[Anime Review] Nyankoi! - Yes, This Really Exists and It Is a Cat Harem

Be careful what you wish for, they say. Be careful when you goof off, they say. If it walks like a cat, meows like a cat, and looks like a cat, I’m pretty certain it’s a cat. Welcome to my review of this odd ball harem Anime. Let’s jam!!!

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The premise for this was pretty straightforward: a high school boy, Junpei Kousaka, accidentally desecrated a cat god statue within the first 15 minutes of Episode 1 and now is cursed with hearing the thoughts of all felines within his general location. If he doesn’t complete 100 requests within a set amount of time (the series never specified the total length as far as I could tell), he would be permanently turned into a cat himself. The catch, that would kill him; he’s allergic to them and would choke on himself.

If it wasn’t for this element of the story, I would not have completed all 12 episodes of this. The harem part of it played the tropes and beats mostly safe with only slight variations in place. On a side note, the Yandere archetype ironically received one of its earlier mainstream incarnations in this of all things. It was mostly subverted as a throwaway gag but still was a nice little nugget that I didn’t expect to find. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s an obsessive stalker type of lover that can sometimes become a murderous psychopath but often just doesn’t respect boundaries more than anything.

Junpei was primarily the standard male harem lead: he loved a girl, couldn’t confess to her and then discovered he had other women after him that he gave some of that affection towards without fully giving up the first girl. His best friends were the horny teenage boy types that cheered him on as he attempted to conquer all of the waifus. Smartly enough, many of the cats were assholes and would ruin any chances he had with them leading to most of the “plot” elements and funniest moments (for me).

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The four legged menaces were the main stars of the show. I was an engaged mouse by their ever growing, completely ridiculous requests. By turning any of those down, his curse would be accelerated; his tears and dread were entertaining as he performed each task to my delight. One of the best parts of his situation: he couldn’t share his misfortune with his family or friends. Even though it seemed to be played for laughs, the possibility of them being turned into cats along with other not so nice outcomes was an amusing prospect to imagine.

The jokes mostly worked for me, and they made sense within this construct. There was obvious thought put into some of them. They were rarely predictable. A standout one was when Junpei was scared of the mail girl; she was being a normal girl and he kind of mentally broke from it.

I overall enjoyed my experience but did have some problems that I will bring up throughout the next few paragraphs. Expect possible light spoilers from this point on but nothing that should ruin your own watch. The biggest sin of all of them for me was the musical score (which barely counted as a full on negative for me).

The opening, “Nyanderful” - Yui Sakakibara, was catchy with a decent animation reel but honestly will be forgotten pretty quickly by me. It was very much a meme song with how many cat puns were thrown in. What you see in it is exactly what you get in the show.

The ending, “Strawberry ~Amaku Setsunai Namida~” - Asami Imai, was a bit more poppy and could fit into one of my playlists. It reminded of Toradora’s “Vanilla Salt” - Yui Horie in both visuals and the track used, which is a bigger compliment than it sounds. Most of the rest of the music was pretty average for this genre.

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By 2009 standards, the animation and general visuals were serviceable at most, a bit rough and unrefined at worst. The main characters all had unique enough designs to be recognizable but some background characters were not so lucky, especially in the Yakuza clan that showed up mid way. Thankfully, the cats were a different story; they took up the largest amount of screen time and were an overwhelming force for Junpei to overcome with each one displaying personality through their facial structures and overall color schemes.

Where the animation shined the most was in the slapstick comedy and jokes. Bodies contorted, faces stretched, and a single, mostly detailed breast was laid completely bare in one scene, all of which smoothly came into frame and kept the pace from slowing down. The series never took itself seriously and had fun with its absurd concepts (when they appeared). The pure excess of exaggerated proportions and extreme storyboarding, even during the more genuinely heart felt and human moments more than made up for many of the flaws I would point out otherwise (like the few 3D elements that appear all the way throughout).

I felt that both the English Dub and original Japanese voice work both were equally solid. My only complaint about the dub was oddly how many cats had gender changes for some reason. I only noticed this quirk when watching with the subtitles on.

My Closing Thoughts

Do I recommend watching this? Definitely, if you’re coming in for the comedy and not much else. If you want a complex harem or any deep storytelling, move along. This series opened with a premise and followed through with said premise for most of its run time. That was good enough for me to not feel like my time was wasted. What about you?

Thanks for reading my review. If you enjoyed this, feel free to reblog, reply and vote. I hope you have a wonderful night.

Important Information

• Based on a manga written and illustrated by Sato Fujiwara
• Genres: Supernatural, Harem, Comedy, Ecchi, High School Romance
• Studio: AIC
• Seasons / Episodes: Fall 2009 (12 Episodes)
• Streaming on HiDIVE
• Similar Recommended Content: Dog and Scissors (if you’re looking for more animal themed romantic comedies); Recovery of an MMO Junkie (for a more adult romance and a similar style of animation - even though MMO Junkie is from 2017)