Neko-Musume/Portrayals (2024)

Neko-Musume
2018 anime art
Name
Japanese	猫娘
English	Cat Girl Catchick
Profile
Species	Half-Yōkai
Gender	Female
Age	One year older than Kitarō
Height	136cm
Weight	29kg
Home	GeGeGe Forest
Abilities	Bake-Neko form Razor sharp claws Cat-like reflexes
Affiliation	Kitarō Family
Other Information
Likes	Kitarō Fish
Dislikes	Nezumi-Otoko
Languages	Japanese Cat language
Specialty dish	Catnip mochi
Relationship status	HISSSSS!!!
First Appearance
Manga	Nezumi-Otoko and Neko-Musume (1967)
Anime	Series 1 Episode 20 (1968)
Portrayals
see Cast
[v·t·e]

Anime Portrayals[]

First[]

Like in the original manga, she only appears as a guest character in the story Nezumi-Otoko and Neko-Musume. She has a dry personality and appears to have little regard for human life, eagerly accepting a job to kill a human for Enma-Daiō. This is the only adaptation where she does not have her trademark ribbon.

Second[]

She appears as a main character starting with the first episode. At the time, the Shonen Sunday manga was being serialized, but instead of using the Neko-Musume from those stories, Nekoko, they instead used the design of the original Shonen Magazine Neko-Musume. Neko-Musume also stood in for Nekoko in the adaptations of the stories she appeared in.

She is fairly doting with Kitarō and Medama-Oyaji, regularly shopping and cooking for them. She is quite the tomboy but usually speaks very politely, usually referring to Kitarō as "Kitarō-san". When Kitarō calls her "Neko-chan" she blushes happily and later refers to Medama-Oyaji as "father-in-law". She is rarely in any battle scenes but is shown to be strong enough to defeat one of Yamata-no-Orochi's head, although his other heads were shown to be easily defeated by Kitarō's hair needles.

This series is the only adaptation where Neko-Musume will easily be swayed into going along with Nezumi-Otoko's schemes. She even occasionally calls him "Nezumi-Otoko-san". However, there are still many occasions where she punishes or lashes out at him, often calling him a "filthy rat". Although she hates when he is disrespectful to Kitarō, she saves him from Dorotabō in the first episode and even cries for him when he momentarily died (Ep. 26).

Her trademark ribbon was first introduced in this series. As mentioned above, she wears a red one-piece dress with yellow polka dots and a white collar. Her ribbon is pink and longer than in other adaptations.

Third[]

Her face is fairly boyish, though her figure is more like an adult woman's. She and Kitarō appear to be equals in this series, as they refer to each other by name without name suffixes. Because the heroine role in this series was given to original character Yumeko Tendō, many episodes saw Neko-Musume play a smaller role. Although Yumeko is her rival for Kitarō's affections and they clash over this frequently, Neko-Musume still gets along with her as a friend. Her feelings for Kitarō are so strong that she will sometimes lose focus in his presence, such as in Ep. 11 when she suggested they get married while she was posing as a bride to trick Hakusanbō. In Ep. 3, she was very annoyed at Yumeko (under the control of Neko-Sennin) shoving her aside to run to Kitarō, though she did the same thing in Ep. 2 when she accidentally kick Medama-Oyaji while running to Kitarō. Later in the series, her more feminine side is emphasized and she is even sometimes hit on by male characters. In Ep. 15, it is said that she does not like cold places, but she states that she will travel anywhere Kitarō goes.

Her tolerance for Nezumi-Otoko is much weaker this time around, and she will frequently be the one to punish him for his misdeeds.

Her specialty is making "catnip mochi", which she often makes for Kitarō, and Kitarō even mentions in Ep. 3 that he thinks highly of the dish. In that same episode, she throws several catnip mochi at the cats controlled by Neko-Sennin in order to calm them down. In Movie 4, Nezumi-Otoko claims catnip mochi is his favorite food.

