All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (Japanese: 万能文化猫娘, Hepburn: Bannō Bunka Nekomusume) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Yuzo Takada. It was serialized in Weekly Manga Action for only three issues in 1991, with the three published stories later compiled in a single volume collection in December 1997. The story begins when genius inventor Kyusaku Natsume transplants the brain of a cat found by his son Ryunosuke on Christmas Eve, into a schoolgirl android that he created and subsequently stole from his former employer, Mishima Heavy Industries (owned by his estranged wife and Ryunosuke's mother, Akiko Natsume). The result, Nuku Nuku (also known as Atsuko Natsume), is a nekomusume or cat girl. The manga was licensed by ADV Manga and published as a single volume on August 24, 2004.
The plot generally focuses on the custody battle for Ryunosuke and the attempts by Akiko and Mishima Heavy Industries to reclaim Nuku Nuku's body, which often involves amusingly larger-than-life battles between Nuku Nuku and military hardware produced by Mishima Heavy Industries.
Two episodes also deal with a one-sided war between Nuku Nuku and another android named Eimi, who suffers from an over-the-top inferiority complex and envies Nuku Nuku's more stable design. As it stands, Eimi was made after her and seeks to transfer her programming into Nuku Nuku to ditch her own body, which Akiko calls "a piece of junk". In spite of Eimi being more emotionally unstable than Nuku Nuku, both their fights end in a draw.
Episode list (All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku OVAs 1992–93)
OVA 1
Ryunosuke finds a kitten in an alleyway while relieving himself. Then taking that he gets on a car with his dad, fleeing his mom's deadly aerial onslaught. While they survived that attack, the kitten got hurt. Trying to save that kitten Kyusaku apparently implants the kitten's brain in a prototype robotic framework, which after some time would appear to function as a work maid in their house. Sometime later, when Akiko again sends an attack force in the school where the feline brained bot named, ''Nuku Nuku'' studies along with her husband Kyosaku, as a teacher, in the same class. There a battle ensues, fairly quickly resulting in the defeat of the attack vehicle. Lastly it cuts to Akiko, the mom, wanting to scheme again to get back her son to stay with her.
OVA 2
Ryonusuke goes to a beach with his friend and nuku nuku, where, of course again, his mom, tries with subterfuge get her child back. For that she first gets the friend shimino hypnotized and brainwashed in sleep time to make her go on aboard Akiko's ship. Then use the child, to lure her son out. Nuku nuku, this time can't perform as earlier because of her lack of swimming gear, which Kyosaku, shortly after provides, and with that she reaches the boat, defeats the episodic bot and in the ensuing chaos Akiko decides to not take her son, just for this time.
OVA 3
After a call and tea time with nuku nuku, Akiko decides to try her hand at being a housewife and the family start living in her family mansion/estate. Although Kyosaku wants this to make her rich wife responsible for once, she changes her mind angrily after receiving a wake up call from her confidante and henchwoman, Arisa, that she's not getting what she wants from this. Following this, the usual bot v cat/furry android fight ensues which results in things going back to how they were before.
OVA 4
It's about a tragic bot named Eimi Yoshikawa who plots to steal nuku nuku's body to have a much desired upgrade. In the end, they fight, the whole of Tokyo gets decimated and they resolve their issues, for the time being.
OVA 5
The two henchwomen, arisa and kyouko, decide to sabotage nuku nuku's job at a local restaurant out of pure spite borne out of the fact that they're not financially well off anymore.
OVA 6
Because of a fight between Eimi Yoshikawa and Nuku nuku, a brand new highly weaponized, automated military satellite's controlling system got ruptured and it has now gone out of control. To stop it from targeting the wrong people, nuku nuku and eimi take it upon themselves to venture into space to destroy it.
Episode list (All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku television series 1998)
It is a series that is mainly a retelling of the original OVA. This series has a more comical side to it. In this, the same characters appear with the same kind of roles and also the same kind of conclusion. An extension to that is multiple tropey school characters, who all have their own highlights.
TV episode 1
It starts with Nuku nuku, the android cat-brained robot going to school and starting classes there. While taking class, a so-called ''evil corporation'' called Mishima Industries (same as before) decides to test their robotic washing machine in the school ground, which unsurprisingly goes berserk, against which nuku nuku has to defend her classmates. After saving them, the tropey classmates accept her as their own.
TV episode 2
Nuku nuku defeats another mistakenly activated, mishima industry's failed project, before it can proceed to destroy the school.
TV episode 3
After a neighbor's kid with a heart of gold is dropped off to Ryounusuke's house for temporary babysitting she decides to make the breakfast and lunch in Akiko's absence but ends up wasting eveything. Then the family with the kid go to a fresh produce market where another demonstration of the so called ''evil'' mishima industries takes place, resulting in another failed project running berserk among the people present there, which nuku nuku neutralizes in the usual fashion.
