This stack of news represents the development around Cat's Eye. By now, manga and anime have been released in many countries and languages; what we are still waiting for is an english-language edition of the manga.
You can also follow and discuss the news on the r/catseye subreddit (old.reddit version here) and on the Cat's Eye Anime Facebook page.
News
- 16.04.2024 - Our detective Ian has yet again found some great background info. A Cat's Eye fan in China is trying to recreate the architectural blueprint for the original manga series' Cat's Eye Coffee House. He stated in his video and post that he does not have an architectural background, so he consulted with friends who do. The effort is still on going with the goal of a 3D model image. Use translator services for the below if needed:
- His original post on Coffee House Cat's Eye blueprint.
- His very detailed video talking about the research process on the structure of Coffee House Cat's Eye based on the original CE manga.
- 13.02.2024 - A new Cat's Eye stage show is taking place in Tokyo from Feb. 6th to March 3rd. The name of the show is "Meiji-Za Cat's Eye". Meiji-Za is a Tokyo stage theatre first built in 1873 and rebuilt in 1950. The story is in an alternative timeline in Meiji era Japan. See Hojo Tsukasa's official website and the theatre's official page. The theatre's cafeteria serves a special Cat's Eye menu during the show period with a complimentary Cat's Eye card. Thanks to Ian for the info!
- 17.08.2023 - Great news (thanks to Ian, as always): The official TMS channel on YouTube publishes the Cat's Eye anime series one episode a week, in 1080HD with English subtitles! It seems to be geo-locked for some countries, but is available at least in the US. Here is episode 42.
- 11.05.2023 - More news about the upcoming Cat's Eye live action features: The placeholder page for the French series is up (8 episodes to air in 2024), and the possibility of one Chinese movie is reported in Chinese media. Thanks to Ian for noticing!
- 09.03.2023 - TMS has an official culinary program on YouTube that recreates the food in their anime series. One episode is about the food served in Coffee House Cat's Eye. Thank you to Ian King for the info!
- 28.01.2023 - Our new Cat's Eye Facebook page is up!
- 28.01.2023 - The Lupin vs. Cat's Eye movie is out Amazon Prime Video. The 3D animation unfortunately looks cheap, is unconvincingly stiff, and does not work well for such an action-based title. Other than that, the story is very reminiscent of the typical 80ies episodes (in a good way), the music is very familiar, and the integration of two franchises worked well. It was also nice to see that many of the international voice actors returned to their role. In the end it was worth watching, but leaves you wondering how much better the visual aesthetics could have been.
- 16 Oct 2022 - Thank you to Ian King for the following information:
This blog author speculates about the origin or inspiration of the Cat's Eye Coffee House. A real coffee house existed from 1977 to 2005 (see the very familiar-looking blog photo), located right by the university Tsukasa Hojo attended from 1977 (Kyushu Sangyo). The blog author attended the same university. It was a popular hangout spot for university students. Hojo graduated in 1981 from the Faculty of Arts in that university. The coffee house was run by three siblings: An older brother and younger sisters.
The blog author also states that the name of the Tokyo police station "Inunari" in Cat's Eye does not exist in the Tokyo area - there is no Tokyo ward nor location called Inunari. Wondering where the name came from, he found out Hojo's university has an area called "Inu(n)ari" nearby. A mountain, a village (that no longer exist), a tunnel, and a mountain express road all named Inunari.
This YouTube video shows the Inunari mountain road in that region. Inunari is part of Miyawaka City, located in the northeast of Fukuoka City, where Kyushu Sangyo University is located. According to Japanese Wikipedia, Miyawaka City was formed from merging two old towns, Miyata and Wakamiya, in 2006. Inunari was part of Wakamiya. Inuari's population is zero as of 2015.
Thank you to Ian King for this background information! - 14 Aug 2022 - Thank you to Ian King for the following updates:
- The 1988 Cat's Eye TV drama is on YouTube (no subtitles unfortunately).
- A new Cat's Eye DVD set will be published as a monthly magazine-style subscription with one DVD per month for 4 months. The first issue will appear on 22 September 2022 (1870 Yen). Extra bonus content: Story board, original art and character designs, original cell, "Eye Catch" collection (the still illustrations used at end of the first half of an episode before commercial breaks). See the publisher's webpage and Vol. 1 at Amazon Japan.
- 13 Feb 2022 - The newest Blu-Ray set has been announced for North America, estimated release date is 26 April 2022 for Season 1. It is unclear whether this version is digitally restored. See the product page at RightStuf. As always, thanks to Ian King for this info!
