Do I have a thing for anime Cat Girls lately?

 

I grew up with dogs. My family always had dogs. One or two at most. But cats were not something we had as kids. I think it might be a Scottish thing. My dad, and my uncles, all seemed to hate cats. I did have a cat when I was around 18. A black tailless Manx. I don't remember how I got him. Maybe a relative (they are originally from Scotland). I named him Salem, after Sabrina the Teenage Witches cat in the comics. I got him right after a bad breakup with my high school sweetheart. Salem barely made it out of kittenhood when I got home from a weekend trip and got told by my parents he got smooshed by a car. Knowing my parents, there was probably a 50/50 chance they just didn't want a cat around the house. Or since they were Scottish, I should say "hoose."  It was a period in my life I thought the world was trying to get me to off myself. And since I was raised by European immigrant Catholics, I thought God was too. Man, we sure had it easy as teens, eh? But anyway, I never had another cat. 

I did like cat things though. I remember using Cat Lord for one campaign or another back in the day. I think as some tie in with Lovecraft's Cats of Ulthar or whatever it was. Of all the cool things in MM2 he might have been my favorite entry at one time. 

Dogs had a superpower or two, but to me cats were off the charts. The flexibility, the agility. When they got stuck in a tree I was all like "you're Spider-Man. Just climb down!"

Yeah, for most of my life I occasionally had cat things pretty much just in games. In the 80's I played in some sessions on and off of the supers rpg "Supergame" over a couple of years, being a part of initial play testing at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica as a kid, and a couple or three years after that a few times at the home of some friends of Aero owner Gary Switzer. (look here for some tidbits on my youthful Aero days). It used Supergame as the system, since they were all friends with the creators. I remember almost nothing. Well, two things. One, when I scribbled a pic of my character (I am no artist), one of the "ladies" declared that Aimee, the co-creator and artist of the game had "nothing to worry about." 

Her work was so groundbreaking,
everybody should have worried

The other thing I remember is my character Manx. I don't think I had an origin, he was simply a young cat human hybrid. A year or two later, when we were doing V and V or Champs, one of my buddies tried his hand at some sessions, and I used Manx for them. That would be it for Manx for several decades. He left my gaming zeitgeist. 

Until summer last year, that is. I was getting in on a handful of games to learn the system. One of them was set in Marvel 1980 (two guys from this would form the beginning of my current group). It was an eager effort by the GM, who was new to it as well but giving it a go. The games were OK, but the three or so session we had only occurred every month or so. The guy had young kids and school or something. Also it was based on stuff going on in the comics, and our characters to me felt like sidekicks to existing ones. 

But what came out of it was me using Manx again after all these many years. I gave him a last name: McAllister. And a full origin. Manx had a Scottish Father and a German mother. The dad was a physicist, and she a bio-chemist. World renown, and pioneers in Quantum science. They had built prototype teleport pods in the late 1960's. As a kid Manx and his pet cat went inside a pod and it got activated. Boom, catman. 

Yep. 

At 21 years old Manx McAllister was a child of rich and famous scientists, and going to college in New York, himself a brilliant scientist. I reconsidered his look, which back in the day was a black manx (like my old cat Salem) covered in fur. For this I considered a look akin to Fritz the Cat.

Yeah. No. 

I settled on a far more human look. I yoinked the appearance of Manx from a character from another pornographic source, an old funny animal comic Omaha The Cat Dancer. 

I will post deets about those Manx related sessions of the current campaign next, but during the games last year I was already planning to use Manx, and his family, for this campaign. But its 2046, so Manx McAllister is 86 years old. 

Got a little more human looking in old age.

For me the fun was not just revisiting Manx, but was in creating his family. Manx was CEO of McAllister Scientific, a research compound that are pioneers in Quantum engineering. I conceived of his son Manx jr, who I decided would be a biologist like his grandmother. He only appeared on a view screen in the sessions at Manx's birthday party, as I had him doing research in The Savage Land (hopefully to be a place visited in future sessions), but I imagined him as a bit of a hedonist and ladies man.

"Hello, laaaaadies..."

But now we get to the Cat Girls thing I promised in the post title. I needed Manx to have grandkids. I looked back and remembered two of my first cat girl crushes from way back. The were named Una Puma and Ana Puma, from an anime called "Tank Police".

Their most iconic scene was this (NOT work safe):

They were murderous criminals. My McAllister twins would be brilliant quantum scientist outside of party-happy "woo girls" the world's foremost physicists, and actual good girls. 

Party time.

Science time. 

I just wanted interesting relatives of Manx, was not necessarily going for the sexy. But this may have been when I started realizing, though no furry I, that I might like cat chicks. 

