Let’s not beat around the bush: for better or for worse, episode one Smoker cat this is downright disgusting. While viewers may watch this series expecting another light-hearted hobby anime about the joys of nicotine – I smoke with you behind the supermarket it’s great, but it might as well have been financed by Big Tobacco – this premiere represents Catgirl’s precipitous descent into depravity. It’s gross, weird, and seems to know what it’s doing with heavy themes about addiction until the overly broad farce flies in like a car crash. The result is a little confusing, but interesting.
The story begins with our famous smoking cat Yaniko (Yuko Natsuyoshi) taking a long drag on her balcony. She exhales a billowing cloud as the camera’s match shows the dandelion breaking apart, its seeds scattered by the wind and then falling like fresh snow. And then a lot of unpleasant things happen.
From these opening moments, it’s clear that this is a very well-executed episode of television. Bibury Animation Studios Team (Witch watch; 100 girlfriends who really, really, really, really, really love you) carefully conveys the smallest details of movement, enacting Yaniko’s repeated existence as she flicks the smoldering ash from another cigarette and brings it to her lips with a sluggish but practiced movement.
These features are carefully implemented, reminiscent of Kyoto Animation’s love of using the mundane to enhance the bedlam that follows, as they did with Nichiju or City: Animation. While on the one hand it’s a little ridiculous that so much artistic effort was wasted on this show’s crude nonsense – sort of like if Caravaggio spent time perfecting the chiaroscuro of a steaming turd – director Taku Kimura’s decision to hone in on the awkward details is kind of the point.
The thing about Yaniko is that she is the kind of mess that is rarely seen in anime (or fiction in general), mainly because this kind of dysfunction is difficult to observe. Her apartment is a disaster zone, covered in cigarette ash and full of leaking trash bags, a clear indication that she doesn’t care about her living space or herself. But more than that, we see that her addiction to smoking has made her fundamentally incapable of living an ordinary life.
Due to a lack of money, she takes a temporary job for the “antros” – by the way, there is a truly wild implication that this environment is built on discrimination against catgirls and wage slavery – but finds herself unable to endure an eight-hour shift due to pain caused by nicotine withdrawal. Although there’s a bit of Looney Tunes humor when she skips work to exhale a cartoon cloud of smoke at a nearby convenience store, she soon finds herself in real poverty, spending her few remaining yen on tobacco instead of food or water. “Why is my willpower so crap?” she screams, tears streaming down her sideburns.
Image: Netflix
The tone ranges from crass to downright harrowing, and the most humane scene of the entire premiere occurs when Yaniko tries to do something as simple as clean her room before becoming so overcome by obsessive thoughts and stress that she vomits on the floor. Later, she has a disturbing dream, both funny and very sad, in which she feels guilty for disappointing her sister (who is actually living together). She really needs a helping hand.
However, what makes the series so confusing is that while Takashi Aoshima’s script (adapted from the NyanNyanFactory manga) taps into the sense of desperation that humanizes (ahem, cat lady?) Yaniko, this premiere is also a literal crap post. Toilet humor and lowest-common-denominator otaku fan service abound: literally the first minute of an episode involves judiciously animated side boob, masturbation, and diarrhea, all in quick succession. Hence there are many, many more jokes about poop that just stinks.
The problem is that most of these attempts at shock humor don’t work as well as its quieter moments of absurdity (like Yaniko making little “nyasas” of despair while working in a factory), which is unfortunate because this debut is all about big twists rather than understated jokes.
To be clear, this is not Smoker cat It would be better if he was relentlessly surly, hitting you over the head with his anti-drug PSA messages, like Darren Aronofsky. The problem is that the show just becomes too much nonsense, you’re passing by Trainspotting (which he refers to in the opening title sequence, which pays more homage to the film than Man with a chainsaw) into the territory of stupid Internet humor. There is a place for stories with heavy themes that are also crude and frivolous, but this episode is too intense on its own.
Let’s hope the series finds a better tonal balance going forward, leaning into implied hanging out with other down-on-his-luck catgirls as these train wrecks put their lives on the rails a little more. Or maybe it will just be another joke. Given the zigzag priorities of this premiere, anything is possible.