She is not a half-yōkai in this series, and will even derisively refer to Nezumi-Otoko as "that half-yōkai".

Her hair is slightly longer than in the previous anime, her dress is red and her ribbon is a darker pink. She is 146cm and 39kg in the first half of the series, and 152cm and 45kg in the latter half. Her three sizes are 80C-54-83 (cm).

Fourth[]

Her personality is more reserved than normal, much like Kitarō's. Because Kitarō doesn't have a soft spot for pretty girls like in the 80s version, Neko-Musume is also portrayed as more mature and never gets jealous. Though she is once again shown to have feelings for Kitarō, the exact nature of their relationship is never clarified. For the most part she treats him like a friend, but she will usually be the happiest to see him return alive (Ep. 78 & 106) and has cried (Ep. 84) or been close to crying when she believed he was dead (Ep. 100 & 114). Additionally, in Makura-Gaeshi's dream world she sees Kitarō asking her out. Ubaga-Bi, who hated the sight of loving couples, flew into a rage when Neko-Musume hid behind Kitarō during their fight, mistaking them for a couple.

She once again frequently attacks Nezumi-Otoko when he gets out of line, though he will occasionally get her back with his bad breath attack. Despite this, she is shown to care for him to some extent, as she was the only one to cry for him when Yasha took his soul.

In Ep. 84, a young artist paints a Man-Eating Portrait (born from the artist's personal grudges) that eats Kitarō, Nezumi-Otoko and Sunakake-Babaa. Neko-Musume is enraged and tries to avenge them, but eventually she decides to calm the artist with a song. The artist realizes what he's done and the portrait spits out Kitarō and the other victims, becoming a mere embodiment of the grudge which Kitarō destroys with his chanchanko.

She does not grow like a human woman, only growing slowly over the decades, a fact which seems to bother her. Because of this, Rakshasa's spell (which brings out it's victims greatest desire) turns her into an attractive and seductive woman and uses her to try and capture Kitarō (Ep. 89).

In Ep. 101, Ikkokudō's spell changes her into a human girl holding a cat. This is the first time an anime adaptation has touched on the seldom used manga trait of her being a half-yōkai like Nezumi-Otoko. Despite this, she still has a considerable amount of yōkai energy. She isn't as powerful as most of the Kitarō Family, but is considerably more powerful that Nezumi-Otoko. In Ep. 79, when she and the others fell into the Chinese Yōkai's pitfall, she was able to quickly dig a tunnel out with her claws so everyone could escape. She was possibly originally human and transformed into a yōkai, much like Odoro-Odoro.

Unlike with Yumeko from the previous series, Neko-Musume and Kitarō's human friend Yūko Murakami get along fine, though they actually rarely appear together, so a real relationship is never established between them.

She regularly eats canned cat food.

Her hair is purple and in a bob cut and her regular face is more cat-like than normal. Her height is 141cm and her weight is 34kg.

Fifth[]

Her appearance is a bit modernized, her light brown hair in a short cut and her facial features a little more human-like. She is also slightly taller than normal and has pointy ears, though she still has the same feral face when angered. She will sometimes use he pink ribbon as a rope (or other tools) to help Kitarō. She also often wears different clothes than her classic outfit, and she is shown to be considered attractive by other characters. In the film GeGeGe no Kitarō: Nippon Bakuretsu!!, she was depicted in different outfits for local versions of the film (in the national and home release versions, she was dressed like a marathon runner). Unlike past adaptations, she is almost never victim to a panty shot. The exception to this was when she worked as a bus tour guide.

She works various part-time jobs in the human world and, as a result, is far more familiar with human customs and society than most yōkai, even Kitarō. When she works in the human world she use assumed names, such as Hiromi Nekota (猫田 宏美, Nekota Hiromi), Hiromi Neko (根古 宏美, Neko Hiromi) and Hiromi Nekonozuka (猫野塚 宏美, Nekonozuka Hiromi). She serves as a bridge between her friends at Yōkai Yokochō and the human realm and is highly trusted by the other yōkai. She is particularly close with the Tengu Police, becoming friends with the Dai-Tengu and Kuro-Karasu.

