She and Her Cat

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She and Her Cat
Cover art for She and Her Cat
彼女と彼女の猫
(Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko)
GenreDrama
Original video animation
Directed byMakoto Shinkai
Produced byMakoto Shinkai
Written byMakoto Shinkai
Music byTenmon
StudioCoMix Wave Films
Licensed by
Released1999
Runtime5 minutes
Manga
Written byTsubasa Yamaguchi
Published byKodansha
English publisher
MagazineMonthly Afternoon
DemographicSeinen
Original runFebruary 25, 2016 – May 25, 2016
Volumes1
Anime television series
Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko: Everything Flows
Directed byKazuya Sakamoto
Produced by
  • Tetsurō Satomi
  • Nariaki Miyata
  • Chiharu Ochiai
  • Terunari Yoshie
Written byNaruki Nagakawa
Music byTo-Mas Soundsight Fluorescent Forest
StudioLiden Films Kyoto Studio
Licensed byCrunchyroll (streaming)
Original networkTokyo MX
Original run March 4, 2016 – March 25, 2016
Episodes4

She and Her Cat (Japanese: 彼女と彼女の猫, Hepburn: Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko), subtitled Their standing points, is a 1999 Japanese original video animation created and directed by Makoto Shinkai. Shinkai's first own directed work, it is a five-minute story about the relationship between a male cat and his female owner told from the cat's perspective. Shinkai made the film to help a romantic interest overcome a difficult situation, and his time living in a small apartment defined the scenario. The team of four animators used Shinkai's hand-drawn illustrations and Adobe After Effects for 3D visual effects.

After completing the work, Shinkai himself distributed the film via CD-R format and mail, selling 5,000 copies at anime conventions. The work was well received, winning the 2000 DoGA CG Animation Contest and attracting CoMix Wave Films' interest. The company re-released the film in CD-ROM format and hired Shinkai. In 2016, the story was adapted into an anime television series and a manga.

Plot[edit]

The story occurs over the span of a year.[1] On a rainy Spring day, She finds Chobi outside and brings him home with her. Chobi falls in love with his owner because of her kindness and beauty. During the summer Chobi gets a girlfriend, Mimi. Mimi loves Chobi and wants to marry him, but he refuses because he is in love with Her. On an autumn day, She has a long conversation over the phone. When it is over She cries and becomes depressed. Chobi does not understand what the conversation was about or what happened but concludes that it was not her fault. He stands by Her and comforts her. Time goes on and it becomes winter. She continues going to work and moves on with her life. In the end, She and Chobi are happy with their life together and say in unison, "I think that the both of us probably like this world."

Production[edit]

She and Her Cat was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai; it is his first major animation work.[2] He had the idea in 1997,[3] but started it in 1998 while he was working as a graphic designer at Falcom, a video game company.[4][5] Because he experimented with computer graphic animation during his work,[5] he wanted to minimize complex procedures.[4] So he opted to do a black-and-white film since a colored-one would use three times as much space in the computer and it would also make the process three times slower.[4] He was working on a role-playing game, whose genre is known to have "very rich and detailed" surroundings, and this influenced the film's background details.[6] He also took pictures of cityscapes and the streets, and used them as a basis for his hand-drawn animations.[7] The composition of 3D scenes was done with Adobe After Effects and for other effects Shade, Illustrator and LightWave were used.[3]

Shinkai described it as a "personal film" because it was made to encourage the girl he was in love with to go through some problems she had.[8] The cat was the main character because he had cats since he was a child and adopted some stray cats in Tokyo.[2] His own time living in a small apartment surrounded by electrical lines also inspired the main scenario. Although these are "ugly things", he "wanted to make it look detailed and beautiful to express that it was ok to live in such a situation".[6] He aimed to transmit the feelings of "the vague loneliness of living", "slight pain" and "modest warmth", and as he thought it would be difficult to do it through words he did it through images and sound.[3] Shinkai affirmed: "Without being too eager, I just let the animation speak for itself. I'm pleased with its simplicity."[9]

Although most of the work had been done by Shinkai, who also provided the voice of the cat,[1] he had three collaborators for the film: Mika Shinohara, who provided the voice for She and also did some illustrations; Tenmon, who composed the music; and "Rabsaris", who was credited for his "cooperation".[3]

Release and reception[edit]

