TAMALA2000: A Punk Cat in Space

[Joe Allonby]

The most disturbing aspect of this is still the Japanese fascination
with Colonel Sanders.

On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 10:16 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>