{ "id": "ephqxknrp5", "slug": "cat-soup", "title": "Cat Soup (ねこぢる草)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts", "label": "Animated and short films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features", "label": "Japanese anime features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features.yr-1999-2013", "label": "Released 1999 to 2013", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features.yr-1999-2013" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features.yr-1999-2013", "label": "Asia (other) · 2001 to 2020: Released 1999 to 2013", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features.yr-1999-2013", "path": [ { "id": "geo.asia", "label": "Asia (other)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001", "label": "Asia (other) · 2001 to 2020", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts", "label": "Animated and short films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features", "label": "Japanese anime features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features.yr-1999-2013", "label": "Released 1999 to 2013", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features.yr-1999-2013" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Cat Soup (Nekojiru-sō, ねこぢる草) is a 2001 Japanese experimental anime OVA directed by Tatsuo Satō with Masaaki Yuasa, based on Nekojiru's manga: kitten Nyatta journeys wordlessly to recover his sister's stolen half-soul; FantAsia and Japan Media Arts Festival award winner.", "snippet": "Cat Soup (Nekojiru-sō, ねこぢる草) is a 2001 Japanese experimental anime OVA directed by Tatsuo Satō with Masaaki Yuasa, based on Nekojiru's manga: kitten Nyatta journeys wordlessly to recover his sister's stolen half-soul; FantAsia and Japan Media Arts Festival award winner.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.animated-shorts.anime-features.yr-1999-2013", "markdown": "# Cat Soup (ねこぢる草)\n\n**Cat Soup** (*Nekojiru-sō*, ねこぢる草) is a 2001 Japanese animated short film (OVA) directed by Tatsuo Satō, produced by J.C.Staff, and released direct-to-video in Japan on February 21, 2001.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385586/) • [2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) It follows an anthropomorphic kitten, Nyatta, who watches the psychopomp (a guide who escorts souls of the dead) Jizō lead his sick older sister Nyaako away and recovers only half of her soul; the siblings then travel through a surreal, wordless landscape to find the other half.[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup) The film is a posthumous tribute to the manga artist Nekojiru, and it has become a cult favorite among anime fans for its combination of cuteness, grotesque imagery, and refusal of conventional plot.[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) • [4](https://fictionmachine.com/2026/04/07/review-cat-soup-2001/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Original title | *Nekojiru-sō* (ねこぢる草), English title Cat Soup[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385586/) |\n| Format and release | OVA, one episode, direct-to-video in Japan on February 21, 2001; runtime reported as 30, 33, or 34 minutes depending on the source[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385586/) • [5](https://www.allcinema.net/soft/51482) |\n| Key staff | Director and co-writer Tatsuo Satō; co-writer, storyboard artist, and animation director Masaaki Yuasa; original creator Nekojiru[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup) |\n| Style | Hand-drawn, nearly dialogue-free surrealism; the story is told through visuals, with only occasional garbled speech bubbles[6](https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/cat-soup) |\n| Awards | Best Short Film at the 6th FantAsia Film Festival in Montreal (2001) and the Excellence Prize, Animation Division, at the 5th Japan Media Arts Festival (December 2001)[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) |\n| North American release | DVD from Central Park Media's Software Sculptors label, September 9, 2003[7](https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/Cat-Soup-DVD/147819/) |\n| Source artist | Nekojiru, real name Chiyomi Hashiguchi (1967–1998), who died by suicide two years before the film's release[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nThe story begins at home. Nyatta plays in the bathtub while his older sister Nyaako lies in bed with a fever and dies; the Buddhist guardian of dead children, Jizō, appears and leaves with her soul.[8](https://blog.animationstudies.org/life-death-and-cat-soup/) While nearly drowning in the bath, Nyatta follows the purple-clad figure, and in a tug of war recovers only half of Nyaako's soul before his father pulls him from the water.