welcome to the nekojiru shrine!



nekojiru is a japanese manga series than ran from 1990 to 1998, following the author (Chiyomi Hashiguchi)'s passing, it follows it's 2 main characters, nyako and nyatta, and their parents, often finding themselves in violent situations, and causing issues for others. The series would become quite popular in the mid to late 90s in japan, especially with teens. Nekojiru was an early rendition of a style that would come to be quite popular moving into the 2000s,
cute things being gruesome and violent.

despite a large amount of nekojiru merchandise being created in the mid to late 90s, and into the early 2000s, much of it has been lost to time and is quite difficult to get your hands on today. Personally, I'm trying to slowly amass a collection (without breaking the bank) through secondhand stores throughout japan. I'm currently in possesion of all offical nekojiru manga volumes, an official shirt, and the nekogamisama figurines.





nekojiru was drawn and written by Chiyomi Hashiguchi, writing under the penname "nekojiru", Hashiguchi was quite secrective about her life and very little is known to this day. on this page i will try and summarize the known information ive found throughout the internet

Hashiguchi was born january 19th, 1967, in her hometown of Kawaguchi, the second largest city in the Saitama prefecture. She reportedly attended a beauty school near her hometown, assumedly studying cosmetology, and at age 18, married an underground manga artist named Hajime Yamano, helping with shading backgrounds of his art. Though she helped with the production of her husband's manga at this time, she had little interest in becoming a manga artist herself.

Not long afterwards, Yamano would take interest in Hashiguchi's drawings, specifically one he described as an "odd octopus-like cat", he asked, "is the body an octopus?" Hashiguchi responded, "No, these are four legs and this is the tail". This drawing would inspire Yamano to write a story about this cat, and Hashiguchi would alter the design into the iconic cat designs shown within nekojiru, and they would work on what became "nekojiru udon". a recreation of the sketch, done by yamano after her passing, is shown below.
the original sketch has been lost.





Nekojiru udon was released 5 years later in 1990, and to this day stands as her most popular work, though it would be followed with 5 other nekojiru manga,
Nekojiru Dango (1994), Nekogamisama (1995)
Nekojiru Shokudo (1997), Nekojiru Manjū (1998)
and Nekojiru Senbei (1998)

As nekojiru grew as a series, Hashiguchi and her husband took on numerous solicitations for work, which led to an evergrowing workload for the couple. In april and may of 1998, less than a month before her passing, Hashiguchi spoke with several editors complaining about the workload and artistic limitations brought about by this influx of work. In a call with a Hakusensha editor, Hashiguchi reportedly stated: "I'm tired of drawing manga. I want to quit and move to a developing country with my husband", though this quote is uncited.





Chiyomi Hashiguchi would take her own life on May 10th of 1998, at the age of 31. Her suicide note included requests to, quote, "forget i even lived"; "I don't need a grave"; and "Don't talk about why I died" along with a request to be buried with all CD albums released by Aphex Twin according to MuzikMusik magazine. despite her wishes, her family had her buried.
Her husband declined to provide a motive, but denied media allegations that it was a copycat suicide after the recent suicide of popular japanese alterative rock artist "Hide" who had passed 8 days earlier in his Tokyo apartment, though in the case of Hide, his suicide is commonly accepted to be an accident.

After her death in May of 1998, her editor, Yoshiaki Yoshinaga, released a statement on her passing, that heavily expanded the available information about the late author, and includes most information known about her to this day. He described Hashiguchi as a thin, short, boyish woman, standing 153cm (5 feet) and 37kg (80lbs), she had short cropped hair and came off as shy, quiet, and blunt. She was content eating only food that could be sucked through a straw, only ordering soup at resturaunts, one time spitting out an avocado offered to her by Yoshinaga's wife, Tatsumi Saki. She had a compulsion to arm herself, frequently wearing army jackets and pants, never being seen in a skirt or dressing very feminine.

She had very few friends, and spoke with Yoshinaga frequently. She was antisocial and notably had one other known friend in a local stallkeeper, though they could not communicate due to Hashiguchi not speaking any english. She trusted Tatsumi, but he could tell it was only because she trusted her husband. They would lie together and Tatsumi would pet Hashiguchi like a cat, Hashiguchi had said her first love was a young woman, but its unlikely there was a relationship there.





Yoshinaga would later be struck with 2 other suicides of people close to him, editor Aoyama Masaaki, and later his wife, Tatsumi. He would write about this, and his experiences with Hashiguchi in his memoir, "Suicided". as I've not fully read this memoir, I may update this site in the future with more information gleamed from it. below I will link a translated excerpt from the memoir, specifically detailing his experiences with Nekojiru.

https://vagabondedlife.tumblr.com/post/57182599014/yoshiaki-yoshinaga-on-nekojiru-may-10-1998





In February of 2001, a 32-minute short film titled Nekojiru (or Cat Soup for english releases) was released, created as an homage to Hashiguchi and her work. it combines many stories told throughout nekojiru udon and other works into a psychedelic and confusing adventure, as Nyatta goes on a journey to save his sister Nyako's soul, which was ripped in 2 after her death. It won an excellence prize at the 2001 Japanese media arts festival, the "best short film" award at the 2001 Fantasia festival, and the silver award for animation at the 2003 New York exposition of short film and video.

The film is available on youtube, and can be accessed through the spinning DVD to the left of the screen.

the DVD also saw an english DVD release, being, to my knowledge, the only offically localized or translated piece of nekojiru media. though through the hard work of Readnekojiru also known as Cat's Nest, a large amount of nekojiru content has been translated and is now available to read online, please support him through his patreon as I have if you have the extra income, I will link his neocities page below.

https://read-nekojiru.neocities.org/





Nekojiru would live on through her husband, Yamano Hajime, under the title and penname "Nekojiru-y" though the tone is notably different to the original run of nekojiru. As of 2026, there has been no community effort to translate Nekojiru-y.

Yamano remarried in 2006, and became a father to twin daughters in 2008, inspiring him to start a new manga about raising his 2 daughters. As late as 2013 he has been active as Nekojiru-y, though its unclear whether he intends on continuing the project.





if you've read this far, thank you for your dedication to my ramblings and research about this niche japanese manga series. below is a collection of some nekojiru photos i enjoy, thanks for reading!

written by leet mok