And as the fates would have it, weeks later I discovered Chainsmoker Cat. 

She's not the sexy one on the show. 

from the Wiki:

Set in a modern-day world where cat-people, known as "beastfolks", co-exist with humans, the series follows the daily misadventures of Yaniko, a catgirl who lives in a small apartment building in Nyagamihara (based on Sagamihara), Japan, and is addicted to smoking, regardless of the damage to her environment, her psyche, or her family. As the series progresses, Yaniko's friends and other troubled catgirls with their own issues are introduced, along with their human landlord, who tolerates their antics.

That's it. I watched a ton of youtube clips before watching a couple episodes (its on Netflix, but I watched elsewhere). But the opening titles I saw on youtube had me hooked right off the jump.

Despite being about addiction, poverty, and opression, the show is funny as hell. Yaniko cares about nothing but smoking ciggies. As the title would suggest. She cannot go more than a few minutes without lighting up. It is her one true joy. 

The addiction: Yani's entire life is cigarettes. I have never seen a ciggy addict like her. Heavy smokers have stinky house from the smoke, but otherwise normal people with a life and job etc. But I think Yaniko is also chronically lazy. And very Gen Z. She gets anxious to the point of being sick from the thought of having to clean her place and take a bath so her sister can visit (which young, put together sis does. While wearing a hazmat suit). 

The poverty: Yani can't keep a job because she can't go very long without a smoke. "When I smoke I forget my worries" she says. Most of the other cat girls, addicts or now, can keep themselves together. But none of them make much money when they do work because...

Opression: Maybe the most interesting thing about the setting, a normal Japanese working class neighborhood, but apparently in this Japan there are "Beastfolk," and they are an underclass. They can have jobs, but only menial labor. They go to school with humans, live with humans, go to bars with humans, but in one scene where Yani plays soccer with some kinds (these scenes happen on the way home from a ciggy run), and a couple of cops put an end to it. And there are rules about cross marriage. 

So the beastmen, or "Anthros" which I think is the in setting scientific name for them, often dress well and try to fit in. I'm only like three sessions in, so not sure if their are different drinking fountains, bus and train sections, and race specific diners. But I don't think so. It's just sort of a part of life. The cat girls are second class like its just the nature of things. I have yet to see human on anthro violence. But there was a mention that the cats can jump 8 meters. They have fangs. So maybe the humans are just keeping them down enough to not get killed by them.

Over episodes new cat friends appear, some living in Yani's building. Most have their own addictions going on. Alcohol, drugs, video games. I assume later episodes have sex and other addictions. 

The show is super controversial right now. In Japan for sure. "Freeters" are looked down upon like the cat girls in that world, and there is fear it is glorifying a "nothing" lifestyle. In the US Netflix is getting hit by complaints about the show. Can you imagine? All the shit Netflix gets up to. 

OK, I don't think I have a cat lady thing. No more than other things. I mean, a cat girl is better than a dog girl, I love dogs, but. Sort of unclean. A couple of cat girls in an old anime, Maxine and Tabetha McAllister in the game, then discovering this show is a coinkydink. I like a lot of anime girls. Female images in real life or in art are appealing to me. Nothing wrong with that. And the thing is, looking at aime versions is where its OK to stare. 

I grew up in Los Angeles. Downtown. Hollywood. My native Venice Beach. So I have seen and know people like on this show. Folk with demons. Maybe like us.  If you live in a big town or a city then you know. I can handle it and think its funny to see how Yani fails. You prob can too. But farts, poops, vomit (oddly always rainbow colored) are the order of the day. But Ren and Stimpy prepared us for that stuff, eh?

Next post will be about the session where I introduce the group to the McAllister Family and the scientist shenanigans they get up to. My version of "The Backrooms" is involved. Its where the first real bloody combats goes down, with some characters getting severely injured. They got tested hard. Stay tooned.

Cheers

"Enter - Safeguard" I start actually challenging the characters

So in this two-part session (both talked about here..most sessions I am running seem to go across a two session arc), I would finally get the chance to hit the characters with some actual power. Not just a handful of Rank 3 "terrorists" but also with a new Supergroup of Rank 4 potential foes. As a reminder, the characters are Rank 3. There is a decent difference in those numbers. But all in all, the party did not get in as big a punch-up with them as I would like. But getting the characters out to a public place to face foes with high tech weapons, and foes with strong powers, was something I was working towards. 

After the Night Clubs scenario, the PC's had a about a week to do their own thing. Which included moving out of the Justice Incorporated offices. Ultimately they had a choice between a small but luxury apartment in a Kyono owned corporate residential skyscraper.  Or a larger single building to stay at and consider a safe house. Seraph was the only one opting for a nice private studio unit.

