Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: How many episodes did the Black Cat anime have?
Black Cat premiered in Japan on October 6, 2005, on Animax and Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), and aired for 24 episodes, ending on March 30, 2006. The first 20 episodes adapt the entirety of Yabuki's manga, while the last four episodes feature a completely original, self-contained story arc. The 15th episode was broadcast exclusively on Animax.[3][4] In Japan, the series was released across twelve Region 2 DVD volumes from December 21, 2005 to November 22, 2006.[5][6] Each volume was also published in a Premium Edition which included various extras.[7] The DVD volumes were gathered in a limited release DVD boxset by Sony Pictures Entertainment on April 23, 2008.[8]
The folklore surrounding black cats varies from culture to culture. The Scots believe that a strange black cat's arrival to the home signifies prosperity. In Celtic mythology, a fairy known as the Cat sìth takes the form of a black cat. Black cats are also considered good luck in the rest of Britain and Japan. Furthermore, it is believed that a lady who owns a black cat will have many suitors. In Western history, black cats have typically been looked upon as a symbol of evil omens, specifically being suspected of being the familiars of witches, or actually shape-shifting witches themselves. Most of Europe considers the black cat a symbol of bad luck, particularly if one walks across the path in front of a person, which is believed to be an omen of misfortune and death. In Germany, some believe that black cats crossing a person's path from right to left, is a bad omen. But from left to right, the cat is granting favorable times. In the United Kingdom it is commonly considered that a black cat crossing a person's path is a good omen.
The story is presented as a first-person narrative using an unreliable narrator. He is a condemned man at the outset of the story. The narrator tells us that from an early age he has loved animals. He and his wife have many pets, including a large, beautiful black cat (as described by the narrator) named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. One night, after coming home completely intoxicated, he believes the cat to be avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in a fit of drunken rage, he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife from his pocket, and deliberately gouges out the cat's eye.
There are several stories as to how the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac were chosen. In one, the Jade Emperor, although having ruled Heaven and Earth justly and wisely for many years, had never had the time to actually visit the Earth personally. He grew curious as to what the creatures looked like. Thus, he asked all the animals to visit him in heaven. The cat, being the most handsome of all animals, asked his friend the Rat to wake him on the day they were to go to Heaven so he wouldn't oversleep. The Rat, however, was worried that he would seem ugly compared to the cat, so he didn't wake the cat. Consequently, the cat missed the meeting with the Jade Emperor and was replaced by the Pig. The Jade Emperor was delighted with the animals and so decided to divide the years up amongst them. When the cat learned of what had happened, he was furious with the Rat and that, according to the story, is why cats and Rats are enemies to this day.
Black Cat is an anime series adapted from the manga of the same title by Kentaro Yabuki.[1] First announced in May 2005, it was produced by Gonzo with directed by Shin Itagaki.[2] The series follows the legendary assassin Train Heartnet, known as Black Cat, who becomes a bounty hunter, dubbed Sweeper.
 is a black cat who reoccurs in the background of the anime and manga. She appears in every episode of the anime and randomly in the manga. Nightow has stated that she is just something easy and calming to draw in between action scenes. His most common response to queries as to her nature or significance at anime convention panels is "Kuroneko-sama is a small black cat."
Lama recalls how his family did not have any animals; his mother was instinctively frightened by them. He also remembers how kids would sometimes chase cats in alleyways or harm animals when he was growing up in Brooklyn.
Many cultures have negative superstitions about cats. An example would be the belief that a black cat "crossing one's path" leads to bad luck, or that cats are witches' familiars used to augment a witch's powers and skills. The killing of cats in Medieval Ypres, Belgium, is commemorated in the innocuous present-day Kattenstoet (cat parade). In medieval France, cats would be burnt alive as a form of entertainment. According to Norman Davies, the assembled people "shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized".
For many hundreds of years the myth of the spectral Black Dog has persisted in Britain – a supposed mythical creature appearing as a large black animal in remote moorland with no firm evidence for its existence, beyond hearsay. It has been suggested that the stories of "Black Cats" are merely a modern continuation of such myths and stories, sharing the same elements but with the idea of a supernatural cause having fallen out of credibility and the modern, more plausible, idea of an escaped or released wildcat supplanting it. In addition, the stories of big cats share many traits suitable for the tabloid press – as such leading to wide exposure of any potential "cat" and further and rapid dissemination of any speculation or supposed evidence for it, helping to build a widespread urban myth.
