soup: The DVD Cover... It Bleeds!

There really isn't any way to concisely describe this title...  It's weird, surreal, slow-paced, disturbing, silly, childish, adult, and all in roughly 30 minutes!  This is Cat Soup.

Nekojiru, real name Chiyomi Nakayama, was a mangaka who became well known for her works involving a world where animals live just like humans do...  And she wasn't afraid to be both cute enough to attract a strong female audience while also being adult, dark, & violent enough to attract a strong male audience.  Her works were so popular that in 1999 a TV series, Nekojiru Gekijou - Jirujiru ORIGINAL, was made that lasted for 27 two-minute episodes, and since that show was fansubbed years ago I might review that at a later date.  For now, though, I'm going to focus on the award-winning 2001 OVA, Nekojiru-so (Cat Soup Grass) that Central Park Media felt was so crazy that it was worth releasing on its own.

Nyatto & Nyako are two cat children who live with their parents.  Nyako is deadly ill & Nyatto decides to play with a car in the tub, drowning himself in the process.  In his near-death experience Nyatto sees a figure taking Nyako's soul away, and when he catches up he tries saving his older sister, but only getting half of her soul back.  Nyatto is revived but Nyako dies before Nyatto decides to put her half-soul back into her body; Nyako revives, but is essentially brain-dead.  Mother sends the two out to get some food, but Nyatto decides to drag his brain-dead sister with him to a circus/magic show...  Which ends up in the flooding of the entire planet.  And this is only the beginning of the siblings' adventure.

Cat Soup is almost too weird to put into words.  While it doesn't go into tossing crazy imagery at you at all times, that's saved for the end, when God stops, fast-forwards, & rewinds time solely so that he can recover the melon he dropped on the clock of time, the stuff that's shown in this half-hour is simply all over the place. A gigantic, transparent bird that's filled with clouds & water that's tortured into squawking stars, and each time it's tortured the clouds inside get darker & darker, until it creates a storm inside the bird that ends up blowing the creature up, resulting in the world-covering flood I mentioned in the synopsis?  Yeah, I just typed that, and it exists in this OVA.  How about an elephant made entirely of water that the cat kids use to traverse the desert until the sun ends up evaporating it?  What about a pig that ends up on the same boat as the cat kids, only for Nyatto to end up tackling & undress him, revealing his best meat sections drawn out?  Or how about the fact that the pig could be unzipped and have portions of him pulled out so that they could all eat, including the pig himself in an act of self-cannibalism?  But what a man who feeds the cat kids solely so that he can put them into a giant pot to make a literal cat soup while wearing a dominatrix-esque outfit with a mouse face mask?  Trust me, this sounds like a lot, and it is, but this is all in this OVA, and there's even more that I'm purposefully not bringing up!

This is a 100% visual journey, with absolutely no voice clips being used outside of gibberish talk the denizens all use.  Yeah, there are some speech bubbles, but there are only about ten times where they are used.  Thankfully, this OVA uses its visuals perfectly, bringing about a story that is filled with odd imagery yet also tells an understandable journey; no scene has a transition that makes no sense as long as you're paying attention...  I can understand if some people get too absorbed in the crazy imagery to not realize that there's an actual adventure going on.  I can admit that the first time I saw this back in 2008 it certainly confused me at times, but upon a second watch now I do have a much higher appreciation for it.

There are three main names to credit for this production.  The first is the director Tatsuo Sato (director of Nadesico, Ninja Scroll TV, & Bodacious Space Pirates), who's main focus was to simply adapt a Nekojiru manga into animation while not softening the violence & darkness her stories tended to have.  This production was made after Nekojiru's unfortunate suicide, and after seeing some basic image boards, her husband gave Sato's crew complete control over the production, and it really let Sato let his men do essentially anything they wanted to do, even if it made themselves wonder if they really should do it or not.  The second name to credit is Masaaki Yuasa (the then future-director of Kaiba, Kemonozume, & The Tatami Galaxy), who did the storyboarding, scenario writing (with Sato), animation direction, & planning.  In the making of feature on CPM's DVD Sato admitted that he gave Yuasa free-reign to draw what he wanted, as he sensed that Yuasa had not been able to show off his skills properly in the short key animations he had done in the past; considering that Yuasa has gone on to direct the three titles I mentioned earlier, all of which are known for their distinctive looks & exceutions, Sato did the right thing.  Finally, the third name to credit is Yutoro Teshikai, who did the music.  Teshikai had previously done the music for Kujira no Chouyaku - Glassy Ocean, a similarly esoteric production & Sato was actually recommended Teshikai by King Records.  Teshikai's work here is very subdued yet absolutely perfect for this production; even when all of the crazy imagery is going on Teshikai's soundtrack still maintains a sense of child-like wonder.  There's an easy reason why this OVA won the 2001 Media Arts Festival, Agency for Cultural Affairs "Excellence Prize" and the Fantasia Film Festival 2001 award for Best Short Film, and it's the combination of these three men, alongside the other people in the crew that Sato seemingly let run wild.

I've tried my hardest to explain why Cat Soup is such an amazingly weird production, but the best way to properly get an idea of what this title is about is by simply watching it yourself.  I hear it's available on YouTube, but I easily recommend buying the DVD CPM put out in 2003.  There's the normal edition, shown left, & the "Liquid Art Limited Edition", shown right, which features a cover that has a bag of red liquid that's meant to look kind of like blood.  Neither release is exactly cheap, but you can usually get the regular edition for at least $12-$15 used.  Extras-wise there's the interview with Tatsuo Sato I mentioned earlier, which is really extensive & definitely a great watch, and there's also a feature-length commentary with Sato, which I have not listened to yet but is likely just as interesting.  Honestly, though, I just don't see Cat Soup ever being license rescued.  Even though it's easily one of the most interesting anime productions you can watch it's just too short to warrant being released on its own nowadays.  Maybe a company can try licensing Nekojiru Gekijou, which totals to about one hour, then license Cat Soup, & then try to package them together in one Cat Soup Collection.  This is a title that I honestly hope can continually stay in print over here, as it's simply too weird, & interesting, to ignore.