[Housekeeping] New sub-blog dedicated to 'Mononoke' and gallery of screen captures for 'Cat Soup'

As promised, Iwa ni Hana will open a sub-blog dedicated to Mononoke モノノ怪, a continuation of Bakeneko 化猫, the third story-arc of the 2006 series 怪 ～ayakashi～ JAPANESE CLASSIC HORROR. Mononoke is scheduled to be aired in July 2007, and you can be sure that I will be pimping the show all the way through. It is the most serious contender for the title of best anime series in 2007, along with Seirei no Moribito - except if the quality of Bakeneko is anything to go by, Mononoke will be absolutely soul-shattering whereas Seirei no Moribito is just 'highly impressive'.

In other news, I have uploaded a gallery of screen captures for Cat Soup ねこぢる草, a masterpiece of surrealism in the history of Japanese animation. To borrow a summary of the plot from Wikipedia:

Nyaako, the older sister of Nyatta (the lead character) lays very ill in her room. By accident, Nyatta sees his sister leaving the house holding hands with a peculiar purple being, and follows them. It turns out that Nyatta was following Death taking his sister's soul away. Nyatta claims his sister's soul, by pulling one arm while her memories were erased by Death, who held the other arm. Nyaako's soul gets split in two, and her brother runs away with one half. Death sends a clue about a flower they must search in order to retrieve the missing part then walks away with the other half.

Nyatta returns home to find the doctor telling his parents that his sister was dead. Nyatta gets closer with the soul in his arms and puts it back in his sister's body through her nose. Nyaako wakes up braindead but with her body still alive. This is when the quest starts, Nyatta and Nyaako have to travel through the messed up world where humans act like animals, animals act like humans, life is a child's curiosity and death is not the end. It's a surreal dreamscape where everything is possible, with scenes of postmodern concepts of art and design. One scene portrays God as an old man eating up planets. Time and space concepts are also fused within the film when the old man turns gears of a clock and winds it back so everything goes backward in time.

Be sure to check it out.