Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 12 Episodes x 22 minutes
Production Date: 2001
Currently in Print (as of writing): No
I generally don’t read anime reviews, especially the supposedly “professional” ones from the big anime sites. I find that a lot of hate is spewed unnecessarily towards certain series. Oddly enough a lot of righteous moralism is also applied to some series as well. Even those which most normal people think are completely innocent. This is one show where the reviews completely baffled me. Going by some reviews you’d honestly think it was about molesting small children and killing cute puppies and kittens. The show contains a whole heap of cat people creatures which are about knee high to a human. One review thought it was creepy that one of the female cat people was curled up in its owner’s lap. Uh huh. So the question is; is that a horrible creepy sexual fetish or is it just a cat sleeping on a person’s lap because, you know, it’s a fucking cat? Another review from a well-known defunct anime website suggested the series was aimed at paedophiles and “skunk fuckers”. Yep, oh kay… I seriously believe that when someone sees sexuality in something as innocent as this show, well, I think that speaks volumes about what goes inside their heads. What an awful existence their life must be.
With that out of the way, I might talk about the show. The setup is a little weird, so stick with me. Long ago a race of cat people called the Kinka lived in an alternate universe to the human world. A war developed between a second race of cat people called the Byoh. The Kinka loose the battle and the princess of Kinka disappears. In the human world, a cat called Taruto and her master Iori have moved to a new house with Iori’s niece, Kinako. Iori is a rather gentle man who is interested in cooking than anything else. That is until he spots Anzuko Domyoji, a rich, young and wealthy woman who is an avid cat collector. Smitten by Anzuko, Iori inadvertently promises to give Taruto to her. Not only does Taruto have to deal with not being caught by Anzuko, she also has to deal with the teasing by two local cats, Charlotte and Chitose. However they do eventually become friends. Taruto believes she can perform magic and somehow makes a squirrel called Kakipi, who is found living in the roof of the house, fly. He soon becomes a close friend of Taruto. Charlotte and Chitose have difficulty believing Taruto’s claims about magic, however a local wise cat, Rakugan, decides to train her as she maybe the lost Kinka princess. However two mischievous cats, Chips and Nachos, are ordered by a mysterious old witch to thwart Taruto. Adding to the confusion is that three masked cats in capes are searching for Taruto.
So, the major problem with this show is that the true nature of these humanoid cats is seemingly never articulated in the show. Watching the show, it immediately occurred to me that even the wild cats wore clothes. This really made no sense at all. That was until I later read that only the cats (and the audience) see themselves as anamorphic creatures. The humans just see them as plain old garden variety normal cats. That’s why some imagery around the humans regarding cats actually looks like cats rather than little humans with cat ears and tails. While it may seem that the cats can speak and converse with the humans, if you watch closely that’s not the case. The lack of any overt explanation of this situation in the show really lets it down in my opinion. Surely a few shots early on from the perspective of the humans would have made everything so much clearer. Why this wasn’t done, I’m really not too sure. Certainly in the context of how the cats see themselves it explains why Taruto thinks she has magical powers and that perhaps a lot of what is depicted in the show is just in the imaginations of the cats. However I must say that the rules in terms of cat and human interaction aren’t followed at times. It’s obvious that the creators have cheated a bit in some sequences. I also had some difficulty with the believability of some of the human characters, Iori in particular. That frilly shirt was just a bit too much (well, you know what they say about single men who own cats). The setting was odd too; a mish-mash of Japan and a generic European city. Overall I think the show was slightly too sugary for me and certainly Taruto herself was a bit too clueless and silly for my tastes.
The fact is that this show is a children’s show, originally screened at 6pm on satellite station WOWOW back in 2001. I think most reviewers seem unable to comprehend this. If you see sexuality in this show, well, you’re fucking weirdo. Apparently Bandai Entertainment put liner notes (in regard to the cats and the world of Taruto) in the original single DVD releases of the show, but didn’t with the collection I have. Shame, as it would have helped me immensely in figuring out what was going on. The bonus materials on the discs include about six music videos which have the main three voice actors (Hisayo Mochizuki, Masayo Kurata and Maria Yamamoto) singing character songs while dressed up as the characters. It’s extremely weird and the girls look slightly self-conscious. Overall it’s a rather cute and fluffy show, but it was just a bit too sugary and silly for me. Still it was a fun little show in many parts and was quite entertaining, so it gets 6 out of 10 from me.
Remaining Backlog: 27 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).
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