strosin.kelton - 2016-03-26 07:26:15

Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko: Everything Flows[Full Recap]
is an anime about a job hunting woman portrayed in a 2nd perspective, 3rd perspective hybrid.

Story
The story shows a woman in her early 20th searching for a job.
It tells us about her past life and the troubles she had been going through and is going through now. The perspective toggles between being told by a cat and being seen as a 3rd person.

CharacterThe Woman: The main character of the anime who is going through various problems that were thrown onto her.

Her Cat: The subjective teller of the story who is showing his view on the woman's life.
Her Friend: The Psychological supporter of The Woman. Representing hope, cheer and a turnover of her dim life.

Her Mother: Well.. her mother

Recap
Basic pattern of the story:
* Main character is born
* Is depressed
* Meets Cat who will serve as a tool to:
* Meet her friend who helped the main character to be happier
* Goes through the problems of the early 20th
* Through indirect help of the supporting characters:
* The main character overcomes her problems

As you can clearly see this whole story was put into a mere 40 minutes. This amount of content could have filled a 12 ep anime or even a 24ep anime without a burden. It was crammed into its limiting time frame and has thus lost its potential of telling a much deeper and far more accurate story of humans overcoming their problems.

Same problem that Black Rock Shooter had. Both amazing animes telling a great story using an amazing theme losing their potentials by giving themselves a time limit.

pbogisich - 2016-03-26 00:57:06

As a fan of Makoto Shinkai's films, I find his first commercial work 'She and Her Cat: Their Standing Points' as a fairly good entry point into the themes he puts into his movies. When I heard that 'Everything Flows' was coming out this season, I felt overjoyed and skeptical at the same time. The original was a landmark in minimalism and showcased Shinkai's raw talent on a shoestring budget. It has a charm that I felt a higher-production project could never match. What made it worse was that Shinkai reportedly had no involvement in this reimagining, either. So I went in with caution.

Everything Flows tells the story of Daru (already a deviation from the original film; the cat was named Chobi in the original) and his life with his owner (who in both film and OVA is referred to as She). That's pretty much it. The story is very light and, like the film, manages to strike a fair balance between dialogue and visual storytelling. However, I feel that this OVA actually leaves less plot points up to interpretation than the original did. The ending does its best to emulate Shinkai's usual themes, and I think they did a good job. At least, it's not beaten over my head like in Children Who Chase Lost Voices. :P

The animation and sound are probably the most noticeable upgrades in this OVA. As the original was clearly made on a shoestring budget, the animation is colorless, roughly-drawn and not very, well, animated. The reimagining is vibrant, colorful and clean in its art style, in direct contrast to the atmospheric and melancholy mood of the original. The music follows this trend as well, featuring relaxing tunes that will not only warm your heart but slowly crush it as the show becomes more depressing.

Maybe I'm being too nice. This is a nice take on the project that got Shinkai his own animation studio, but that's not to say I don't have problems with it. Most of them have to do with the fact that it has to live up to Shinkai's legacy, though. If you've never seen the original, I recommend you do so before watching this. It's five minutes long, and it does quite a bit in those five minutes. If you don't want to, though, I think it's a heartwarming and inoffensive slice-of-life that will certainly leave an impact on you when its over.

Come to think of it, isn't the white cat at the end...Chobi?! :O

brock.walsh - 2016-03-25 23:28:33

*Also if you have a dog/any pet/know what it means to have a special relationship with an animal and love it, you'll probably also get feels

This series is beautiful. I liked the original Shinkai short and was excited when this was announced. As a 20-something woman with cats (hah, joke me all you want) I can relate. This is a short story about growing up, being alone, and experiencing pain and rejection. The animation is 10/10 as befitting a Shinkai produced (though not directed) work. The sound quality is also very realistic (besides obviously unrealistic cat narration, but I liked his voice). The characters are generic but feel like real people, and the cat is very much the typical lovey-type cat. 

Not going to spoil anything but if you like animals and beautiful animation, just take half an hour and watch this.