After it was completed in 1999,[3] Shinkai made his own copies of She and Her Cat on CD-R and sold around 5,000 copies at Comiket and by mail through his website.[10] It received critical acclaim,[11] and won the grand prize at the 2000 DoGA CG Animation Contest.[10] Anime's authors Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc called it "simple, underplayed and just a little maudlin".[1] Chris Beveridge of Mania.com watched the three versions and said "each looks gorgeous and the story for it is simply hauntingly beautiful".[12] In a 2017 retrospective, Anne Lauenroth of Anime News Network ranked it Shinkai's ninth best work (out of 11), praising its use of lighting that gives "a modest beauty" to the scenery and its "carefully placed details" that transmits the wholeness of a world only partially presented.[13]

She and Her Cat was the work that made Shinkai popular and it led him to work on the production company CoMix Wave Films, for which he produced his other films.[5] At first he received "a very long e-mail" from the company in which there was a review telling why they appreciated the work and he was subsequently hired.[10] The movie caught the attention of Mangazoo (who would become Comix Wave) and the company released the movie in a CD-ROM format.[14] It contained its soundtrack and three different versions of the movie: the full five-minute version, a three-minute version, and a one-minute-and-half digest version.[15] After it was out of print, it was also included in the DVD release of Voices of a Distant Star as an extra.[15]

The only version to reach the United States is the subtitled version that comes with Voices of a Distant Star released by ADV Films in June 2003.[12][16] The DVD includes the three different versions of the film.[12] British company Anime Limited released the work as a special feature on their release of The Place Promised in Our Early Days/Voices of a Distant Star in 2016.[17]

Legacy[edit]

An anime television adaptation, subtitled Everything Flows, was first announced in January 2016 through the February issue of Kadokawa Shoten's Newtype magazine.[18][19] The anime was produced by Liden Films Kyoto Studio and directed by Kazuya Sakamoto. It aired between March 4 and 25, 2016 as part of Tokyo MX's Ultra Super Anime Time programming block.[18][20] Crunchyroll made the anime available via stream worldwide except for Asia starting on March 4.[21] In Japan, the anime was released in Blu-ray and DVD on May 18, 2016, and it included a "complete edition" with additional footage, including a 90-second opening sequence.[22] This edition received a theatrical release from May 21 to 27, at the Tollywood theater in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo.[23] The DVD and the Blu-Ray release sold 230 and 1,521 copies respectively, appearing at 18th and 6th place on Oricon's best-selling list on their respective categories.[24][25] On May 26, 2020, the anime was released in Blu-ray in the United States by Discotek Media with English subtitles and a new dub.[26][27]

A manga version by Tsubasa Yamaguchi adapting the anime was announced in the March 2016 issue of Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon, and it began serialization in the magazine's April 2016 issue, which was released in February 2016,[28] ending its serialization in May 2016.[29] Its single collected volume was released by Kodansha on August 23, 2016.[30] In January 2017, Vertical licensed the series,[30] and it released the manga in the North American market on August 1 of that year.[31]

