Review for Cat Planet Cuties: Complete Series Collection

Introduction

I shouldn’t like this. I’ve been shying away from the anime mainstream more and more in recent years, looking for something new instead of something designed specifically to cater for the majority otaku fanbase in Japan. A show where the main object of affection is a big breasted girl with cat ears and a prehensile tale, with all the mannerisms of a cat, so ticks the boxes of the moe, fan service cute girl demographic that it may have just come off a production line. Of course its title, Asobi ni Iku yo!, variably translated as ‘We’ve Come to Play’, or ‘Let’s Go Play’, or ‘I’m Going to Drop By’ is innocuous enough. That when Crunchyroll streamed it, they added the subtitle, Bombshells From the Sky, in the process conflating the alien invasion storyline with the main female character’s ample breasts, did much to turn me off. However it’s when Funimation licensed it, and dropped all semblance of innuendo and layered meaning in the title, renaming it Cat Planet Cuties, that I joined a chorus of anime fandom tired of such remarketing and told Funimation to ‘Go Away’, although not in as polite a manner.


Following that Funimation licence announcement however came the inevitable press release from Crunchyroll, that the episodes would expire from its streaming service, and all of a sudden I had a craving to watch a series that I had previously, and disdainfully eschewed. One quick marathon later, and I had fallen in love with... sigh... Cat Planet Cuties. I mean, the dippy female anime stereotypes are all there, the fan service is present to extremes, and it’s as traditional a harem set-up as you can imagine, plenty of cute girls all inexplicably falling for a non-descript, wimpy teen male (who wears glasses of course). But would you believe that the final episode moved me to the brink of tears? Would you believe that I left the show thinking it was brilliant, one of the best anime in recent years? Actually, I wouldn’t believe it either, which is why I have waited for a UK release before confirming that (on the face of it) ridiculous opinion, rather than shelling out for an expensive import, half of which I can’t watch on account of having a Region B Blu-ray player.


Ever since the age of science and astronomy began, and mankind truly began to fathom the nature of the universe, our eyes have turned outwards to contemplate, imagine, and speculate about whether life exists outside our own small, fragile world. For over a hundred years, speculative fiction has been created wondering at what such life might be like, whether it is intelligent, friendly, what it would have in common with us, what might be different, and given our own martial propensities as human beings, what if it weren’t friendly? It took the mere mention of the possibility of canals on Mars and H.G. Wells penned War of the Worlds. That speculation exploded with the advent of cinema and television, and it seems all manner of alien contact has been role-played all ready, from the enchanting ET, the religious allegory of Starman, the popcorn blockbuster of Independence Day, the comic Mars Attacks, and all manner of other fantasies. But what if mankind’s first contact with alien life was with a cute, sexy, big-breasted cat-girl?


That’s what happens in the near future of Cat Planet Cuties. Unassuming high school student Kio Kakazu is attending a memorial for the anniversary of his grandfather’s death, when in among the mourners enjoying the feast is Eris, a girl with cat ears and a furry tail. It turns out that her ship had arrived on Earth, and she forgot to pack provisions, and Kio’s pet cat Aura had told her that he was the hospitable sort. The shock (and a beer) puts him in a faint, but that’s nothing compared to what he wakes up to! Eris is here to discreetly observe Earth, learn its customs and mores, and determine if it is ready for formal contact with the Catian people, and she wants Kio’s help. Kio’s world is going to change unrecognisably, although not just because of Eris. There are factions on Earth that have mixed feelings about first contact, and not all of them view Eris with amity, and some of these factions hit close to home for Kio. It turns out nothing is as it seemed in his life. His childhood friend Manami Kinjo isn’t just his friendly busy-body next-door neighbour. His schoolteacher Maki Itokazu, is more than just a school-teacher, his uncle Yuichi is more than just a kindly uncle, and the cute, shy girl from school that he shares an interest in movies with, Aoi Futaba, is actually a government trained assassin with super powers.


Manga Entertainment present all 12 episodes of Cat Planet Cuties plus an extra OVA episode never streamed on Crunchyroll, all spread across two discs with extras.

