English Dub Review: Nekopara “Battles Without Honor and Cat-Humanity”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

After an unnecessary scene where Shigure and all her house cats bathe together, we return to business as usual at the patisserie. Unfortunately, “business as usual” entails Azuki and Coconut being at each other’s throats for the majority of a shift. Back at home the tensions rise when Coconut accidentally shatters Azuki’s food bowl.

It’s been pre-established that these kitties are not fans of one another, but today their acrimony finally boils over. Shigure, a fairly decent pet owner, doesn’t want to see her precious babies tear into each other, so she devises a plan. Ideally, she wants the girls to get all the fight out of their systems, but she doesn’t want to deal with scratches, stiches, or punctured eyeballs. Instead of a street fight, she makes them battle it out through an organized team competition.

Vanilla and Cinnamon join team Coconut, while Chocola and Maple hop aboard team Azuki. Cacao, in a desire to remain neutral—and awfully tired—acts as the competition’s mascot and ring girl.

The competition starts out in a deadlock. Various team members tie in playing Twister, competitive non-eating, and an egg relay that devolves into a disqualifying shove-fest between the two captains. However, things really heat up when Shigure announces the penultimate event—Butt Jousting.

In a surprising turn of events, the cats with the larger, rounder derrieres don’t fare as well as the cats with smaller dumpers because the littler ones have learned to move their lady lumps more efficiently. Even though Azuki and Coconut both lose their personal jousts, Coconut’s team finishes the event with a lead of two matches to one as they head into the final match of the competition.

The ultimate event is an epic obstacle course in the vein of American Ninja Warrior, or American Gladiators, or Wipeout, or The Crystal Maze featuring Richard O’Brien, or Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge (I had to look that last one up). The only difference about this course is that some of the obstacles are extremely tempting to cats. To reach the top first, they must avoid scratching surfaces, swinging, feathery toys, and balloons of all shapes and colors.

Throughout the race, Azuki has a slight edge, but on the final climb, Coconut takes a risky path and almost falls to her death (or, more likely, injury). Instead of finishing the event in first place, Azuki hangs back to save her little sister.

After the events, the sisters make up in a very stubborn way, remembering the good times of their youth when Coconut looked up to and showered her big sister in endless affection. It’s also revealed that Azuki was only angry about her shattered bowl because she didn’t want Coconut to cut herself on the broken shards. Sisters, aren’t they strange?

 

Our Take

I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen, but now that the Cacao arc has apparently come to an end, we finally got an episode focusing on a character other than Chocola or Cacao. Obviously—and I believe I speak for everybody on this one—we all want an entire episode devoted to Vanilla, the absolute best cat on the show. However, before then, I suppose we can enjoy a character-driven outing focused on Azuki and Coconut.

Before we delve into the weird sisters, let’s finish a little housekeeping. We check in with Cacao long enough to discover that she’s still friendly with her savior, Chiyo. The wily girl has somehow convinced her mom to take her to Patisserie La Soleil on a regular basis. In fact, all the permanent residents of the bakery have lulled into a healthy routine after their recent change in dynamic.

Anyway, that opens up the possibility for stories from the larger, residential house. I’m glad to see more Shigure since Master isn’t the most compelling character. We’re talking about a guy who practically killed himself with stress over not being able to create a “fun” “Summer Cake.” Even though Shigure can get a little cat crazy from time to time, her motivations are often stronger and more defined, and she’s more interesting overall. My only hope is that Chocola, Vanilla, and Cacao will keep having reasons to visit the big house because I’d hate to lose their presence.

Let’s close this up by talking about the sports competition that Shigure designed. Sure, the girl went a little overboard in creating the events, but it was a great method to allow her two most troublesome cats to work out their issues. Their animosity had been growing for weeks—if not longer—and it’s a nod to her competence as a pet owner that she was able to isolate the problem and find a creative way to alleviate it.

Now if only she can do the same thing for Cinnamon’s constant horniness!