[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup) When he returns the half-soul to her body, Nyaako revives with dull, half-open eyes, only half-alive.[9](https://www.netflixmovies.com/cat-soup-2001)\n\nThe siblings then set out across a dreamlike world to retrieve the remainder of her soul. Their journey takes them to the Big Whale Circus, where a godlike magician cuts a woman into pieces and restores her; through a flood unleashed by a bird that has swallowed the sky, after which they drift on a small ark with a pig; across a desert, where Nyatta loses a hand and a woman who mends cats from discarded parts sews it back on; and to a metal house whose occupant tries to cook them into cat soup.[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup) They eventually succeed in making Nyaako whole, but after the family returns home the characters disappear one by one, like a television image losing its signal, until the world is reduced to static.[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup)\n\n## Origin and the manga of Nekojiru\n\nThe film adapts characters created by the pseudonymous manga artist **Nekojiru**, whose pen name roughly translates as \"cat soup\"; her real name was Chiyomi Hashiguchi (1967–1998).[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup) Her stories, notably the early 1990s adult manga *Nekojiru-udon*, contrast cute anthropomorphic cats with cruelty, and they had a devoted following among avant-garde artists and intellectuals.[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) The kitten siblings Nyatta and Nyako first appeared in the June 1990 issue of the monthly manga magazine *Garo* and had already been adapted into 27 two-minute television shorts, *Nekojiru Gekijō* (1999).[9](https://www.netflixmovies.com/cat-soup-2001) • [8](https://blog.animationstudies.org/life-death-and-cat-soup/) Nekojiru died by suicide in 1998, before *Cat Soup* was made.[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup) • [8](https://blog.animationstudies.org/life-death-and-cat-soup/)\n\n**Adaptation approach.** Unlike the earlier short series, *Cat Soup* was produced entirely after Nekojiru's death, and with the exception of a scene at a circus it does not adapt the original manga directly. Director Satō Tatsuo described the film as a tribute and said that he and Yuasa Masaaki \"wanted to create a visualization which would be parallel to her world\"; Nekojiru's husband, who continued her manga after her death, gave his blessing to the project but took no other part in production.[8](https://blog.animationstudies.org/life-death-and-cat-soup/) On the DVD commentary, Satō explains that he took a short story from the manga, available in English in *Comics Underground Japan* (ed. Kevin Quigley, Blast Books, 1996), and wrote his own expansion of it.[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23)\n\n## Production\n\nThe film was animated at J.C.Staff, the studio known for Satō's television series *Martian Successor Nadesico*, with production companies including Imagica Digix, J.C. Staff, and Sony PCL.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385586/) • [2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) Satō wrote and directed, and [Masaaki Yuasa](https://www.edgepedia.org/masaaki-yuasa), who later directed *Mind Game* (2004) and other features, served as co-writer, storyboard artist, and animation director.[4](https://fictionmachine.com/2026/04/07/review-cat-soup-2001/) • [10](https://366weirdmovies.com/199-cat-soup-2001/) The score was composed by Utollo Teshikai, with art direction by Hideki Nakamura and cinematography by Masaru Takase.[11](https://w.atwiki.jp/sakuga/pages/546.html)\n\nIn Japan the home-video release came from King Records on February 21, 2001, on DVD and VHS, listed at 30 minutes with a 5.1-channel Japanese soundtrack.[5](https://www.allcinema.net/soft/51482) • [12](https://tower.jp/item/525091) Satō's own account of the production is disarmingly loose: on the DVD commentary he says that although many animators took part, when he and Yuasa explained the concept in animation meetings, \"we really didn't understand it ourselves either.\"[10](https://366weirdmovies.com/199-cat-soup-2001/)\n\n## Style and reception\n\nThe film runs roughly half an hour and is animated with no real dialogue; characters occasionally emit sounds, and meaning is carried by the imagery, with garbled speech bubbles supplying the few words.