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10 February 2015: A tail of two catgirls

Kanako
A catgirl doing cat things.

If you know anything about anime, then you're at least aware catgirls are a common fetish, and may even be familiar with the various controversies surrounding them. Are they furries? What if their paws and tails are real? Should they also have human ears in addition to their cat ears? This entry casually compares the catgirls in Isuca and The iDOLMASTER Cinderella Girls as an excuse to introduce these Winter 2015 shows and to revisit some of my grievances regarding catgirls.

Miku
A catgirl doing girl things.

I'm not a big fan of catgirls. I'm of the opinion anime catgirls should either be regular girls who (infrequently) throw on a cat-ears headband as an accessory or be actual full-on non-human cat/human beasts like Aisha Clan Clan from Outlaw Star. Basically anything in-between is an abomination of some sort, especially if the end result is essentially a brain-damaged human girl who behaves like a cat all the time for no good reason. The catgirl in Isuca is an abomination cat-girl-spirit creature who looks mostly Girl, randomly acts Cat, and uses the Spirit part to handwave contradictions or complications. I have a more favorable opinion of her as a manga character than as an anime character, but that might not actually have anything to do with the media necessarily and more to do with the Isuca anime being a low-effort affair that's sort of dreadful to watch. In fact, according to the numerical scores Isuca garnered before I dropped it (after episode three), it's technically Worse Than Cosprayers. I can't quite recommend the Isuca manga, but I at least recommend it over the Isuca anime.

Miku
A catgirl doing catgirl things.

In comparison, the catgirl in iMAS Cinderella Girls is an entirely human girl who wears cat ears and makes cat noises because she thinks they makes her appear cute. These would be clear warning signs of someone to avoid here in The Garden of Rainbows, but her idiosynchrasies are not particularly offensive within the context of the show. There are over a dozen Cinderella Girls, so most of them constantly reinforce their defining characteristics at every opportunity lest we forget about them. E.g., the lazy one is lazy all the time. The Russian one yammers in Russian. The one who likes rock and roll forces every conversation she's a part of to include comparisons to rock, no matter how irrelvant. I like Cinderella Girls, but these girls are more like Puchidols than actual idols. So considering that nearly every character has some sort of quirk that hammers the viewer, the catgirl angle isn't so bad, relatively speaking.


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