Disc 1
1. The Cat Who Fell To Earth
2. I Dropped By
3. We’ve Come To Stay
4. We’ve Come To Kidnap You
5. We’ve Come To Rescue You
6. I’ve Practiced
7. We’ve Come To Swim

Disc 2
8. We Had A Duel
9. The Grand First Assistroid?
10. We Came After You
11. I Came Looking For You
12. I Came to Find You
13. Come Drop By

Picture

Cat Planet Cuties gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer on these two discs. It’s native PAL, although there is a degree of softness to it that makes me wonder whether it was created from the NTSC masters rather than the HD masters (Region A gets Cat Planet Cuties on Blu-ray). Of course that softness could be simply down to the compression on the discs. There are effectively eight episodes on disc 1, where the normal maximum episode count on an anime DVD is seven. The image is clear, relatively sharp throughout, and the animation is smooth, unmarred by ghosting or judder. The world design is agreeable, while the future tech of the Catians comes across well. The character designs are generic but appealing, although on occasion they do drift off model.


The selling point of this anime is fan service, and Cat Planet Cuties is not a show to suddenly hide its wares behind sunbeams and sudden fog. This is good old fashioned naughtiness in the way that anime fans have been raised to expect on those old 90’s OVAs. I wasn’t that impressed with the transfer though, with compression around fast motion more evident than usual, a higher degree of aliasing, and colours rather faded in comparison to what I recall from those Crunchyroll streams. There is also a glitch on disc 1, 1.05:33 into the programme, with a heavily pixellated frame followed by a wholly black frame.

Sound

Cat Planet Cuties gets DD 2.0 Japanese stereo and DD 5.1 English surround for its audio options. I watched the show through in Japanese again, and was very happy with the cast performances. It’s ideal for a comedy show, with nice, predictable voices for the clichéd characters, if some unpredictable casting. Kana Hanazawa was cast as the quiet, introverted and shy assassin, somewhat downbeat for an actress better known for the perky ‘Tutturu!’ roles. This being a PAL disc, there’s the 4% speedup to contend with, and it doesn’t sound as if Manga have applied any pitch-correction thankfully, with the only place that the chipmunking really is an issue the opening theme song. I gave the English dub a try, and Funimation have provided a nice, spirited dub that is well-suited for the comedy action, and just like the Japanese audio, they don’t stray from the norms of the genre, although I did feel that the bass was a little high for this track.


Cat Planet Cuties comes with translated English subtitles and a signs only track. At this point you’ll be calling me a dirty rotten liar, as your player will only show a single subtitle track on the disc. Manga have done something different with this release. You can have the subtitles on or off, but if you turn them off, the player will generate a subtitle stream for the signs, designed to accompany the English audio. The downside of this is that it is now impossible to watch the show without some manner of subtitles onscreen.


Manga Entertainment also share a problem with Kazé Entertainment’s disc authoring, in that it seems that they can only show two lines of subtitles on screen at any one time. With Kazé that means you can have subtitles, or you can have signs, but you can’t have both. Manga Entertainment on the other hand try to get as much of the information on screen as possible. This does mean that on occasion, subtitles are on screen for just a flash, as they have to make way for a sign translation, or some background dialogue. The worst of this is in the opening scene of the show, which has foreground dialogue, background dialogue and on screen text to translate simultaneously. The disc flashes everything up, in the same font, and on the same location on screen, all in quick succession, and it is impossible to assign dialogue to a character or the television in the background, or the text on a computer screen. You just don’t know what is what. Thankfully this doesn’t happen too often in the show, but it is the wrong first impression to make.


Another problem is that not all of the signs are translated for the subtitle track. The Assistroids in particular, that communicate with text on little signs (usually wisecracks), only have plot specific text translated, the background wisecracks usually aren’t. No doubt this is down to the two line limitation, and the need to prioritise character dialogue. The odd thing is that in the player forced signs track for the English dub, there are even fewer signs translations than in the subtitle track, where you would expect there would be room for more. Incidentally, these look like the Crunchyroll subs. Catnip is translated as Cat Powder again!