The episode commences at the La Brea Tar Pits in California, USA. Hundreds of bones from sabre-tooth cats (also known as "Smilodon") and other animals are shown and the process of how they became stuck in the tar is explained. The program then describes how life was for the sabre-tooth cat in the Ice Age. It explains how the climate warmed up and the woodland forests that the sabre-tooth depended on for cover when stalking prey disappeared. It shows a mother sabre-tooth trying to hunt for her two cubs, but fails due to the open spaces and more numerous bison herds. Starving, she abandons her cubs (in doing so, will never reproduce again) and goes for the easiest prey, dead animals in the tar pit. Her hunger overpowers her sense of caution and drives her to the edge of the black abyss...
The "Black Cat" manga series features characters created by Kentaro Yabuki. The story follows a young man named Train Heartnet who withdrew from an elite group of assassins called the Chronos Numbers two years earlier and is now a Sweeper, or bounty hunter. Many of the characters are humans with superhuman strength, speed and/or supernatural abilities. "Black Cat"s anime adaptation features some characters not created by Yabuki, as well as many plot differences.
In the Slide-Away Casino, Melter and Killer Shrike take Ringer to the back room. Black Cat shows him various items and tells him that even she cannot steal everything and sometimes must pay for them and asks him how is she supposed to do that when nobodies like him do not pay her weekly cut. Ringer tells Black Cat he did not pay because he was captured by Silk, owed the Spot for getting him out of jail, and had to pay Tinkerer for new equipment. He tells her they worked in some works before and remembers her having a heart and asks for compassion. Black Cat hesitates long enough for the Ringer to attack them, hitting Felicia in her arm before she takes him down. Black Cat tells Ringer he will make three times the cut and will also serve as an example having Killer Shrike and Melter beat him up. Melter and Killer Shrike then bring in Ringer and Black Cat tells Ringer to spread the word that no one steals from her.
The "Black Cat" anime premiered in Japan with a 3.4 percent television viewership rating. In 2005, Japanese television network TV Asahi conducted a "Top 100" online web poll, and "Black Cat" placed 93rd. In the subsequent year, it ranked 17th in a "Top 20" poll conducted by Japanese anime magazine "Animage". Navarre Corporation cited the DVD releases of "Black Cat" as one the reasons for Funimation's profit increase during the last quarter of 2006. The anime was listed as North America's 22nd anime property in summer 2008.
Mimsie the Cat (1968 - c. June 1988) was Moore's live-action tabby cat seen in the MTM Enterprises logo, in an apparent spoof of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's famed lion mascot, Leo.
In the standard version of the logo, as first used on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", Mimsie appears in a crouched position, looks up at the camera, and meows once. Mimsie would not meow for the camera crew, so they eventually used footage of her yawning, run in reverse, with the sound effect added. By the 1980s, there were many different variants of the logo, with Mimsie often appearing in different painted "costumes" corresponding to the style and theme of the particular programs. For the detective series "Remington Steele", a Sherlock Holmes-esque stalking cap and pipe (that fell out of Mimsie's mouth when she meowed) were added; "Bay City Blues" had an animated version of Mimsie wearing a baseball hat and baseball glove and catching a baseball; "Lou Grant", "Paris", and "Just Between Friends" showed a still image of Mimsie's footage; "The White Shadow" featured a different black-and-white cat bouncing an orange basketball; "Hill Street Blues" painted a police uniform hat onto Mimsie's head; "St. Elsewhere" used a surgical mask and scrubs; "The Texas Wheelers" had a full-screen black-and white kitten looking around and meowing and (for the final episode) had an animated version of the kitten staggering from behind a wagon wheel and dropping dead; "Graham Kerr" painted a chef's hat onto Mimsie's head; "Xuxa" had Mimsie say "Tchau!" (which means "goodbye" in Portuguese); "A Little Sex" featured an animated gray cat joining an animated version of Mimsie after she meowed; in contrast, "Newhart" kept the original, unadorned footage, but replaced (except for the series pilot) the meowing sound effect with Bob Newhart's voice-over of "meow" in his trademark deadpan style, and in the series finale is saying "QUIET!", uttered by Darryl & Darryl (their first and only word). "The Duck Factory" had (right before the logo) an off-screen voice shout, "Where's the Cat?", and then used the original footage, replacing Mimsie's meow with a "Quack!". On "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" episode, "Today I am a Ma'am", Mimsie did a higher-pitched meow, and on the episode "Put on a Happy Face", Miss Moore herself was shown stating the Looney Tunes end line, "That's All Folks!". In the series finale of "St. Elsewhere", Mimsie is shown unconscious and dying on-screen, hooked up to an IV, a heart monitor and medical equipment; as the credits roll the heart monitor beeps and then flatlines at the end, marking the end of ‘’St. Elsewhere’’ and Mimsie’s death. Coincidentally, Mimsie died shortly after the airing of the episode. Syndicated prints of this episode replace this variant with the normal credits. An extended version of "The White Shadow" variant can be shown on rare prints of the pilot, featuring the logo animating and the cat watching the ball fall off-screen.
