TAMALA2000: A Punk Cat in Space

[Robert Mahnke]

Via Avram Grumer at Making Light
(http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012091.html#012091),
Wikipedia informs that:

TAMALA2010 a punk cat in space is a Japanese animated feature film.[1]
Direction, screenplay and music is attributed to the 2-person team
t.o.L ("trees of Life"), known individually as K. and kuno.[2] The
film is computer animated in both 2D and 3D, and is mostly black and
white. The characters, designed by t.o.L and Kentarō Konpon, are
reminiscent of Sanrio's Hello Kitty and 1960's anime and manga such as
Astro Boy. The film has not been released in any English-speaking
countries (other than film festival showings) but the Japanese, Region
2 DVD has English subtitles. . . .

The film is in a large part a cartoon cat version of Thomas Pynchon's
novel The Crying of Lot 49 (which t.o.L have acknowledged as an
influence),[5] with elements of Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Oscar
Wilde's The Happy Prince. It begins in Meguro City, Tokyo, Cat Earth,
a world of corporations and commercialism, where a giant mechanical
Colonel Sanders wanders through streets with an axe embedded in its
head repeating an advertisement for meat over a loudspeaker. Tamala,
bored with the city, leaves her human foster mother and boards a
spaceship bound for her birthplace, Orion (while leaving Cat Earth,
Tamala's ship passes by a satellite that is reminiscent of Mike
Jittlov's Mickey Mouse satellite). Her ship is shot down by the
Mysterious Postcat, and she lands on Planet Q in Hate City. There she
meets a male cat, Michelangelo, who becomes her boyfriend. While
visiting a museum, Tamala discovers a mural detailing the sacrificial
rituals of members of the ancient Minerva religion, and the ruins of a
statue of a female cat named Tatla. On another date, the couple is
pursued by Kentauros, a sadistic dog dressed as a motorcycle cop. He
eats Tamala while Michelangelo watches from a tree. The film then
changes tone, focusing for a while on a presentation given by
Professor Nominos on the history of CATTY & Co. He reveals that the
company is an offshoot of the Minerva religion, and that Tamala was
born in 1869 to be their mascot. The presentation is gradually
interrupted by an attack and the room is burned. He appears to die in
the fire but returns, in an undead form, and approaches Michelangelo,
telling him of Tamala's history. Tamala, meanwhile, meets with Tatla,
and comes to the realization that both of them are the reincarnation
of Minerva. She returns to Hate city (much to Michelangelo's
surprise), and continues her voyage to Orion, accompanied by the mouse
Penelope, a former sex slave for Kentauros.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamala_2010:_A_Punk_Cat_in_Space