literaturenerd

Winter 2020 has been a pretty dismal season for anime overall. Eizouken will of course run away with anime of the season because it had exactly ZERO competition that could stop it. It doesn’t matter how boring, self-indulgent, or repetitive it is. Yuasa directed it and Eizouken has a budget, so compared to the rest of the Spring 2020 lineup it’s like watching Canelo Alvarez fight a bunch of children. My personal anime of the season is Interspecies Reviewers, but I can’t review that for a few more days. Instead, let’s look at a series that apparently met Funimation’s high moral standards. This is thebizarre dumpster fire known as Nekopara. So what the fuck is a Nekopara? Well you see, Nekopara is a shitty H-game from 2014. For the first 2 years, absolutely no one gave a fuck, but then in 2016-2017 it became a popular gag gift on Steam. A shitty game that’s really cheap, so you buy it during a steam sale and gift it to your friend as a joke, knowing that they will probably never play it. Yet SOMEHOW, this piece of shit got an anime adaptation. Why didn’t Big Rigs get an anime adaptation? Why didn’t Bad Rats get an anime adaptation? So why complain about Nekopara? It’s just porn after all! Just shut the hell up and enjoy the cat boobs and literal pussy! You can’t, because the anime removed all the H content and decided to bank on the strong plot and characters. You read that right. This is a game where humanoid cat girls are sent via post to some chef and must help out in his restaurant. In the game he of course bangs these girls, despite the fact they’re only 4 years old and have the minds of children. In the anime, they just kind of hang out and do…nothing. There are tons of slice of life shows where basically nothing happens, but Nekopara sets a new low bar. Since the anime isn’t a porn, I end up having to think about the stuff the writer didn’t want people to think about. Where did these catgirls come from? What is the history of Mankind’s interaction with this species? They seem to have roughly human intelligence and can speak Japanese fluently, but they count as pets and legally as property. It’s not all bad being a cat slave though. The girls get a pretty bell necklace when they learn not to run away. Can’t have your harem of catgirls getting Drapetomania! Did I mention this series got over 1 million dollars via crowdfunding? How is that even possible? I can only assume that some basement dweller used his bitcoin wealth that he collected playing Warcraft 10 years ago. I know I bang on about this in too many reviews, but half of Spice and Wolf and over half of Baccano were never adapted! There are SO many good anime that need another season, but Nekopara is what makes its crowdfunding goals and gets made. Also fuck Funimation for picking this up, dubbing it, and distributing this instead of Reviewers. Gen Fukunaga should be tied to a bed and forced to spend a passionate evening with Elza the hyena girl!

Marinate1016

Nekopara is a fun and cozy way to spend 24 minutes. Simply put, it’s a very relaxing show with extreme amounts of literal and figurative fluff. Ironically, in contrast to its hentai origins, Nekopara is one of the most wholesome shows I’ve seen. Narratively, there’s not much on the way of plot in this show. It’s very much a “monster” of the week type thing with each episode providing a new challenge or event for the girls to prepare for. These will usually be 90 percent fluff and 10 percent fan service. If you’re looking for a fun and relaxing way to deal with the currentuncertain times and pass time, enjoy CGDCT or cat girls, this is your show. Don’t expect anything groundbreaking or revolutionary, but you will certainly get a laid back and cozy ride. Technically, there’s not much to speak of. This isn’t a battle shonen so there’s no real need for high quality animation. The art, however is extremely well done making the show nice and bright. This adds to that cute feel of the show. In conclusion, Nekopara despite being no masterpiece, was one of my favourite shows of the season and helped me to wind down at the end of the week after class. It was a consistent and fun ride throughout and I look forward to future content. Nekopara gets 8 Nya’s out of 10.