Chainsmoker Cat Episode 5 Trades Gross-Out for Story
The episode shows Chainsmoker Cat can carry a straight dramatic story, which suggests the series has more range than its shock-value gags implied.
Reporting from 1 source: Anime News Network.
Episode 5 of Chainsmoker Cat tones down the gross-out humor and focuses on a fleshed-out story, and the reviewer calls it the most watchable the show has been. Imoko gets a melancholy story about a crush she cannot return, while the episode drops lore about discrimination against beastfolk. Yaku emerges as the emotional core of the episode.
Episode 5's cold open holds the episode's nastiest bit of animation, as Yani extracts a slimy pack of cigarettes from her stomach, a scene the reviewer says raises questions about the animators' reference material. From there the show pulls back on the comedy and spends its runtime on Imoko, who cannot return a young boy's crush and may have had her sense of relationships warped by years of caring for Yani.
The episode also expands the world's lore. The Beastfolk Edition of the Game of Life spells out the discrimination and stereotypes that make it nearly impossible for non-human characters to win, and Yaku's choice to play as a human reads as a quiet admission of how the game is rigged. The reviewer calls Yaku the emotional core of the episode.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Anime News Network Chainsmoker Cat Episode 5