Neko Para Series Review – A Slice Of Life Paradise?

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Genre – Slice of Life, Comedy Play Time – 6 hours per game Developer – NEKO WORKS Steam VNDB

The New Patisserie In Town

For a series of short visual novels with the fairly simple concept of running a patisserie assisted by cat girls, Neko Para has left a surprisingly lasting impression on the medium and remains a talking point to this day. There is an undeniable appeal in the brightly coloured fantasy of this light hearted world where cat girls and humans live side by side. It feeds into a certain brand wish fulfilment focused around unconditional and mutual affection where conflicts are never anything more than hiccups for these bonds. This is hardly unique to Neko Para as there are plenty of other slice of life visual novels doing exactly the same thing, but here there is a refined and keen understanding what its audience wants and how to playing into it to capture their hearts. However, behind all of this are some of the strangest world building choices in many game which undermine the atmosphere in seemingly unintentional manner. Is this strange combination really enough to explain Neko Para’s success? Let’s bake some cakes and find out.

Cat Girl Paradise? - Narrative And Themes

Knowing the limits of a game’s narrative and shaping the play time and content around this pillar helps ensure it will not outlive its welcome. The episodic nature of the Neko Para titles allows them to make this concise format its biggest strength through their relatively self contained nature. Each visual novel has little connection to the others outside of a vague sense of our protagonist, Kashou, building up his cat girl harem. A common framework is shared between them with each focusing on a different pair of cat girls and their relationships and conflicts as their core narrative which provides recognisable points of reference between titles. These elements mean that it is easy to pick up any of the Neko Para games and be able to understand what is going on while having a good time, since no individual part of the series influences any other. At first this might seem to be a double edged sword as without any sort of overarching hook why would a player complete more than one game? However, it is very clear that Neko Para is fine with people playing as much or as little of the titles as they like due to its commitment to this structure and it more interested in creating a consistent tone and flow of content for the niche it has found. This choice does make it a polarising game series since it does nothing to change or invite new players in over its course and those who bounce off it will continue to do so while not understanding the success it experienced despite it not attempting to improve upon it flaws. Such a deliberate design speaks to a vision about what the titles should be and gives them the strength to communicate it clearly.

So many cat girls!

When it comes down to it the Neko Para games can easily be summed up as a slice of life set in a patisserie with cat girls and it keeps to this core identity at all times. Knowing what they wants to be while maintaining its simplicity gives these titles the means to refine their atmosphere into the comfortable and fluffy one the genre thrives on. Take how the games deal with the cat girls Chocola and Vanilla as an example, they are the focus characters of the first volume and in here they are involved a selection of daily life events before leading into a minor conflict at the climax which is quickly resolved by the protagonist. Throughout there is prevailing sense of an everyday world without any of the real world worries associated with it and instead only the good times. After their volume Chocola and Vanilla are reduced to a supporting role, but future games are still keen to reinforce the bond between them and the player so they pop up from time to time so as to remind the player of the good times they have had together. Blending the stories themes into a continuous whole is one of the key impacts of this style of intermingled characters and tone as it paints a picture of nothing having lasting consequences and instead has the player live in the moment. ‘The good times will go on forever’ is the alluring promise of Neko Para and it makes this a powerful motivator for the players continued progress through the bright games. There is a level of polish to the atmosphere with its carefully crafted laid back nature which speaks to a strong understanding of the genre and what people want from it.

It is strange to think these two are only one year old.

It is strange that Neko Para seems to obsessed with accidentally undermining its carefully crafted tone and atmosphere at almost every turn. These issues all stem from the world building introduced over the course of the series where new revelations about it have uncomfortable or bizarre implications. Let us look at a few examples to see how exactly they damage the overall experience of playing Neko Para. Perhaps chief among the odd choices made is the status of cat girls as pets. In this one important detail the developers have dehumanised the majority of their cast especially as it becomes clear how few rights cat girls actually have in this world. This is made worse due to high level of mental capabilities demonstrated by cat girls, they are not animals so it feels uncomfortable to treat them as such. Then there is specified age of each of the cat girls which is an issue both in terms of how young they are and how short this implies cat girls’ live to be. Having an age range from one to three years old creates an uncomfortable dissonance between their apparent age and the relative maturity they act with. It also showcases how rapidly cat girls age with Chocola and Vanilla being mature enough to mate when they are one year old which implies a short life expectancy and how the happy times on display will be brief. All this must lead one to ask the simple question, why were these elements included at all? Does the audience for a slice of life tale about cat girls really care about the specifics of their social status or life cycle? The answer is obviously no and if Neko Para had realised this it could have avoided these strange issues. The cat girls could simply be another species of human and their equals instead of pets and the story would not need to change much and the games could just have omitted the characters’ age as most other titles do rather than make a point of highlighting it. These choices are perhaps the single oddest design decision a slice of life visual novel has made and displays a tone deafness in conflict with the rest of the well tuned experience.

