Nekojiru

Japanese Name: ねこぢる

Gender: Female

Information for Authors: Nekojiru was a mangaka who committed suicide in 1998 at the age of 31. Her work is disconcerting due to the juxtaposition of a very kawaii visual style (as would befit stories depicting two anthropomorphic kitten siblings) with extremely cruel moments (pig characters are consistently mocked, assaulted, abused and killed). Violence, when it comes to happen, is very graphic and unforgiving. The overall feel is of cuteness, zaniness and nonsense, but there's an unshakable undercurrent of dread throughout the stories. The series ねこぢるうどん (Nekojiru Udon), which is now considered to be her finest work, first debuted in 1990. The manga was made into a TV series, and then in 2001 "Cat Soup", a 35 minutes movie, came along. After her suicide (1998-05) her husband Yamano Hajime took over her work, and started making manga under the pen-name Nekojiru-y.