TV episode 4
In this episode Nuku nuku participates in the mishima industries arranged singing competition against her ''father'' Kyousaku's wishes. Kyousaku then resorts to sabotaging her daughter's performance which doesn't work and she wins. Later it's revealed that she participated in the event to earn the huge prize money for her father's underfunded research projects.
TV episode 5
Futaba, nuku nuku's class rep & strict friend has been brainwashed to be an aggressive mishima industries product promoter through a hypnotizing effect inducing book by a bookstore keeper she deemed as a crush and nuku nuku has to stop this. After this when she's rightfully sombre about it, her friends cheer her up.
TV episode 6
In a beach visit, Kyousaku somehow got ''captured'' and ''taken'' to an underwater base, supposedly belonging to mishima industries, which is, in actuality, a hotel to boost the company's tourism revenue and prospects. Now, it's up to nuku nuku and ryounosuke to save him from this supposed capture.
TV episode 7
A Back to the Future-like episodic plot where after fantastically going to the past nuku nuku and ryounusuke have to make sure that their parents propose to each other.
TV episode 8
A humanoid mouse looking alien falls in love with nuku nuku's homeroom teacher and approaches him at his student chie shirakaba's private amusement park complex in order to spend a night with him.
TV episode 9
The snobby rich girl Chie shirakaba gets angry with nuku nuku and her loyal underlings over a selfish reason. She then gets the underfunded scientist Kyousaku to make her a mecha which she would use to win against nuku nuku in school sports festival. While doing this, Akiko's underlings Arisa and Kyouko try capturing her out of suspicion that Chie being a corporate spy. Then nuku nuku and the chie's underlings protects her and the rift amidst them gets mended.
TV episode 10
After Ryounosuke ingests a sip of the so-called ''DNA changer'' because of a mix-up, he turns into an alligator. With nuku nuku as his only hope, it's a race against time to revert him back to his human self.
TV episode 11 (TV special)
After forgetting that Ryounosuke and others left to visit relatives in the new years', nuku nuku gets the misconception that she got abandoned, thinking she now would have to live with it.
Noriko, childhood friend of Ryounosuke treats her terribly in this distressful situation.
TV episode 12 (TV special)
On Valentine's Day, nuku nuku wants to gift a secret someone chcolate, but in the way gets the rich & snobby shirakaba who buys up all the chocolate from the nearby the store. But as it happens, all those were laced with mishima product enzyme which would make any consumer wanting to aggressively buy and promote mishima products. So, to stop it Akiko and her underlings come with robot to take their stuff away, an attempt which nuku nuku thwarts, but shirabaka still runs away showing her ungratefulness. So, with a single chocolate bar nuku nuku, given by Kyousaku, makes a heart shaped one and presents it to her crush, which, happens to be a cat.
TV episode 13
Nuku Nuku and the gang somehow got to be casting members of a movie for a school festival, in honor of the soon to be graduated.
This episode is full of musical numbers.
TV episode 14
In the last episode, it all comes down to nuku nuku to save earth from a humongously giant asteroid which is about to hit earth, risking her life.
The de facto protagonist and title character. Nuku Nuku started out as just a stray cat Ryunosuke stumbled upon taking a leak while on the run with his father Kyusaku after retrieving (stealing) a prototype android of Kyusaku's own design to keep it from being sold off to the military by Ryu's mother Akiko. The stray cat was shot in the crossfire short by Akiko's henchwomen quickly after Ryu was allowed to keep the cat as a Christmas present. In a moment of brilliance Kyusaku put the dying cat's brain into the android, giving the feline sapience and the android emotions. Nuku Nuku considers Ryu her brother and Akiko and Kyusaku her parents though she is fully aware of her origins. Nearly indestructible, she acts as Ryu's, and her own, bodyguard keeping from being reclaimed by the near dementedly overprotective Akiko. Relatively new to the world, Nuku Nuku acts childish at times, and is still easily distracted by stereotypical feline things like mice, but shows a sincere desire to evolve and grow. In spite of her situations, she harbors no ill will towards Akiko or just about anyone, but is more than willing to resort to violence when push comes to shove. To help create the pretense of a normal life she attends high school.
The son of a brilliant if absent minded scientist and the over protective CEO of Japan's number one weapon's manufacturer, Ryu manages to take it all in stride and enjoys the times where he's able to squeeze in a normal life and quality time with either of his parents. He loves Nuku Nuku as a sister, but is agitated when his father brushes off her blunders as 'just being a cat' when at the same time granting her the respect and responsibilities of a human being. Ryu was the one who found the stray cat that would eventually become Nuku Nuku. Ryu is fully aware of how warped his mother can be, but still cares for her all the same (but still prefers to live with his father over his mother's smothering affection).
