Playing as part of this year’s Fantasia festival is a special presentation of the first 4 episodes of the new anime Nyaight of the Living Cat. While the first two episodes will already be available online through Crunchyroll at the time of the screening, there’s something cinematic in this Night of the Living Dead homage/ parody. This will play extremely well in a crowded main Hall Theater at Concordia. The series even has the maestro Takashi Miike along as an overseer on the project!

In the year 20XX, society has become overwhelmed with the love of felines, to the effect that 90% of the world owns a cat as a pet. So when the ‘Nyandemic’ hits (Nyan basically being the Japanese equivalent to Meow), a virus that causes humans that are touched/licked by cats to immediately transform into a cat themselves, it spreads hard and fast. Our introduction into this world is led by Kunagi, Karou and Tanishi, two cat cafe employees and their customer, who somehow manage to survive their initial encounter with the virus infected cats and escape to a local supermarket with other survivors. But how long will that shelter last?

Nyaight of the Living Cat is downright hilarious, but uniquely most of the laughs come out of just how damn earnest all the characters are in the face of something so utterly ridiculous. The fact that Kunagi is also an amnesiac who can only remember his love of cats and an encyclopedic knowledge of cats in general just adds to the preposterousness. Add in visual gags, my favorite includes a random background character wearing a tank top and mustache that makes him look suspiciously like the lead singer of a massive 70s/80s rock band that has a throwaway gaga that had me in stitches. Nyaight of the Living Cat is well worth watching with a raucous Fantasia crowd and then following up with catching the rest of the season on Crunchyroll.