Yani Neko (Chainsmoker Cat) is a show about a cat girl who is a chain smoker. Yep. That’s it. That is literally the plot, but for some reason, people have been saying not to sleep on such a simple premise, so I checked it out. 23:40 later, I have an opinion formed. Does a show with a simplistic premise offer enough depth or entertainment to warrant the claims?
Let’s go!
First Episode Synopsis
Yaniko is a cat girl who loves cigarettes… like… REALLY loves them to the point of an unhealthy obsession. This is accentuated within the first three minutes of the show, where we see her spilling a jar filled with ashy water onto her landlord’s head. He rushes upstairs to scold her and barges in while she’s changing, giving us a nice glimpse of her side boob. So, as any good landlord would do, he slams the door shut, runs away embarrassed, and heads home to relieve some of the tension… if you know what I mean.
Meanwhile, Yaniko finds some leftover cigarettes in the trash, covered in, um, trash juice. She figures it’ll be fine until she lights one and takes a puff. A few seconds later, she’s hovering over a toilet, projectile blasting her liquid poop into the bowl.
Then we get hit with the opening.
Absolute cinema.
After that picturesque start, we take a look at life through the lens of Yaniko. Cigarette obsession aside, she tries her hardest to work, but when the first job doesn’t allow cigarettes, she couldn’t last a full shift before quitting to light one up. Next, she tries a housecleaning gig, but ends up ruining a priceless vase by turning it into her personal ashtray. With no money and her next work gig far off into the future, she needs to survive on just 170 yen… or about 28 yen per day… and just 6 cigarettes… until she finds a lone 1000 yen bill under a pillow! Yay, more smokes money.
After getting complaints about her stench due to chain smoking and living in an apartment with vomit stains on the floor, trash bags everywhere, rotting food, and apparently a log of poop in the corner somewhere, she opts to take a bath… while smoking, of course. She remarks how nice the breeze feels as she sits there in just her underwear, soaking it in… but it becomes a detriment as she catches a cold.
Her sister, Imoko, visits wearing a hazmat suit to take care of her before we get a flashback as to how she procured said hazmat suit. During one of Yaniko’s fever dreams, she has a scare when she thinks a doctor is condemning her to death for lung cancer, so she wakes up, realizes it was all a dream, and calls Imoko to tell her she’s quitting smoking for good… while lighting one up in celebration.
Worth Watching?
MAYBE – For me, this kind of humor is right up my alley, so I’m going to keep watching, but I’m slapping the MAYBE label on this one because I know raunchy humor isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. If seeing cat girls smoke, vomit, and projectile blast poop, then this show should be right up your alley, but as gritty and disgusting as the visuals and premise are, Yaniko herself has a cute attitude, although it is a bit simplistic.
Her dialogue consists of taking every other word and morphing it into cat speak… aka… adding a form of nya into everything. Her voice takes a little bit getting used to as it is a bit high-pitched and nasally, but it also has a slight touch of bass to it, too. In other words, she sounds like a cute girl who would be a chain smoker… in a show about chain smoking… imagine that.
At the beginning, I asked if a simplistic premise could be entertaining, and the answer is yes. The character work and gags here are enough to keep a person entertained, but the problem is that I feel like it blew through all of its A+ material in the first episode. I can’t see a show like this becoming deep or introspective as the episodes roll on, but I will say that I don’t think that’s the intention with this one. So, if you’re expecting something grandiose out of this series, maybe check out a few episodes and see if this style of humor is something you can endure for the next three months.
But, if you’re like me and actually live for this kind of humor, this will be your sleeper hit of the season.