[6](https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/cat-soup) Critics and viewers commonly describe it as surreal, morbid, and frequently disturbing, covering death, mutilation, and cannibalism while superficially resembling a children's cartoon; one recurring fan catchphrase, cited in the trade press, is \"Hello Kitty on acid.\"[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) • [4](https://fictionmachine.com/2026/04/07/review-cat-soup-2001/) Reviewers note that the film is best approached as a stream of visual experience rather than a story to decode; Satō's commentary itself insists the imagery is not deliberate symbolism, saying \"we, the creators, don't understand why things ended up the way they did.\"[3](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup)\n\nDespite being largely overlooked when it came out on Japanese video, the film took home the Best Short Film prize at the 6th FantAsia Film Festival in Montreal in July 2001, and in December 2001 it earned the Animation Division's Excellence Prize at the 5th Annual Media Arts Festival held by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs.[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) Because it was an OVA, direct-to-video with no theatrical run, it was ineligible for many film festivals despite taking these honors.[10](https://366weirdmovies.com/199-cat-soup-2001/) A North American DVD followed from Central Park Media's Software Sculptors label on September 9, 2003, carrying the director's commentary and a nearly half-hour interview featurette, \"How to Make Cat Soup.\"[7](https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/Cat-Soup-DVD/147819/) • [10](https://366weirdmovies.com/199-cat-soup-2001/) After a United States theatrical premiere date of September 9, 2003, the film became an American anime-fan cult favorite.[2](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23) • [13](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385586/releaseinfo/) It is frequently recommended alongside other experimental works such as Yuasa's *Mind Game*, and more than two decades after release it continues to gain cult followers.[6](https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/cat-soup) • [14](https://tower.jp/article/feature_item/2024/04/22/0706)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Cat Soup (Short 2001), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385586/)\n2. [New from Japan: Anime Film Reviews, Animation World Network (Fred Patten, 2003)](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/new-japan-anime-film-reviews-23)\n3. [Cat Soup, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cat_soup)\n4. [REVIEW: Cat Soup (2001), FICTIONMACHINE (Grant Watson)](https://fictionmachine.com/2026/04/07/review-cat-soup-2001/)\n5. [DVD ねこぢる草, allcinema](https://www.allcinema.net/soft/51482)\n6. [Cat Soup, Anime-Planet](https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/cat-soup)\n7. [Cat Soup DVD (Collector's Series), Blu-ray.com](https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/Cat-Soup-DVD/147819/)\n8. [Life, Death, and \"Cat Soup\", animationstudies 2.0 (Leah Holmes, 2019)](https://blog.animationstudies.org/life-death-and-cat-soup/)\n9. [Cat Soup (2001) on Netflix, NetflixMovies.com](https://www.netflixmovies.com/cat-soup-2001)\n10. [199. CAT SOUP (2001), 366 Weird Movies (Gregory J. Smalley, 2015)](https://366weirdmovies.com/199-cat-soup-2001/)\n11. [ねこぢる草 - 作画@wiki](https://w.atwiki.jp/sakuga/pages/546.html)\n12. [ねこぢる草/佐藤竜雄, Tower Records](https://tower.jp/item/525091)\n13. [Cat Soup (Short 2001) - Release info, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385586/releaseinfo/)\n14. [ねこぢる草 サウンドトラック再発売, Tower Records Online (2024)](https://tower.jp/article/feature_item/2024/04/22/0706)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Japanese anime features › Released 1999 to 2013*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-soup", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-soup.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Cat Soup (ねこぢる草)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-soup. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Cat Soup (ねこぢる草)](https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-soup)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-soup](https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-soup). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Cat Soup (ねこぢる草)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/cat-soup. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Cat Soup is a 2001 Japanese experimental anime OVA directed by Tatsuo Satō with Masaaki Yuasa, based on Nekojiru's manga: kitten Nyatta journeys wordlessly to recover his sister's stolen half-soul; FantAsia and Japan Media Arts Festival award winner." }