Kind of the perfect crib for a flying girl, and better than the 
old warehouse she was crashing at before this 

Meanwhile a small shipping and receiving building in "Japan Town" (ethnic neighborhoods and tourist area), at the end of a short street between a Japanese restaurant and a tailors building, had some of its small office converted to bedrooms, and stocked with TV, fridge, and other living essentials. The Paladin player Andrew whipped up a map for it between these couple of sessions as Paladin and Igneous moved in.

I started calling him "Iggy" because
I keep calling him Ignacius rather than Igneous

At some point during the week, Seraph was flying above the city like she is want to do. I had her spot another flyer, which you don't see that often in the city (except maybe above mutie town). It was a young Japanese woman in ancient traditional dress, and she was flying on a giant white feather the size of a canoe.

The woman did not notice at first when Seraph followed, but she did at some point and used a Japanese fan to summon huge blades of wind that shot towards Seraph. She backed off as the woman disappeared among the skyscrapers. 

Kagura is from the anime Unuyasha, which I posted about last year.  She is my favorite character on that show, and I created her in Demiplane last year while I was practicing making NPC's and decided I could use her for this. She woke up in this era and fell in with Boliver York of York Industries, and his sponsored superteam "Safeguard."

I found some cosplay/AI of her and I 
may start using these for her tokens

I pushed to have this little solo encounter not take a long time (lf you have read a couple posts back then you might understand why I would be concerned about things like this taking more than 15 minutes). 

So Friday came around and Kyono asked for a meeting at the Justice Inc. offices (more often than not she showed up on a video screen conference call). She said that her data monitoring department has gotten rumor of a possible violent attack possibly occurring Friday night at the Metroplex Mall, the second largest indoor/outdoor mall (largest I guess is in Japan). 

With little other info, the group hung about in the corner of the mall where things were maybe going to go down. Yeah, I know. Easy set up. Indeterminate occurrence at so and so time. Not every set up has to be complicated in comics!

The "terrorists" who do eventually show up on the scene are using advanced tech personal weapons, either rifles of some type or melee-based weapon.

The weapons also projected a light personal force field (Sturdy 2, but dropped to 1 after first hit of more than 10 points health) and also fortified the body with Mighty 1 and some extra health. So two of each, bo staff guys, armored arms guys, and laser rifle guys. 

Also this was where we introduced a new player. He was brought in by player Will (Iggy) so unvetted by me but turned out to be a good guy. He is running a Nova corps member. Calling himself Nova, because, well he's a Nova. With all those good powers such as flight, hard skin, and some pretty heavy energy blast stuff. This battle is where he would meet the other characters. In the heat of combat. 

A little Nova in the comics background. I have no idea what goes on with Nova stuff in recent decades. As a kid I collected a comic called Nova. He could fly, was hard to hurt, and had energy blasts. 

He was basically an attempt to recreate the success of Spider Man. A teenager gets powers out of the blue and has to deal with that and his new heroic life. I remember little else. 

But this new Nova is a bit different. Same power set. Fly, energy abilities, some Sturdy. He is also kind of dances to his own beat. 

He likes to decorate his military helmet,
kind of like the marines in Aliens. 

The party dealt with the terrorists fairly well. Iggy had grown to giant size (though not full size because of the close packed stores) but managed to take a couple of heavy hits from the laser rifle guys. Paladin really mixed it up with them. 

The couple that got knocked out were teleported away somehow, along with the couple of others when "Safeguard" showed up. 

Clockwise from top left is "The Wind Sorceress," "Mastodon," "Spider-Max," "Blackwolf," and "Aegis." 

So quick history lesson. Back in the day (and in the setting currently between 12-20 years ago overall) I had two major global industrial organizations in Haven called "York Industries" and "Kyono International." 

York Industries was the company of Bolivar York. I had a great mini for him back in the day. I might still have it. It was a David Bowie Goblin king mini. Since I had Bolivar be a Hellfire Club lord much like Marvel Comics Sebastian Shaw I had painted it to look a bit like him in terms of clothing he wore behind the scenes.

Was not this, but similar

York was the evil company. Sort of a Lex Luthor thing. He used tech, and people he swayed, for all kings of mayhem. Characters in The Protectors and Justice Incorporated (and maybe the Future X-Men thing I did for a while but forget if they met him).

Patricia Kyono and her corp were the good business. She put together Justice Inc and often interacted and helped the Protectors. After some years of various campaigns (and an alien invasion that I think I am going to retcon away in this new thing) , they all managed to prove Yorks's crimes and get him a lifetime in prison. 

