Short, but long enough, Cat Soup is a very wild trip to watch. One day, I was just searching though my On-demand list through the anime section and came across it, and decided to watch it. I spent the whole time basically sitting with my jaw agape. The whole time I was either vacant of thought, or had a fleeting one which screamed "TURN IT OFF!!!". But I didn't. And actually, I'm glad I did.
The animation is stunning. Very artistic, odd and dark. I personally loved it for the amazing animation, but the seemingly vacant story behind it is equally compelling for myself.
A young boy--well, cat--goes in search of his sister's soul. In the first part she's lying sick in bed, and is soon paid by a visit from a sort of grim reaper. Her soul is split in half. One is regained by the cat boy while the other half is lost.
Then the rest of the film is slightly lost to me, honestly. I expect they go back, and their world is... perhaps slowly falling apart? Maybe her absence of soul is the answer behind this, for the rest of the film contains various stages of which the world's in. First there's a giant flood, and next it dries up into a bleak desert, and then everything freezes (thanks to either what is God or fate, as you will see). Then I believe they find the sister's soul in the form of an orange flower. After that, the whole world disappears. Haha, totally didn't get that, but it sends shivers down my spine each time.
Despite it's seemingly random scenes, I'm sure there's a deeper message behind it if you watch it enough and do some research. Personally, I LOVE trippy stuff like this, and would love to spend time doing that just to understand it. But to some people it's probably not their cup of tea. It comes off as highly disturbing, so if you like your straight forward anime, this is not a film for you. If you have an open mind however, I highly recommend this movie.
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