- 15 Oct 2021 - A Cat's Eye figure set based on the Season One artstyle will be released in 2022, see the French site Kami-Arts. Thanks to Ian King for the update!
- 28 Sep 2019 - Japanese toy chain store Jungle released the Kisugi sisters as soft vinyl figures (Rui, Hitomi, Ai). KM Studio (Malaysian?) offers a pre-order on Kisugi sisters' resin figures to be relased in 2020. Thank you to Ian King for the updates!
- 28 Sep 2019 - Amazon.jp sells a two-part DVD set of a CE live-stage show from 2012 (DVD A, DVD B). See a clip of the live-stage show preparation and practice. Thank you to Ian King for the updates!
- 29 Sep 2019 - Right Stuff pulled the Cat's Eye DVD/Blu Ray from their online catalog, distribution rights might have gone to Frontier Works. Their Blu-rays cost 24500 Yen (approx. 210 EUR) each
(Season one, Season two).
TMS Entertainment (formerly known as Tokyo Movie Shinsha/TMS before 1992) have nice sketches and episode guides of the 1st season on their web pages (click the options on top right side; part one, part two, part three).
Thank you to Ian King for the updates! - 01 Jul 2019 - Frontier Works Inc. will release a new Cat's Eye Blu Ray Collection later this year: Season 1 on 2019/08/23, Season 2 on 2019/09/20. Both come with special image bonuses. The Frontier Works webpage claims this to be a digital remaster of the original master record, however the resolution is shown as 480. Frontier Works is owned by Animate Group. Thank you to Ian King for the update!
- 04 Oct 2018 - Yamato and Koch media released the Italian Blu-Ray sets in June and November 2017. I can confirm the picture quality is better than the DVDs' (less grain), bearing in mind the limiting factor is the source material.
- 08 Feb 2016 - Amazon.fr has the Cat's Eye Blu-Ray and DVD Collector box set listed. Reviewers are not ecstatic though.
- 08 Feb 2016 - After only eight volumes, the below-mentioned Cat's Ai manga saw an early, uninspired end.
- 28 Nov 2015 - For viewers in the US and Canada, both seasons of Cat's Eye are now available via streaming at Crunchyroll.com.
- 04 May 2015 - Right Stuff/Nozomi is publishing Cat's Eye on You Tube one episode at a time. Unfortunately, outside the US regional restrictions may apply.
- 05 Nov 2014 - Right Stuf and Amazon.com have the 2nd Season DVD Box set of Cat's Eye. Shipping has not started yet, RightStuf lists the set as "in stock and available" whereas according to Amazon the release date is 18 November 2014.
- 14 Jun 2014 - Right Stuf already started shipping the first box sets on 13 June! Also, Amazon.com has listed the Cat's Eye Season 1 DVD Box set.
- 13 May 2014 - Right Stuf now accepts preorders for the Cat's Eye Season 1 DVD Box set (available July 2014)! Not any less amazing is that they are even publishing the legendary 1972 Mazinger Z TV Series... unbelievable. Miracles happen!
- 09 Sep 13 - Unbelievable, but true at last: Right Stuf have announced that they acquired the rights to Cat's Eye. The press release states that "Catӳ Eye will be released beginning in 2014 with Japanese audio, English subtitles and on-screen translations."
- 10 Dec 12 - A new manga series has seen the light of day: Cat's Ai presents the story from Ai's point of view. Tsukasa Hojo is listed as co-author, but is not drawing himself.
- 10 Dec 12 - A new Blu-ray release (2 boxes i.e. one per season) is scheduled to appear in March 2013. Unfortunately, it seems this release features Japanese audio only and no subtitles. It is a bit pricey, too at 270 EUR per season.
- 10 Dec 12 - Since 2008, two background music CDs are available, named "Anime Music Capsule Cat's Eye" and "Anime Music Capsule Cat's Eye Season 2" respectively. ). They cost 2400 yen each (approx. 23 EUR) and can currently be ordered from CD Japan. Once I receive them, I will write a review.
- 01 Sep 07 - This piece of news is worth an update: Cat's Eye is at last being released in the US (Japanese audio, English subtitles) by TMS entertainment! More details on tmsanimeclassics.com. Thanks to Ian King for reminding me. Some DVDs are already up for ordering at RightStuf.com. Now, go out and order them. The english-speaking fan community has been waiting for this moment for some 24 years.
- 12 Jan 07 - Anime Virtual have announced that they will release the Cat's Eye anime series on DVD in Germany Around Easter 2007. The series will apparently be published as a set of 12 DVDs in Thinpaks. The product description web page mentions 6 boxes in total (thus 2 discs each), but it is not clear if these will be sold together or apart. Only the German TV dub will be included (no Japanese audio and no subtitles thus).
