Cat Soup (Nekijiro 2001)

Growing up in Japan, I was addicted to watching anime and reading manga. Even adults love them, and some of the manga are so thick as big as the yellow pages. I still have a huge collection of manga. Indeed, I so miss Japan.

Respecting and approaching the dead remains an important cultural aspect for the Japanese and Asian people in general. Many films and stories examine death and near death phenomenon.  What happens when one dies or when one comes back to life? Cat Soup is about the near death and rebirth of a girl. By understanding such tales of near death, we will be better able to interpret tales of Japanese zombies, the other undead.

Tasuo Sato directed this strange short film based on  manga series by Nekojiro (Hashiguchi Chiyomi1967-1998), who committed suicide perhaps  because of an unfaithful husband. 

The film examines the near death of Nyatta as told through the eyes of her younger brother Nyako.   Basically, Nyatta drowns and almost dies. Much of the film is about her journey into the land of the dead. Nyako is brave enough to follow his sister to the land of the dead and bring her back. 

At one point, a Jizo figure appears and escorts her to the pure land or paradise.  

In one sense, Cat Soup is about the mythological figure in Buddhism, Mokuren, another person who visited the land of the dead.  Mokuren was the disciple of Buddha who loved his dead mother, but found out she became a hungry ghost living in hell. Buddha suggested that Mokuren  give offerings to his mother while chanting as a way to give her peace.  However, Mokuren did more than that and actually entered hell to retrieve his mother. 

The O-Bon festival is a celebration of the love a son has for his mother.  Indeed, it is a celebration of life where family members must remember the dead, all of the dead people. Even those without living family members must be respected and remembered.

O'Bon remains one of the most important holidays in Japan. Cat Soup is about the sacrifice a sibling is willing to make for another sibling.

O'Bon: The Festival of the Hungry Ghost

Let's look at the Festival of the Hungry Ghost celebrated in both Japanese and Chinese cultures as an example of how understanding the dead occurs in these cultures. In Japan, the O'Bon Festival, which is modeled on the Chinese Festival of the Hungry Ghost is celebrated yearly as a Buddhist tradition.

In Buddhism, everything is transitory or impermanent: even death.  With death being but a transition toward rebirth, all beings are reborn only to die and be reborn again which is the law of samsara (the wheel of death and rebirth). 

O-bon happens in July or August, every year, according to the lunar calendar.   This holiday celebrates of the changeover that undead souls must make. Some spirits or yurie do not know they are dead and are termed lost spirits  or hungry ghosts (gaki).    Offerings (segaki) such as food, money (in the form of burning paper),  joss sticks, and other objects are presented to the gaki.

On the last day, floating paper boats with lanterns are placed into the water to guide the spirits toward their next transformation, especially under certain circumstances. Though this festival is celebrated every year, respect for the dead must be paid every day. In Japan, ". . . when a person has met an unnatural death or died in difficult childbirth, the ceremony of opening the dead person's mouth is the most important service [conducted by a shamaness] for the salvation of his soul" (Ichiro 98).  Why worry about tragic deaths? Well when the body dies, the spirit or reikon should reunite with its ancestors. This represents the Confucian value of showing respect for one's family.

If someone dies tragically, for example, if he or she is murdered or committed suicide, the reikon becomes a yurie, a vengeful ghost. Such vengeful ghosts may seem real in appearance, but instead of thinking of them as undead, imagine them as the (un)born: those beings of liminality, trapped temporarily between death and rebirth.  The ghosts in Ringu  (1998) and Ju-on (2000) are yurei. For Japanese audiences, the ghosts from these films and the undead from zombie films possess characteristics of the yurei, for  they seem to be doomed tragic figures.

Works Cited

Hori, Ichiro

"Japanese Shamanism" from Religion in the Japanese Experience: Sources and Interpretations. Ed.  H. Bryan Earhart. Encino: Dickenson Publishing Co., 1974. 96-99.