Chainsmoker Cat

Episode 4

I'm not going to lie, folks: For a moment there, I was convinced that the opening joke of this week's Chainsmoker Cat was going to be Yani Neko straight up letting a boy drown in the river so she could finish taking a drag of her precious sin stick. Thankfully, the punchline just ends up being another riff on how noxious Yani's breath is, though I am still not putting it past this show to give its heroine a proper body count by the end of the series, even if they only end up being tallied due to murderous negligence. Last week, that pink cat nearly drowned in her own 40-proof vomit, and this week a little boy came within inches of death because our titular addict had to stop and think about how much she really needed that fix. Soon, everyone, there will be blood on Yani's crusty, tobacco-stained paws. Whether we'll be able to see much of it underneath the layer of filth and other viscous bodily fluids she's covered in remains to be seen.

If nothing else, it is becoming all the more certain that Yani herself is going to be at death's door before too long, and if it isn't because of all the smoking, then she'll probably just end up starving to death on account of hacking and burning her way through every part-time gig that will have her. The food-court job was doomed from the start, since even if Yani wasn't shoving half-a-pack of smokes into her gob in between dips of the fry basket, you just know there aren't enough hair nets in the world to keep that food from being chock full of nasty cat fur. I was honestly wondering why a manga artist like Tatsuro would let Yani and those greasy paws anywhere near such freshly inked and obviously flammable layouts, but the answer becomes obvious soon enough. Tatsuro, you see, is a massive pervert with a thing for the beastfolk. Now, this is clearly a benefit to the artist's career, since she's in the business of drawing pornographic manga, but anyone with eyes can see the lascivious delight that she takes in dragging Yani along to the park to shoot some schoolgirl reference photos. Somehow, seeing that reference banana get slapped all over Yani's cheeks feels dirtier than whatever Tatsuro is actually going to include in her next hentai. The best joke of the episode might just be how the only way for Tatsuro to get Yani properly hot and bothered is to hide a cigarette behind the fruit.

Also, I didn't misread the subtitles when the cops who inevitably arrested our duo referred to Tatsuro as Yani's “owner,” right? Does that mean that beastfolk slavery is just a thing that exists in this universe? Is that…is that how Yani met those obscenely horny old Yakuza perverts that we're introduced to this week? Good lord, the troubling implications never cease. That the creepy, quasi-incestual fixation that Old Man Yakuza has on Yani's boobs manages to give him such a raging boner that it saves him from death's door only makes Yani's life that much more bizarre and sad, though in a funny way…I think.

On the more straightforward end of the sadness spectrum, there's an odd vignette that comes right in the middle of the episode that plays into that not-so-subtle undertone of melancholy that pervades this whole series. We meet yet another new character, Jikaki Neko, who is a very innocent seeming young student who is, for some reason, choosing Yani to be the first reader of her “friend's” latest stab at original fiction. True to form, Yani lazily admits that she doesn't really get it, rips a nasty fart in Jikaki's face, and leaves the poor kid to collapse in disappointment outside of the apartment. Flatulence and awkward banter aside, it's so odd how the sketch doesn't even try to conclude with a joke. It's just a scene that shows off how casually and ignorantly hurtful Yani can be. Curiouser and curiouser.

So, yes, Chainsmoker Cat continues to be a depraved, disgusting, and disturbing black comedy that wants you make you gag and sigh in bewilderment as much as it wants to make you laugh. Really, the only thing to complain about here is that the animation took a noticeable step down this week, though not to the degree that it killed any of the jokes. Still, one of Chainsmoker Cat's best elements is that it treats its garbage-dump characters and their disgusting antics with the attention and care of prestige television. I hope the quality doesn't end up faltering more as the series progresses, because if the animation falls off, Yani's adventure's will no longer be a gross spectacle of defiant absurdism. They'll just be gross.

Rating:

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast. Chainsmoker Cat is currently streaming on Netflix and OceanVeil.