- 12 Jan 07 - French IDP Home Video Music has released the Cat's Eyes "Premium edition" series on DVD in two box sets (7 DVDs each, Japanese and French audio tracks, French subtitles). Each thinpak-flipcase box includes a thick booklet (episode guide and artwork). A few extras are included on the DVDs, such as an interview with Satoshi Harayama, illustrations, opening and closing themes with Japanese/French subtitles.
- 15 Dec 05 - I've seen terrible Cosplay pictures in my short life, but in the case of Cat's Eye these pictures turned out really well. Have a look at occhidigatto.it and see the Kisugi sisters in front of an Italian police car! Also, check out the original site, giorgiacosplay.com, where the webmistress impersonates Hitomi.
- 19 Jul/18 Aug 03 - Sorry that this update took so long on my part. Thanks to Stéphane for notifying us that Manga Distribution now has the complete CE collection available on DVD (spread over 3 boxes at 30 EUR each). The episode count seems a bit messed up on their pages, as they advertise the DVD sets as containing episodes 1-26, 25-48, and 49-73, respectively. ^_^;; The audio is in French. Due to licensing issues, the opening and closing songs are the original Japanese ones.
In due time (forum rumours talk about a year or so), we should be expecting a Japanese audio version with French subtitles. - 18 Jan 03 - Thanks to Bernard for mentioning this: CE is coming on French DVDs, officially announced by the webmaster on the forum of Manga Distribution. Apparently we can expect a standard and a collectors' edition in 2003.
- 02 Jan 03/28 Nov 01 - Happy new year! Besides some added links below, there's an overdue update: Toshio, webmaster of www.catseye.it, informed that the long-awaited Italian CE DVDs are being released. Volume 1, containing the first 6 episodes (Italian & Japanese audio, Italian subtitles), is seemingly expected for January 20th, 2003. See e.g. www.dvdland.it.
- 02 Jan 03 - German TV Tele5 is broadcasting CE since 24 Dec 2002 within their "toongate" programme.
- 04 Aug 02 - It came to my attention that the real-actors movie is available on DVD at CD Japan, listed as "Japanese Movie Cat's Eye". [Update 22 Apr 03: "Kisarazu Cat's Eye" is not, as wrongly stated here before, the Cat's Eye TV drama. It is an unrelated TV series. Thanks to Mathieu for pointing this out.]
- 12 Jul 02 - Thanks to Iggy for this one: The Anime Expo at Long Beach/California on July 7th, 2002, featured three girls in well-known costumes...
- 01 Apr/19 Feb/25 June/04 Aug 02 - Cat's Eye "Perfect Collection" import DVD sets are available. Released by Anime Cartoon (not a legitimate company, according to the feedback of some fans), the collection consists of the whole TV series, 2 boxes with 4 DVDs each, priced at approximately 70-100 EUR per box. The price could be another hint that the DVDs might be unlicensed pirate copies.
Prices seem to vary quite much between one shop and another. Places to order from are e.g. Konci Japanimation in France, AnimeArt and JJAnime in the US, or DVDanime in Italy.
Each box unfolds into four thick cardboard pages with very nice artwork on outside and inside (no original drawings though, unfortunately). The same artwork is featured on the discs themselves.
The DVD features a solid Japanese only mono audio track, with selectable Chinese or English subtitles. Be warned: the subtitling is a very bad job. Obviously the DVDs were not aimed at the European market. The subtitles are accurate as far as I can tell, but full of typing mistakes and grammatical errors. Basically, it gives the impression that the person doing the subtitling was as far from an English native speaker as it gets. Episode 72 does not have English subtitles at all (Chinese only).
The picture quality is pretty good for such an old show. Unfortunately, the first episodes (mostly on disc 1) show a very high colour contrast. The colours are way too strong, which translates into some ugly colour-bleeding. Otherwise, the transfer to DVD seems to be OK, although there are some slight artifacts (mostly some block pixellation on dark backgrounds).
Occasionally, the subtitles show the company's e-mail address, and sometimes the hard-coded company logo appears in a corner of the image. All this probably in an attempt to prevent pirate DVD copies. Yeah, right - for DVDs that are pirate copies in the first place! Personally, I'm not too happy with this, but then again it's a rather minor issue.
Opening and ending of the show are only present at the beginning and end of each DVD. There is no opening or closing between the single episodes. Unfortunately, the teasers (previews of the next episodes) have been left out as well; only the last episode on each DVD features a preview for the first episode on the next disc. That's a pity.
