During the ’80s, Raw was the pinnacle of underground comix. The magazine is where you’d go to find artists and writers who weren’t trying to do things the Marvel and D.C. way. The illustrations were rough and edgy. The dialogue balloons weren’t ready to be in your hometown newspaper’s funny pages. Raw represented a punk attitude in pen and ink. The artists within were experimenting and it was fun to go on the trip with them. Issues covers had subtitles such as “The Graphix Magazine for Damned Intellectuals,” “The Graphix Magazine That Lost Its Faith in Nihilism” and “The Graphix Magazine for Your Bomb Shelter’s Coffee Table.” Not that everything was fun. This is where Art Spiegelman introduced the world to the profound Maus, his revolutionary work about the Holocaust. The most important thing was the magazine was inspirational to a bunch of kids who looked at the work and thought, I can try to do that. You could sit down with pen and paper and attempt to make your own comic. I did it with my character Stick Ninja that went from a mini-comic to my college newspaper. Watching Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space, I sense that creators t.o.L. must have also been influenced by the attitude of Raw Magazine artists. They have created an animated film that doesn’t adhere to the conventions of typical Japanese anime.
Tamala (Bleach‘s Hisayo Mochizuki) is a cute cat on an Earth that has been taken over by a corporate overlord. Catty and Co is a company that has expanded outward to control the world. It’s a strange place with a giant robot of a warped Colonel Sanders roams the streets like a monster. Tamala wants to go back to her home planet that’s in the belt of Orion. This upsets her human mother who spends most of her time playing videogames with a feisty snake wrapped around her. Tamala launches off in a rocket on her mission. The journey gets nasty when she’s forced to crash on Planet Q at Hate City that’s full of dogs and cats. She meets Michelangelo (Pulse‘s Shinji Takeda) who becomes her boyfriend. But there’s a lot of weirdness to come on the planet Q for her. Will she ever get to visit her home planet?
Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space lives up to the title since the sweet little cat is rather punk in her approach to life. The movie feels like it came from a Raw Magazine comix panels. Visually, the movie has a beautiful roughness whether the film is in 2D or 3D imaging. The plot keeps untangling with the imagery so it keeps you interested without being too predictable. Plus in a complete punk rock twist the film features the voice of Béatrice Dalle from the art house classic Betty Blue. She was a goddess in the ’80s with her poster on the wall of punk houses next to Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux. Tamala is a punk version of Hello Kitty with her attitude and lifestyle choices. But she is a rebel against what Hello Kitty represents. The film is best experienced as a “trip” movie such as Fantastic Planet. Put yourself in a completely relaxed attitude and let the imagery and the story just wash over you for the evening. Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space is a fun fantasy feline film in the final frontier.
The Video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. The brings out all the details in the animation. Most of the film is in black and white. The Audio is Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo. The sounds of the other worldly action and the score will elevate the weirdness. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Samm Deighan lets us know that the members of t.o.L. started as a musical group which is represented in the soundtrack. Samm gets into the nature of how the film came about. There’s quite a bit on the consumerism angle in the plot.
Tamala On Parade (24:28) is from 2007. The cat has issues with a giant machine.
Tamala’s Wild Party (16:20) is also from 2007. She wants to go to a party. First she beats up litterbugs and punk vandals.
New Interview with co-director K of t.o.L. (59:50) has Dennis Bartok of Deaf Crocodile interview him on a Zoom chat with Christian Storms (doing the interpretation). K keeps his identity disguised by having the image of Michelangelo on his screen. He talks about how there’s only him, his partner kuno worked with a single computer animator to create the film. We learn where the name Tamala comes from. The real cat was very violent and would beat up the cat in the house.
“Doesn’t She Ever Die?” – The Punkificiation of Late Capitalism (14:55) is a visual essay by Dr. Will Dodson and Ryan Verrill. Goes into the rise of anime in Japan starting with Disney’s Snow White. The rise of Astro Boy was inspired by Bambi with the big eyes. This develops into Hello Kitty. Images of consumerism rose up from the art. The rise of punk captured the Japanese kids that wanted to stick out.
New Tamala Film Teaser (1:02) is glimpses of what they’re doing right now.
Deaf Crocodile presents Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space. Directed by t.o.L. Screenplay by t.o.L. Starring the voices of Béatrice Dalle, Takeshi Katô, Hisayo Mochizuki & Shinji Takeda. Running Time: 92 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: Febuary 11, 2025.