She is high-spirited and can be self motivated, but she never acts selfishly. She sometimes meddles in other people's affairs, but she is mostly an honest person. As in other adaptations, she can also be motherly and doting. She often cooks for Kitarō and Medama-Oyaji, but she is not very good at making sweets. In Ep. 60 she blows up a confection oven, and in Ep. 95 she makes a Valentine chocolate for Kitarō "filled with love", but it was shape and taste were so bad Amabie said that her love was "a tainted love".

Although she is usually kind, she will sometimes go into Bake-Neko mode with little provocation. In one job interview she claimed to be 21, but the interviewer said she looked like a junior high student, resulting in her Bake-Neko face coming out. She is kinder toward humans than Kitarō, though she will still lash out at evil humans.

She is very jealous when it comes to Kitarō and hates it when beautiful girls ask him for help. She is very good friends with Rokuro-Kubi, as they often work together in the human world, though she does get jealous of her progress in her relationship with her boyfriend. She calls her Roku-chan and Rokuro-Kubi calls her Neko-chan.

Enma-Daiō and Sō-Daiō choose her and Nezumi-Otoko to assist Kitarō and locate the 47 Yōkai Warriors. As usual, she does get along with Nezumi-Otoko, though she does once admit to being jealous that he's known and been friends with Kitarō for so long (Ep. 27). Though she doesn't understand how Kitarō can stay friends with him, she will save Nezumi-Otoko when his life is in danger in order to spare Kitarō the experience of losing friend (Ep. 14).

She often forcibly brings Kitarō to go see romantic movies, oblivious to the fact that he has no interest in them.

Sixth[]

She has purple hair like her 90s counterpart, but it is tied up into a bun. She is also taller than her previous incarnations, and wears tall heels.

Her appearance in this incarnation follows the Tsundere archetype: as for the past incarnations of her character, she's obviously in love with Kitaro, but she actively denies that, hiding her most obvious feelings to keep a collected demeanor, usually retracting her affectionate spurs by blushing and downplaying what she did: in episode 2 she rushes at the side of a wounded Kitaro crying him dead, on the verge of tears, but when she sees him alive and all the Kitaro Family looking at her, she blushes and goes away, hiding her face, coldly telling them to call her again only when Kitaro was truly dead.

The tsundere side of her personality affects also her other interactions: when Mana Inuyama shows friendship and affection to her, she's obviously flattered, but ultimately chooses to downplay it. However, she has shown clearly signs of jealousy towards Mana and her closeness to Kitaro, but also believes that, being Mana a mere human being, she's unsuited to tag along the Kitaro Family because she'd be an easy prey for other yōkai. Also, when at first she objects to Yūta visiting the GeGeGe Forest, she immediately changes idea when the young human boy describes her as strong and beautiful.

Neko-Musume is still able to change in her Bake-Neko form, which is as grotesque as her human form is delicate and feminine, with a face decidedly monstrous and yokai like, with a flattened nose, a bigger mouth filled of sharp fangs and yellow, slitted eyes. She keeps her body structure, but she starts moving on all fours, faster than her human way of walking, howling and wailing ominously.

She also has an "intermediate" form, in which she keeps her feminine and graceful face and posture, but her eyes become cat-like and her fingernails elongate in sharp talons able to cut through anything: for comedy reasons, her eyes become a brilliant shade of yellow and she pops out her talon with someone angers her.

In episode #10 she goes by the self-proclaimed nickname NyaNyaNya no Neko-Musume.

Following her revival as a child in episode #49, Neko-Musume becomes openly more affectionate, especially towards Mana and Kitarō. In episode #51, she returns to her former self.

Live-action films[]