If you do not mind the adventurous quality of the subtitles, all in all the perfect collection box sets are recommendable, especially considering the lack of options. After all, you get the complete collection at a very competitive price. (The only alternative so far is a set of 18 single DVDs released by Nippon Columbia, but they are without subtitles and cost US$50 each.) - 19 June 02 - Thanks to Thomas Klein for the following info:
1. Cat's Eye play at anime convention: At the German anime convention "Connichi" (03.05.02-05.05.02) a play based on the Cat's Eye Movie has been performed. Two Pictures are available at http://fsing.fs.uni-sb.de/~thkle/connichi02/ (102-0203 and 102-0204).
2. Cat's Eye on TV: Since the beginning of this week [i.e. last week at the time of this posting] the German TV station Tele 5 is broadcasting Cat's Eye. - 05 April 02 - The CE anime series is currently being broadcast on French satellite subscription channel Mangas, several times a day.
- 05 April 02 - Tsukasa Hojo's recent work, Parrot, contains a CE manga 8 pages long (so far, in Japanese only). Scanned pages are online at Hojo's unofficial Swiss website, in the Parrot section. Thanks to Manuel for this one!
- 12 July 01 - The French second season box set of CE (episodes 37 to 73) is now available on video tape, priced at approx. 90 Euro. See the details at Mix-Image. Dynamic have not updated their site yet, though.
- 25 June 01 - Toshio's revamped Italian CE page is online from today at its new URL, http://www.catseye.it/.
- 09 Apr 01/13 June 01 - DVD, take 2! The first CE season (episodes 1-36) is being released on DVD
in Japan: nine volumes at 4935 Yen (approx. 44 Euro) each. Unfortunately, this release does only have a Japanese audio track, and no subtitles. ;_;
Check the CD Japan search results for details. Orders are possible via JPOPHelp as well. Thanks to Christian and Kelly for reporting this! - 12 Mar 01 - First on video, now on DVD: as Slimpia reports from Italy, CE might find its way to DVD soon. At the comic fair in Milan/Italy, Yamato video confirmed that the DVD release of CE is scheduled for next year!
- 29 Jan 01 - New CE site is on its way - check out today's Guestbook entry, and keep an eye on www.catseye-online.de.
- 29 Jan 01 - If you own a Nokia mobile phone and would like to have a CE ringing tone, try entering the notes I came up with. Works on the 3210, let me know if it's OK on others. (Special offer for the quickest: I'm willing to forward the ringing tone to the phones of the first 10 fans who request this, under the condition that they in turn agree to forward the tone to one other fan.)
- 09/23 Nov 2000 [Link updated on 07 June 01] - If this isn't good news! I must have been living on the other side of the moon to have missed this announcement: Dynamic have released the French version of Cat's Eye on video tape! The first season set consists of 8 tapes with a total running time of 15 hours, and is priced at 499 Frs. (about 76 Euro). Second season will follow. Have a look at the 1st box set at Manga distribution. If you order from there, it might be a good idea to get their member card for a 25% discount. [Links updated on 29 Jan 01]
- 31 Oct 2000 - Scroll down the page to the sixth entry on NemoProd's Video section: it offers the French anime opening for download (14 MB).
- 27 Sept 2000 - Subscribe to the new Cat's Eye mailing list: http://www.egroups.com/group/catseyes. The old list, http://www.egroups.com/group/CatEye, will be closing.
- 19 July 2000 - What you always wanted to ask about Heinz, but were afraid to ask: At last, I've now added some manga spoilers to the Plot section.
- 19 July 2000 - Years after Cat's Eye stopped their activities: A new FanFic is in the making. Having read the first 16 finished pages, I have to admit it is very promising indeed. Keep an eye on the mailing list and/or this news section.
- 18/14 April 2000 - At last, the story is complete! With no. 10, Tonkam has now published the last French volume of the CE manga. You may order the manga from Protoculture (North America only), Mix-Image, or any normal bookstore using the following ISBN (International Standard Book Number) codes:
Vol. 1 ISBN 2-912 628-39-3
Vol. 2 ISBN 2-912 628-44-X
Vol. 3 ISBN 2-912 628-45-8
Vol. 4 ISBN 2-912 628-46-6
Vol. 5 ISBN 2-912 628-56-3
Vol. 6 ISBN 2-912 628-57-1
Vol. 7 ISBN 2-912 628-77-6
Vol. 8 ISBN 2-912 628-78-4
Vol. 9 ISBN 2-912 628-79-2
Vol. 10 ISBN 2-912 628-80-6
Whole series: ISBN 2-912 628-38-5
Published by Éditions TONKAM, Paris
Price: about 8,99 Euro each. - 15 March 2000 - URL change for Thomas' Cat's Eye FanFiction Repository.
