This is a bit of a long read, which is why I prepared a clip for y’all as a present.
Yanineko is a show that, at first, is a crass slapstick comedy like many others. Panty & Stocking immediately comes to mind. What you don’t realise, though, is that the show is a social commentary in the garb of palatable (intellectually, not literally) comedy.
It’s no secret that Japanese society isn’t perfect, but like India, people that call it out are looked down upon. Yanineko gets around that by concealing these topics until you think about them subconsciously.
The show follows a cat girl, they’re known as beastfolk, treated as sub human (issue 1), who has a crippling cigarette addiction (issue 2), but cannot find a good job (issue 3) and lives in filthy conditions (issue 4). She is also constantly sexualised by children and old people alike (maybe issue 5). This simple show with farts and drugs and puke is able to dismantle society’s deepest secrets. The last time a show did this was NHK, but back then media literacy was high, so it didn’t need to be funny. Chainsmoker Cat is taking us back to when anime was more than just empty entertainment, and I’m all for it.
Here’s the clip, you’re welcome ;)
well, yeah totally NHK is very different and i suppose drawing parallels between the two is stretching things a little, what i meant to say was the last time I saw a brazen societal commentary was NHK albeit from a different lens. with that said, as someone that has watched the show i don’t think it’s very similar to gintama at all. the clips you see online are just the wack “clippable” moments. a large part of the show is very uncomfortable, for example a fun ‘filler’ like a trip
spoiler
has references to suicide and an era where the cat girls were slaves and fetishized