No.TitleOriginal air date
1"She and Her Apartment"
Transliteration: "Kanojo to Kanojo no Heya" (Japanese: 彼女と彼女の部屋)		March 4, 2016 (2016-03-04)
2"She and Her Sky"
Transliteration: "Kanojo to Kanojo no Sora" (Japanese: 彼女と彼女の空)		March 11, 2016 (2016-03-11)
3"She and the Look in Her Eyes"
Transliteration: "Kanojo to Kanojo no Manazashi" (Japanese: 彼女と彼女のまなざし)		March 18, 2016 (2016-03-18)
4"She and Her Story"
Transliteration: "Kanojo to Kanojo no Monogatari" (Japanese: 彼女と彼女の物語)		March 25, 2016 (2016-03-25)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Odell & Le Blanc 2013, p. 40
  2. ^ a b Manry, Gia (August 16, 2011). "Interview: Makoto Shinkai". Anime News Network. Retrieved January 24, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e 彼女と彼女の猫 (in Japanese). Makoto Shinkai official website. Archived from the original on October 23, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  4. ^ a b c Fitch, Alex; Miyata, Hanako; Williams, Tim; Johnson, Justin (June 1, 2008). "Interview with Makoto Shinkai". Electric Sheep. Archived from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  5. ^ a b c Bendazzi 2015, p. 237
  6. ^ a b Spaziani, Scott (October 19, 2010). "Interview: Makoto Shinkai". Otaku in Review. Archived from the original on May 16, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  7. ^ Alverson, Brigid (October 24, 2011). "Anime Director Makoto Shinkai Finds the Beauty in Everyday Life". MTV Geek. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  8. ^ Dong, Bamboo (July 8, 2013). "Makoto Shinkai Q&A - Anime Expo 2013". Anime News Network. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  9. ^ "Makoto Shinkai – The Place Promised in Our Early Days Director". ActiveAnime. September 27, 2005. Archived from the original on June 19, 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  10. ^ a b c Alverson, Brigid (October 31, 2011). "Makoto Shinkai: Making Anime for One Person at a Time". MTV Geek. Retrieved February 16, 2012.
  11. ^ Berra 2012, p. 130.
  12. ^ a b c Beveridge, Chris (May 31, 2003). "Voices of a Distant Star". Mania.com. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2010.
  13. ^ Lauenroth, Anne (December 13, 2017). "The Best (and Worst) Works of Makoto Shinkai". Anime News Network. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  14. ^ Pinon, Matthieu (May 1, 2003). "Shinkai Makoto: la naissance d'une étoile". Animeland (in French). Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  15. ^ a b "「彼女と彼女の猫」Movies and Soundtracks" (in Japanese). Makoto Shinkai official website. Archived from the original on March 15, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  16. ^ Kamen, Matt (August 1, 2013). "Movies of a Rising Star". Neo. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  17. ^ "Place Promised in Our Early Days/Voices of a Distant Star - Blu-ray". Anime Limited. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
  18. ^ a b Pineda, Rafael Antonio (January 6, 2015). "Makoto Shinkai's She and Her Cat Short Gets TV Anime in March". Anime News Network. Retrieved January 6, 2016.
  19. ^ Nelkin, Sarah (February 28, 2016). "Makoto Shinkai's She & Her Cat TV Anime Previewed in Promo Video". Anime News Network. Retrieved February 28, 2016.
  20. ^ 彼女と彼女の猫 -Everything Flows-. Media Arts Database (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Archived from the original on December 29, 2018. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  21. ^ Luster, Joseph (March 3, 2016). "Crunchyroll to Simulcast "She and Her Cat -Everything Flows-" Anime". Crunchyroll. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  22. ^ Ressler, Karen (April 30, 2016). "She and Her Cat Complete Edition Adds New Footage". Anime News Network. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  23. ^ Chapman, Paul (April 30, 2016). ""She and Her Cat -Everything Flows-" Gets Limited Theatrical Release". Crunchyroll. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  24. ^ Loo, Egan (May 24, 2016). "Japan's Animation DVD Ranking, May 16–22". Anime News Network. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  25. ^ Loo, Egan (May 24, 2016). "Japan's Animation Blu-ray Disc Ranking, May 16–22". Anime News Network. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  26. ^ Sherman, Jennifer (May 26, 2020). "North American Anime, Manga Releases, May 24–30". Anime News Network. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
  27. ^ Pineda, Rafael Antonio (March 13, 2020). "Discotek Licenses Konosuba, Poco's Udon World, She and Her Cat: Everything Flows Anime". Anime News Network. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
  28. ^ Hallmark. Kyle (January 25, 2015). "Makoto Shinkai's She and Her Cat Anime Gets Manga Adaptation". Anime News Network. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
  29. ^ Pineda, Rafael Antonio (April 25, 2016). "She and Her Cat Manga Inspired by Makoto Shinkai's Short Ends Next Month". Anime News Network. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
  30. ^ a b Hodgkins, Crystalyn (January 28, 2017). "Vertical Comics Licenses She and Her Cat Manga". Anime News Network. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  31. ^ Ressler, Karen (August 1, 2017). "North American Anime, Manga Releases, July 30-August 5". Anime News Network. Retrieved December 22, 2017.

Books[edit]

  • Bendazzi, Giannalberto (2015). Animation: A World History: Volume III: Contemporary Times. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1317519881.
  • Berra, John (2012). Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2. Intellect Books. ISBN 978-1841505510.
  • Odell, Colin; Le Blanc, Michelle (2013). Anime. Oldcastle Books. ISBN 978-1842435885.

External links[edit]

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