- 25 Feb 2000 - Long overdue piece of news... The CE movie title song is available in MP3 format at the bottom of Thomas' Cat's Eye FanFiction Repository page.
- 11 Feb 2000 - Thanks to Christian, we now have a Cat's Eye mailing list! Go straight to http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/CatEye to subscribe!
- Post a message: CatEye@onelist.com
- Subscribe: CatEye-subscribe@onelist.com
- Unsubscribe: CatEye-unsubscribe@onelist.com
- List owner: CatEye-owner@onelist.com
- 04 Jan 2000 - According to Christian, the OST CD is out of print. It is still available at Mix-Image and CD Japan, but no longer at Anime Frontier.
- 24 November 1999 - Update for our French friends: For further info on which episode is being broadcast right now, check out Fr2's Tableau Programme. Among other things, Fr2 additionally offers a French episode guide for episodes 1-13! Again, thanks go to Franck-S귥rin.
- 15 October 1999 - Hot news for Italian fans: Around 3.25 local time on Saturday night (16 October 1999), Italian TV channel Italia 1 will broadcast the first episodes of CE as part of the 'serata manga' (manga night). Thanks to Toshio for reporting this!
- 02/07 September 1999 - An update about our good news from France: starting September 4th, French channel France 2 (not FR3 as previously stated) will feature CE every Saturday (not on Sundays) during the 'Donkey Kong' programme. Sorry for these mistakes and thanks to Franck-S귥rin Clerembault.
- 09 July 1999 - Nice work, well done! James Maruyama has provided us with information about the CE movie as well as song lyrics and translations (see Cat's Corner).
- 09 July 1999 - Thomas Klein's ever growing CE FanFiction site has adopted the well-deserved official title of Cat's Eye FanFiction Repository. Keep an eye on that page!
- 09 July 1999 - These pages have received two awards.
- 18 June 1999 - On this server, we now have my new FanFiction called Cat's Eye: Lost Love.
- 03 June 1999 - The new CE home page is online! The growing amount of information had made it impossible to keep on adding everything to a single page. In detail, the changes are:
- The old page has been split. The Cat's Eye Café (where you are now) contains news, the fan corner, and links. Background information about the manga and anime can now be found on the Background page.
- The old episode list is now in HTML format, has been updated, and features a screenshot for every anime episode. Check out the new Episode Guide!
- A new Discussion Forum is online. It supports threading and will therefore make it easier to discuss several topics. The old, simple forum has now become a Guestbook.
- 26 May 1999 - To make surfer's life a little easier, this page now has an additional, easy-to-remember URL, http://welcome.to/catseye, which will redirect you to the usual http://personal.inet.fi/koti/sapora/CATSEYE.HTM. Thanks to V3 Redirect Services.
- 19 May 1999 - At the #Fansubs File Archive, the English subtitles for episodes 1-6 and 11-12 are available for download! Even if, lacking the original video, you don't need any subtitling, you can still read them with a standard text editor. This is about as close as you could get to a CE transcript.
- 19 May 1999 - More and more CE fan fiction is emerging at last: Merle Globisch, the author of the first Cat's Eye FanFic ever, has updated his work - and this time in English, too. Have a look at Butterfly's Fan Fictions page.
- Italian publisher Edizioni Star Comics Srl is featuring CE in their "Starlight" manga series. In the 2nd volume you will find my letter to the editor. :-) For some critical remarks on this Starlight release, have a look at Tati's mail. Should you know any French, go for Tonkam's French publication. As of 04 January 2000, Volumes 1-8 are currently available and can be ordered from Mix-Image.
- [Obsolete, see entry of 04 Jan 2000] The fact that some of you have been asking where to get the CE soundtrack shows that the music remains unforgotten. The 2nd season CD is still available: Check out the review at Ex. For ordering, I can recommend Robert Wong's (alias Sasami's) Anime Frontier, where the CD is listed for US$ 18.99.
- As far as the 1st season CD is concerned, you might want to have a look at "Cat's Eye Digital Trip 1800" by Nippon Columbia. It contains synthesizer instrumental versions of the actual 1st season CD. (Thanks to Toshio for info.) Unfortunately I haven't been able to get it, it seems to be out of stock everywhere.
- As you can see from the Guestbook, Canadian fans are still looking for people who videotaped CE episodes in French. If you can help them out, please mail!