The Anime Review

Dark Cat

Creativity is a difficult thing to fit into every editorial. I'm starting to learn that, after having written over 500 articles on anime, there can be a certain sameness to the process. I've been told that it's most entertaining to read bad reviews because they often bring out the fire in a reviewer, and I tend to agree. But then there are movies that are so worthless, so devoid of anything remotely interesting, that writing about them sucks the life right out of you. Some shows are entertainment vampires...and Dark Cat is one of them. So rather than to try and come up with a creative way to deal with this leech of a show, I'm just going to make this one quick and as painless for you to read as it was long and painful for me to watch.

Dark Cat is about two beings - I'm not sure if they are spirits per se or what - Hyoi and Ryoi, who are brothers. They fight off demonic forces while disguised as cats, though they can take human form when they want. An old nemesis named Jukokubo has unleashed his evil on a local high school, and the brothers investigate after the mysterious disappearance of a young girl. Meanwhile, there's a love triangle between the boy who was secretly in love with the missing student and his admirer who wants him all for herself. As Jukokubo uses the evil forces within human beings to give rise to nasty creatures that look like an LSD trip through the intestinal tract, all tentacle will break loose when the hidden desires of these unsuspecting young scholars come to light, and only Hyoi and Ryoi can stop the onslaught.

I'm not going to waste a lot of breath on this one. It's awful. It looks bad. It sounds bad. The dialogue is bad. The characters have no distinct personalities. There's five minutes of plot in an hour-long presentation. Though the creatures on display are hideously gross and disturbing, they aren't even interesting. Some of it makes no sense, and when it does, it's boring as hell. It makes Odin look like a masterful film. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and unlike the repulsive Ichi the Killer: Episode Zero and Ninja Resurrection, it doesn't even have an artistic flair when it is being ghastly.

This show has a lot of similarities to the disgusting yet popular Urotsukidoji series, and I think it was made to cash in on the craze. It is tentacle porn without the porn. That said, something need not be pornographic to be utterly unworthy of your time, and that's the case with Dark Cat. As of last night, there were 90 copies of this DVD sitting at RightStuf for $4.99 each. Wonder why?