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Two Anime Series Featuring Mini-Episodes About Cats

Some days are stressful, and can only be made better by… watching mini-episodes of anime series featuring cats. 

Chi’s Sweet Home is about a kitten who becomes separated from her mother and is discovered lying on the ground by Youhei, a little boy. Youhei is an only child whose family lives in an apartment building that doesn’t allow pets, so he and his parents have to keep Chi hidden. While they search for someone else to take Chi in, they begin to fall in love with the little cutie.

If you’ve ever wondered what your cat is thinking, this series may be of some assistance. Chi speaks so that the viewer understands her, but the human characters only hear her making typical cat noises. The actor playing Chi sounds just like an insatiably curious young kitten having adventures, if said kitten could speak. The creators have perfectly captured the habits and quirks of cats, like how they can become mesmerized by a moving shoelace, and hate baths (Chi screams that she’s going to die while they’re bathing her). The dad in the family becomes enamored of Chi, on one occasion buying a multitude of cat toys for her, only to find Chi just wants to play with the rustling plastic bag he brought the toys home in.

The second season, Chi’s New Address, shows the family moving to a new apartment just so they can keep Chi. Each Chi episode is only three minutes long, so you can indulge in taking a cat break whenever you need to.

For a completely different kind of cat-centric anime, there’s Neko Rahmen (“Cat Ramen”), a 13-episode series about a cat who owns a ramen shop. Neko Rahmen is more for teenagers and adults than young children, as its humor is more sophisticated. Taisho, a cheerfully unprincipled ramen chef, has only one regular customer, the affable Mr. Tanaka. Despite his not very good ramen, Taisho schemes to expand his business by using bizarre tactics, such as serving ramen topped with cat food to a famous food critic (who turns out to love it) and hiring ineffective assistants, like the French chef who tries to turn the ramen shop into a French bistro. My favorite episode has Taisho experimenting with the menu, offering up “Dessert Ramen” (ramen topped with strawberries and milk “for the ladies”) and “Gone Slightly Bad Ramen” with ingredients that have gone… slightly bad.

Neko Rahmen episodes are even shorter than the Chi episodes, logging in at only two and a half minutes apiece. You can watch the entire series in just under 35 minutes!

Chi’s Sweet Home is produced by Madhouse Ltd. Neko Rahmen is produced by Think Corporation. The second season of Chi’s Sweet Home and all of the Neko Rahmen episodes are available for viewing at Crunchyroll: www.crunchyroll.com.

Jan Suzukawa works in the manga industry as a freelance editor and English adaptation writer. Website: www.jansuzukawa.com. Blog: jansuzukawa.blogspot.com.