Extras

Funimation released Cat Planet Cuties on NTSC DVD as well as a Blu-ray release in the US. Madman Entertainment in Australia merely cloned the DVDs and released them as NTSC in Australia. This is why Manga Entertainment has been obliged to author the discs here in the UK for the PAL market, and given that Manga author so few such discs each year, and effectively have to outsource the work, little nits creep in that I just have to pick at. But I have to say that Manga Entertainment are the last holdout for the trusty animated menu in the anime world, and Cat Planet Cuties’ menus are nice, imaginative, and easy to navigate. You can see one of my major nits above, regarding the subtitling, but also annoying to some fans will be the chaptering of these episodes, with each episode merely split into two. No skipping credit sequences here.


Another annoyance is with the audio commentaries. You’d expect them to simply put the third audio stream onto the appropriate episode, but the whole episode is repeated again elsewhere on the disc with just the audio commentary. That makes disc 1 an eight episode disc, with disc 2 becoming effectively a seven episode disc plus extras. This does not help video compression in the slightest.

Disc 1 has an audio commentary to accompany episode 1, with Scott Sager hosting Monica Rial (Aoi Futaba) and Tia Ballard (Eris). It’s a fairly informal chat, with in-house gossip taking up the first ten minutes before they start issuing forth spoilers for the series in their discussion.

Disc 2’s commentary comes with episode 9, and features ADR director Christopher Bevins, with Aaron Dismuke (Kio), and Brittney Karbowski (Manami), and this one truly is a pointless Funimation gigglefest, with nothing of value to be gleaned here.


There are other extras on this disc, close encounters of the promo kind.

Extra Bonus Features 1-12 offers alternative next episode previews lasting 3 minutes in total.

The End is an inconsequential coda that last 14 seconds.

The Ichika Special lasts 4 minutes, and is another alternative set of next episode previews.

All of these are presented in English, but the Japanese audio is missing. It’s obviously meant to be there, as the subtitle translations for a Japanese dialogue track are accessible via the remote. Manga’s authoring niggles strike again.

Finally you get the textless opening, and six of the textless closings. I have to add that Omoide ga Jama wo Suru by Tomatsu Haruka (voice of Manami) is one of my favourite anime theme songs.

Conclusion

Well, that confirms it. I love Cat Planet Cuties, and that Crunchyroll viewing last year wasn’t through a haze of fevered delirium after all. Actually I hate the name Cat Planet Cuties more than ever, as it’s crass, obvious and lacks any kind of wit. Why not just call the show, “Big Boobs ANIME!!!”? While you may question the accuracy of the translation, ‘We’ve Come To Play’ would have been a much more appropriate title that works on more than one level. All of that is history, with Funimation’s rebranding now a permanent scar. Just imagine that every time that I type Cat Planet Cuties, I’m gritting my teeth in chagrin, and desperately reminding myself just why I love this show.


Bizarrely enough, I do love this show, even though it is a somewhat stereotypical harem comedy with sci-fi leanings, the sort of show that I have been running a mile from for the last few years, just out of its sheer ubiquity. This one got under my skin and stuck, even though it conforms strongly to the stereotypes, with a gaggle of relentlessly cute girls of varying breast sizes all falling for a hapless teen male protagonist, who remains densely unaware of said female interest through the show, and most likely would be ill-equipped to act on that interest should the veil ever be lifted.


The thing is that recent harem comedies have been reinventing themselves to get some distance from that ubiquity, and there’s been a degree of self-awareness, a post-modern irony that results in the shows winking knowingly at the audience, a kind of ‘yes, we know, clichéd isn’t it?’ Cat Planet Cuties plays it deliciously straight, and with its visual aesthetic saucier than most, it has a lot more in common with the shows that defined the genre in the first place, shows like Tenchi Muyo and Love Hina, and that makes it a lot more fun to watch.


The show has a lot of fun with its genre, it’s fast paced, it’s funny, and it isn’t shy about being naughty when it needs to be. The characters are likeable, and the fan-service works to support the show, rather than become the whole point. It’s replete with little touches that anime fans will appreciate, in-jokes, references, and cameos, while most episodes start with a preview that parodies another television show. There are entertaining send-ups of Star Trek, Starsky and Hutch, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and even Red Dwarf in there, and it’s hard not to be tickled when something you recognise registers.