For this new era, I have it that York's son, Boliver jr., has taken over the company. And of course he has evil intent, especially to those who harmed his father and the corp. He is a handsome, well educated chad with charisma, and often when he says his father was framed by the Protectors, Justice Inc, Kyono, and the Science Police, some people listen. 

Business in front, party in back

 a more casual look I have yet to use

So in the 10 years or so there has not been super groups around or heroes in geneal in public, Bolivar jr. put together his own superteam that has recently been seen out and about stopping crime, and BY has had a press conference or two about them, with them in attendance. He called them "Safeguard." And of course they will be used to his evil ends. 

A yokai sorceress from feudal days
who has powers over wind.

Mastodon is part of an ancient race the remnants of live
in a city of science in the south pole. He is Mighty 3 and 
can grow up to 100 feet. I created him to go against Iggy.

I got the idea from a Red Letter Media/Noiselund video...

Spider Max is a 15-year-old with Spider Powers. And orphan. Have not
decided yet if he is a Peter parker clone, or a clone of Bolivar sr. with
Parker DNA in him. 

he is a Canadian hipster who can turn
into a large super wolf. 

Aegis. Power armor with many functions.
Secretly Boliver jr (he will be in there 
sometimes and sometimes it will be
a Life Model Replicant of him.

Tank built by Mastodon. He usually drives.

We did not a get a big fight between the group. Wind Sorceress swooped into the courtyard to attack Nova out of the blue with her Crescent Wind attack. 

Spider Max webbed up Seraph in mid air, causing her to fall from 50 feet. The kid realized she was heading for the fall, and swung in to get her to the ground gently. "Sorry lady." So maybe these are not bad guys?

Seraph has already been nabbed in a net
by her arch foe Blimpkrieg two times. So
that's three nettings in several sessions. 

I forget if any more attacks went down. I really wanted Iggy and Mastodon to grow huge and go all Kaiju fight. But Paladin was yelling at Aegis that they were not the enemy, and Aegis, who was on top of the tank, was forced (cameras and possible film crews are always around) to talk it out. 

That was it for possible violence. I did get to introduce an NPC from the old days I used for comedic value. He was a police lieutenant back then, but now he is a police captain. His name is Louie DePalma, a name you might recognize if you like old sitcoms. I had him be an asshole back in the day and hate superheroes, and now at probably 69 years old he's grumpier than ever. Characters always hated him, and I think these new ones do too. 

Back in the day I remember a player came up with a song about him. They started singing it when he showed up on the table (I think I used a hobbit mini that had a hat). It was sung to the tune of the old song "Louie Louie" and I think some it went:

Loo-ee loo-i

Oh whoa every where he goes

Soo-per-he-rows

Loo-ee loo-ay

Oh whoa every where he goes

they both-er him

Same actor in the role.

Science Police also showed up. Both groups had reason for being here. Because both Kyono and York had lawyers nearby ready to intervene when shit quieted down. 

Here's the thing. Safeguard claims to be employed officially as security for York Industries. the Kyono lawyers argue that Justice Inc, as private contractors working in security and investigative capacity for Kyono International. With some of the properties in the Metroplex Mall being owned or its product related to these companies, their security forces have a right to intervene in terrorist situations. 

So the characters finally got into a little conflict with another group. I really wanted to see more of them mixing with them. See how they do with Rank 4 foes. But Safeguard is playing at being good guys and have to watch their step. I sort of fantasize about a full fight at some point and hopefully the Rank 4 Safeguard beat the hell out of the Rank 3 Justice Inc. Then have a training montage and JI comes back Rank 4 for payback. 

Just a word on the Science Police. The concept goes back to Superhero 2044 where they primarily started as nuclear watchdogs after WW3, eventually moving in the future to overwatching strong or illegal science, and meta humans. During the heyday of my campaigns, with the Protectors, whoever was in Justice Inc, and Kyono would fight against frequent York Industries agents and schemes. Whatever it was, for those years the SP was an important agency and often involved in the meta human chaos (though usually show up after a fight). Now, with a decade or so of peace and few super powered beings causing trouble, they have less staff and agents than they used too and mostly monitor mutant issues (mutantgs have a large neighborhood of low income and HUD housing). The SP being a bit weaker these days will be a running theme in upcoming games. 

So Seraph went after Nova and invited him to the office, where he met everybody and of course got a job offer. Rather than go to the safehouse, Serapah invited him to stay at her small apartment. I would have some fun with that. But that is a story for another day! Stay tooned. Cheers.