‘Chainsmoker Cat’ series review: This purrverse cornucopia of indignities is somehow one of the year’s very best

Cute or ‘kawaii’ characters are usually designed to make affection for them feel effortless. One look is usually all it takes to think, yes, I would probably buy a mug or a plushie with this adorable little idiot on it. NyanNyanFactory’s Chainsmoker Cat , adapted by Bibury Animation Studios, commits what can only be described as an unholy act of blasphemy against that particular psychology of instant fondness.

Yanineko is the titular nicotine-addicted 21-year-old catgirl. She is broke, chronically unemployed, constitutionally allergic to responsibility, and forever rummaging through pockets, ashtrays, garbage, literal dog faeces (the less you know, the better), and whatever other dubious receptacles might yield a stray cigarette. Her apartment seems to have reached an almost terminal stage of entropy. Rotting, decomposing, fetid, putrescent, rancid, mould-ridden, foul, cursed — these are few of the many adjectives woefully inadequate to describe its horrors.