Of course you have to be aware that the sheer number of coincidences in the show shatters whatever vestiges of plausibility that remain. You just have to go with the flow. Kio gets a visit from the world’s first alien visitor, and at no point do the world’s media services set up 24-hour camp outside his house begging for interviews. His next door neighbour and childhood friend just happens to be a CIA trainee. The cute shy girl at school just happens to be a government agent. His teacher happens to be a UFO nut and influential first contact fanatic. Then halfway through the show Ichika shows up as something of a Mary Sue, at times deus-ex-machina-ing the plot along with no back-story or character development until the final OVA episode. It’s all just an average day in the world of Cat Planet Cuties. Where there are cats there are dogs, in this case the Dogisian people, sneaky antagonists of the show who in an underhanded way have already made first contact with Earth, and want to keep the benefits of that secret first contact all to themselves. Enter doggie girl Janes and her robotic assistroid Muttley (who shares a laugh with his animated namesake) The subtitles call him Matrey, no doubt to avoid lawsuits.


What makes Cat Planet Cuties so enjoyable is that despite the blatant fan service, the silliness of its premise, and the clichés of its genre, it has heart, and it has it in abundance. The characters are likeable, and there is vicarious joy to be had in their interactions. No matter how far-fetched the story gets, the feelings that the girls have for their wimpy object of affection are real, and there are times in the story where it explores these feelings with sensitivity and honesty. Eris and Kio may be the first alien human relationship, which makes her broad affections for him more comical than realistic, but Manami feels she’s missed her chance and drifted into the Friend Zone, and winds up supporting Aoi. Aoi on the other hand feels that because of who she is, and what she has done in her work, she isn’t worthy of Kio. That Eris just comes along and pounces on him crystallises their own emotions and increases the conflict in their feelings. Of course Cat Planet Cuties manages to deliver a ‘cake and eat it’ ending that will satisfy the target demographic, for whom Kio is a cipher, but up to that point the show manages to engage the emotions.


This goes some way to explain why Cat Planet Cuties is a fun harem comedy show, but probably doesn’t explain my love for it. That’s a wholly personal thing, which goes back to my history as a sci-fi nut. I grew up with sci-fi, took in all manner of books and TV shows and movies, and first contact with aliens was a big part of that medium. That very rarely turns out well in entertainment, with Starman and E.T exceptions that prove the alien invasion rule. Where there’s an alien, there will soon be a mushroom cloud of justified human self-defence, or panicked human paranoia. Add to that my own growing cynicism as the years pass, as my suspicions grow that we as a species are more blight to the planet than blessing. It’s in our nature to destroy, we drive animals to extinction, we destroy the environment, and worse, we turn on each other. To watch the news for any length of time without suicidal thoughts ought to be worthy of a medal.


Then there is Cat Planet Cuties, where aliens come because they want to hang out with us, they want to play. They think we’re nifty. They know that there is good and bad in us, as they have recognised it in their own species, but they believe that the there is more good than bad in humanity, and when push comes to shove during first contact, sure enough the better natures of the people they meet prevail. Aliens that want to be with us because they like us, that there is something about us that is worth liking. That’s a powerful thought. It’s enough to get us liking ourselves. It’s no wonder that I have a lump in my throat at the end of episode 12, when I see the Catian’s Christmas present. Cat Planet Cuties is a compelling mix for an anime sci-fi fan, with harem hi-jinks, sauciness, action, comedy, pop-culture references, big boobs and a bumper helping of hope.


This Manga Entertainment authored release lacks polish, but it’s fine for rental purposes. It’s even fine to buy if you have you have a passing vague interest in the show, fine to buy if you’re a harem comedy fan with a conspicuous gap in your collection. But if you are specifically a fan of Cat Planet Cuties, and simply must have the show in as good as quality as possible for your collection, to lovingly buff and admire as it sits on your shelf, then the flaws in this release will irk, especially as there are better import options available.