The live-action Neko Atsume trailer is here and it is full of wonderful, stupid cats
Neko Atsume is the all-time champ in cat-related video games, a pop-art recreation of the experience of hanging out with a bunch of weird, alien animals. In it, you slowly accrue toys and furniture, and more and more cats show up at your house. There is a musketeer cat; there is a big cat; there are many colors of cats, and they all enjoy hanging out. They get stuck in things and take naps. It is one of the best video games of all time, assuming you like cats.
Still, video games have a sordid history with film. Can Neko Astume’s upcoming film adaptation, due for release in Japan this April, possibly live up to its source material?
It appears capable. As the trailer illustrates, it will be a film about a person acquiring furniture and, over time, also acquiring many cats of varying shapes, colors, and dispositions. Every cat has whiskers. We will have to wait until release to find it if the protagonist ends up maxing out his credit cards so as to purchase elusive golden sardines for the cats, which was the endpoint the game spurred players toward—but if art imitates life, things could get very dark.