Kyusaku Natsume
Voiced by: Akira Kamiya (Japanese), Andrew Klimko (English)
The brilliant, if quite eccentric, scientist who created a prototype android with funding from his wife's company. However, with the amount of cash being dumped into the project he realized that his android would be sold off as a weapon. Having no desire to aid his wife's weapon's research he fled with his son in tow. He and his wife are not technically divorced and will still chat and bicker like any married couple when the chance arises. He created add-ons for Nuku Nuku on at least one occasion to outfit her for unique situations.
Akiko Natsume
Voiced by: Saeko Shimazu (Japanese), Kelly Manison (English)
CEO of Japan's biggest military contractor, and an obsessively protective mother, Akiko's greatest goals are to reclaim Ryunosuke from her husband and to capture Nuku Nuku in order to reverse engineer her. Because of the delicate nature of the information about Nuku Nuku's existence she does not try to legally reclaim Ryu, but instead relies on numerous abduction attempts by her two henchwomen Arisa and Kyouko. In spite of her borderline-demented attitude and love of firepower, she does indeed love Ryunosuke and only wants what's best for him. That said, all else is business to her, and is frighteningly ruthless and manipulative to get what she wants and was even willing to turn a blind eye to Nuku Nuku when the cat girl was working at a restaurant her company owned.
Eimi Yoshikawa
Voiced by: Mika Kanai (Japanese), Cynthia Martinez (English)
An android built in the image of the deceased granddaughter of Kyusaku Natsume's mentor, Eimi is emotionally, mentally, and physically unstable. Built in the image of a girl around Ryu's age, Eimi's activation resulted in an explosion that killed her grandfather, leaving her legally the property of Akiko's company. Suffering from multiple sources of psychological trauma on top of (or maybe because of) her faulty design, Eimi's single fixation is taking Nuku Nuku's body for herself. (Eimi's own body doomed to detonate if pushed beyond its limit due a faulty or perhaps non-existent cooling system.) Eimi openly admits she has no idea how to download her OS into Nuku Nuku's hardware (not knowing Nuku Nuku's brain is biological and not software driven like Eimi's own), but is driven by a lack of a better plan and a superiority-inferiority complex she suffers from Nuku Nuku. Nuku Nuku for her part would love nothing more than to be Eimi's friend. Eimi admitted to having feelings for Ryu, but brushed off her own emotions as meaningless since like everything else about her is just a software parlor trick, and wrote an apology to Ryu for feeling such 'fake' emotions towards him. A drama queen and an irrepressible hot-head, Eimi is able to think ahead and be clever but often lets her own impatience get the better of her.
Arisa Sono and Kyouko Ariyoshi
Arisa voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (Japanese), Kaytha Coker (English)
Akiko's two loyal henchwomen, they spearhead the attacks on Nuku Nuku and frequently suffer the consequences. Arisa is the more violent of the two and prefers to use weapons in order to get her way, something which Kyouko tries to restrain.
Media
Manga
The manga is published in English by ADV Manga. It was serialized in Weekly Manga Action. It was created by Yuzo Takada and originally contained three chapters which focused on Nuku Nuku trying to be a human after her brain was transferred into an android. The manga was licensed by ADV Manga and published as a single volume on August 24, 2004, with the name All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku.
Anime
Cat Girl Nuku Nuku has been adapted into two OVA series and one anime television series. The first OVA adaptation, All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, was directed by Yoshio Ishiwata and released in Japan as six individual episodes on both VHS and Laserdisc from November 1992.[2] A subtitled version of the OVA was released by A.D. Vision on May 9, 1995.[2] Crusader Video released the OVA in the United Kingdom featuring regional accents. A scene possibly alluding to masturbation was removed prior to release.[1]
Spanning fourteen episodes, the full anime adaptation, All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku TV, was directed by Yoshitaka Fujimoto.[1] It premiered in Japan on January 7, 1998, and ran until March 25, 1998. It introduces new characters and makes several changes to the manga story line.
The third adaptation was a 12-episode OVA series called All Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku Nuku DASH! and also directed by Yoshitaka Fujimoto.[1] It was released on DVD in three volumes from September 23, 1998, to December 23, 1998.
All three anime adaptations were originally licensed in North America by ADV Films. Discotek Media licensed the OVA, TV Series and its Dash!! spin-off for a single-disc SDBD release on August 28, 2018, which includes Crusader Video's dub of the OVA as an added bonus.[3][4]
Reception
In his book Horror and Science Fiction Film IV, Donald C Willis referred to All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, Volume 1 as "miscalculated to be another Urusei Yatsura [...] thought it has its moments."[5] The review also noted that "The exaggerated emotions are less amusing than wearing."[5]
References
Citations
^ abcdClements, Johnathan; McCarthy, Helen (2006). The Anime Encyclopedia, Revised and expanded edition. Stone Bridge Press. ISBN1-933330-10-4.