Pets And Their Humans – Characters

At the centre of the stage are the cat girls and their antics. Each one of them follows a general archetype that many players will be familiar with, but pushed through a cat shaped filter. What this means is a lot of meowing and cat related traits sitting alongside their expected ones. They stick closely to their templates and present an immediately recognisable version of these simple character traits which is design to be pleasing to witness. For example, Vanilla is a standard Kuudere with her reserved emotions and seemingly distant disposition hiding a side of her that genuinely cares about Chocola, the other cat girls and Kashou. At no point does she every deviate from this core identity and her every action is what is expected of someone with her personality. That is not to say she lacks any traits of her own as her close bond with Chocola demonstrates, but instead that this never treads on the toes of her archetype. All this is in service of the slice of life fantasy and assists in wrapping the player in the warm blanket of ideas they are already familiar with. The standard nature of these focus heroines reassures the player of the kind of story they are in for and promises them an experience which will stay firmly within their expectations. For Neko Para’s audience, this is exactly what they want and the games play into this desire for certain predictable characters.

Oh no run! Her brain is overheating!

There are two notable humans, Kashou and his little sister Shigure, and they could not be more different from each other. Shigure is close to the cat girls in terms of role and falls into the archetype of the sister with a brother complex, but, unlike the other heroines, is never a romance option so instead act the wingman supporting them. Her over the top actions make for some entertaining scenarios as she lives vicariously through the cat girls and is not above messing with Kashou for her own amusement. This added bit of chaos helps alleviate the potential issue of the character interactions becoming stale due to the characters’ static natures by throwing in curve balls to spice things up with new situations for them to react to. On the opposite end of the scale sits Kashou who is the expected self insert of the slice of life genre. Aside from this love of western confectioneries and minor disputes with his family, he is entirely bland and works perfectly as a suitable vessel for the player to place themselves into. In that regard he is hardly anything special with many similar protagonists existing in the medium, but here he works to fulfil the expectation of familiarity established through every other aspect of games. He is in many ways the perfect embodiment of what it is like to experience Neko Para.

Every Twitch Of Their Ears – Visuals, Audio And Technical

Atmosphere is the connective tissue joining all the elements surrounding the narrative together. They reflect the light and breezy tone of the story and turn it into a pervasive sense of place for the games to relax the player in. The high quality and expressive live 2D supports this pillar visually through the way it lends life to what would otherwise be static artwork and sells the idea of the characters as living people. From the way they bounce around in excitement to the many expressions they can dynamically adopt, the over the top nature of these movements invokes the energetic feeling of an anime and helps it match the narrative tone. The existence of a patting mode where the player can stop the game at any point and touch the on screen characters to see their reaction further reinforces the reactivity and energy of the games. Neko Para’s soundtrack is nothing special from the stand point of a slice of life visual novel, all the classic tracks are here from the peaceful everyday to the exaggerated joke and each offers nothing memorable. However, they do work in this context due to role adhering to the exceptions players have for this series. The sound scape of a work does a lot to place the player in the right frame of mind to accept the narrative on an emotional level. By meeting the genre expectations it wordlessly communicates what is to come without having to spend valuable play time explaining it.

Movement adds a lot to how alive something feels.

Conclusion

Neko Para is a slice of life visual novel with cat girls. On the surface that statement might seem obvious, but there is a surprising amount of effort which goes into ensuring the player does not think twice about it. Everything about these games focuses on this core identity. The episodic and separate structure of each title allows players to experience as much or as little of the series as they want without missing anything. Couple this with its polished and focused narrative that places a sense of great importance on a light tone and the result is form of light entertainment which can be enjoyed at leisure. This is further reinforced through the use of live 2D and a familiar style of slice of life soundtrack and they all push the games in the same direction. Characters also fall into the expected archetypes of the genre and exist as refined versions of the player’s expectations for the cast. It is only in the unnecessary world building that Neko Para stumbles from its all consuming tone and introduces some uncomfortable and strange elements. Is this enough to ruin the experience? That will depend on how much the specific genre it is peddling appeals to you.

Verdict –

Neko Para knows exactly what its audience wants and never deviates from the path of appealing to them. If that audience includes you then you are in for a good time. Otherwise expect to be disappointed by something shallow and standard.

Pros -

+ A series of short and focused titles which know exactly what they want to be and who they are appealing to.

+ The commitment to the fantasy of this everyday world allows the games to have a level of narrative polish only possible with a keen understanding of the genre.

+ Each character falling into a clear role and they interact with each other in heart-warming and funny ways.

+ Strong visual design and familiar music direction do a lot to help sell the comfortable feeling of this patisserie.