Churchill was an animal lover and owned a wide range of animals, including dogs, cats, horses, pigs, fish, and black swans, many of which were kept at Chartwell. Jock Colville recounted how Churchill as wartime Prime Minister would talk to his cats about the issues he was contemplating. Colville presented Churchill with his last cat, called Jock, on his 88th birthday and Churchill made provision in the Chartwell National Trust that it would always house a cat called Jock.
Another type of black-and-white bicolor cat is referred to as a "cow cat" or "moo cat" and includes the magpie, cap-and-saddle and mask-and-mantle patterns. A cow cat does not have the solid black "jacket" of the tuxedo cat. Instead, it has large black patches over a mostly white body, often with a black mask over the head. "Black-mask cats" are so called because they look like they are wearing a black mask over their head. The Turkish Van (white and red) is one good example of a bicolor breed. Van pattern is known to animal geneticists as the Seychelles (Seychellois) pattern and is classified into three variants:
His photographs were used on more than 300 magazine covers and in thousands of advertisements. He was the author of at least 34 books,including "Walter Chandoha's Book of Kittens and Cats", "Walter Chandoha's Book of Puppies and Dogs", "How to Photograph Cats, Dogs, and Other Animals", "How to Shoot and Sell Animal Photos", "All Kinds of Cats", and "Mind Your Manners!". He and his work were also the subject of many books and museum exhibitions. He was once quoted as saying, "Cats are my favorite animal subject because of their unlimited range of attitude, posture, expression, and coloration."
In November 2006 an animation summit forum was held to announce China's top 10 most popular domestic cartoons as "Century Sonny", "Tortoise Hanba's Stories", "Black Cat Detective", "SkyEye", "Lao Mountain Taoist", "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King", "Wanderings of Sanmao", "Zhang Ga the Soldier Boy", "The Blue Mouse and the Big-Faced Cat" and "3000 Whys of Blue Cat". "Century Sonny" is a 3D CG-animated TV series with 104 episodes fully rendered.
Black Cat (manga) List of Black Cat chapters List of Black Cat characters
Black Cat Detective () is a Chinese animation television series produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. It is sometimes known as Mr. Black. The main character, Black Cat Detective, was created by Zhu Zhixiang (诸志祥).
Black cats have been found to have lower odds of adoption in American shelters compared to other colors except brown, although black animals in general take more time to find homes. The reasons given include not only superstition, but also the perception of black as "boring" compared to other colors as well as the belief that black cats don't photograph well. Some shelters also suspend or limit adoptions of black cats around Halloween for fear they will be tortured, or used as "living decorations" for the holiday and then abandoned. Despite this, no one has ever documented in the history of humane work any relationship between adopting black cats and cats being killed or injured. When such killings are reported, forensic evidence has pointed to natural predators, such as coyotes, eagles, or raptors as the likely cause. Limiting or suspending adoptions around Halloween also places more cats of all colors at risk of dying in shelters due to overcrowding.
In Japan, the "Black Cat" manga sold over 12 million copies, while in North America several volumes have been featured in weekly top ten lists of best-selling manga. The anime has also been popular in both Japan and North America. Manga and anime critics had praise for "Black Cat" action, differing views on the artwork and characters, and mainly negative comments for its plot which has been criticized for having common "shōnen" manga elements.
With the success of the 2018 African-themed Superhero film, "Black Panther", there was a fad of adopting black domestic cats as pets and naming them after various characters of the film such as T'Challa and Shuri. It has been observed that usually people were not going out of their way to follow this fad, but visited animal shelters to simply adopt a pet under normal circumstances and were inspired by the Black Panther to adopt a black cat when they see one. Regardless, to reduce the chance of such cats being abandoned when the fad fades, reputable animal shelter personnel took the usual precautions of having potential adopters fill out questionnaires to weed out potentially abusive guardians and have them read literature about the needs and responsibilities of such a pet to dissuade the less conscientious.
The Fox and the Cat is an ancient fable, with both Eastern and Western analogues involving different animals, that addresses the difference between resourceful expediency and a master stratagem. Included in collections of Aesop's fables since the start of printing in Europe, it is number 605 in the Perry Index. In the basic story a cat and a fox discuss how many tricks and dodges they have. The fox boasts that he has many; the cat confesses to having only one. When hunters arrive with their dogs, the cat quickly decides to climb a tree, but the fox thinks of many ways without acting and is caught by the hounds. Many morals have been drawn from the fable's presentations through history and, as Isaiah Berlin's use of it in his essay "The Hedgehog and the Fox" shows, it continues to be interpreted anew.
This episode contains four songs. The first one is about the cold temperatures and how the animals survive don't mind the cold (Cold, Cold, Cold); the second focuses on ways animals beat the cold (That's the Way We Do It Up Here); the third is all about penguins, and mentions 17 species by name (Penguins); and the fourth is a tribute to Antarctica (The Last Great Wilderness).In the first episode, Spin takes a look at dogs and tries to determine if there is a link between wild and tame dogs. The songs in this episode are about why dogs do what they do, and the loyalty that dogs possess. In the second episode, Spin examines cats and learns that no matter how tame, they're always wild. The songs in this episode are about cats having an attitude, and the second is about how they're wild inside. The second episode is the first time Alan O'Day does not appear in a "Really Wild Animals" episode.In the first episode, Spin examines dinosaurs such as Hadrosaurs, Struthiomimus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Dromaeosaurs, and tries to answer the many questions surrounding them, including how they became extinct, and if relatives still exist today such as alligators, snakes, Komodo dragons, lizards, ostriches, cassowarys, and other birds. The songs in this episode focus on dinosaurs (The Dinosaur Rap), and how their modern-day relatives still "rock our world" (We're Gonna Rock Your World). This episode is the first and only episode to not feature Alan O'Day or Janis Liebhart singing the songs. It's also the last episode where a guest singer was brought in. In the second episode, Spin looks at some of the world's creepiest creatures such as vampire bats, ants, flies, spiders, vultures, and dung beetles. This shows that no matter how scary they are, they all play an important part in the world. The first song is about how even though the creatures are creepy, there's something intriguing about them (Creepy Creatures; with animation by Jim & Vezna Tozzi), and the second song is about how important all of them are (Keep on Creeping On).In the first episode, Spin takes a look at primates of all types, including gibbons, langurs, bush babies, aye-ayes, capuchins, and baboons. He also explains that primates are our distant relatives. The first song is about all primates (Primates), and the second song focuses on gorillas, our "gentle brothers" (Gentle Brother). In the second episode, Spin takes a look at animal families inlcuding elephant families, African bullfrog families, ostrich families, octopus families, albatross families, & sea turtle families and shows that they're not all that different from human families after all. The songs in this episode are about how curious animal children are (I'm Curious), and how important families are (You're My Family).In the first episode, Spin takes a look at farm animals, such as turkeys, pigs, sheep, horses, and cows, and examines their wild relatives from all over the world. The first song is about all the animals on the farm, and the second focuses on the question of whether the viewer would be wild or free is he/she were a farm animal. In the second episode, Spin takes a look at how humans help endangered animals and how animals rescue people and shows that if people work together to help save animals, they'll prevent them from becoming extinct. The songs in this episode are about help being available for animals, and how if humans work together with animals, everybody will be safe at last.