Nekojiru

Hashiguchi was born on January 19, 1967, into a wealthy family in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture. According to editor Yoshiaki Yoshinaga, she attended a beauty school near her hometown, though details of her formal education remain unclear. As a student, she closely followed new wave music, particularly artists such as EP-4 and TACO.

At the age of 18, Hashiguchi married alternative manga artist Hajime Yamano, assisting his work by shading backgrounds and scenes. During this period, she reportedly had little interest in pursuing a career as a manga artist herself.

Her pen name is a portmanteau of Japanese neko, "cat", and shiru, "soup". While absentmindedly sketching "an odd octopus-like cat" Yamano took interest in Nekojiru's drawings, stating "it had a raw childlike appearance that wasn't filtered through adult eyes - it was cute, repulsive, and cruel-looking all at the same time". Using the sketch as a motif Yamano wrote a script and Nekojiru illustrated what would become Nekojiru Udon. She was completely self-taught, having received no formal lessons from her husband. The work was brought to Garo and was well-received by editor Maki Takaichi.

Her work would experience a surge in popularity through the subversive manga trend during the mid to late 1990's. The pop aesthetics and surreal presentation of her work began to appeal to the general public, teens in particular. The couple took any solicitations for work they could get, resulting in an incredibly arduous workload for both of them.

In April and May 1998, Nekojiru spoke with several editors complaining about the workload and artistic limitations imposed by the new influx of work. In a call with a Hakusensha editor, she stated: "I'm tired of drawing manga. I want to quit and move to a developing country with my husband".

With the exception of Tsunami, all Nekojiru's work has main characters drawn as cats. Even in her manga essays, Jirujiru Travel Journal and Jirujiru Diary, she drew herself as a cat. But though the characters appear as animals, the artist chose as her setting not a forest, but rather the human world. Her manga detailing the daily life and adventures of the cats Nyāko and Nyatta are held in high esteem. The major themes of her work are a childlike zaniness, cruelty and nostalgia. And, as is shown in Dream Memo, included in the posthumously released compilation Nekojiru Udon 3, many of her bizarre works of fantasy were based on her own dream experiences. Psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD also often appear in her works.^[1]

Yamano Hajime, using the pen-name Nekojiru-y, took over Nekojiru's world, and continues to produce new works. On his official site, one could read a free chapter of Nekojiru's manga. At the end of November 2020, it was announced the site would be closed for a long time, and remains down as of July 2023.

There have been two animated adaptations of Nekojiru's manga, both of them focusing on the family of Nyāko, Nyatta and their parents. The first of these was Nekojiru Gekijō (ねこぢる劇場, Nekojiru Theatre), a 27 × 2 minute series which aired on Japanese TV in 1999 as one segment of Asahi Television's Bakushō-Mondai no Boss-Kyara-Ō (爆笑問題のボスキャラ王), led by comedy duo Bakushō Mondai. The second, and more famous, at least among English speakers, is the 2001 OVA Nekojiru Sō (ねこぢる草, Nekojiru Grass), released in English as Cat Soup.

An English translation of Nekojiru Udon will be published by New York Review Comics on June 23, 2026.^[2]

• Nekojiru Udon (ねこぢるうどん)
• Nekogamisama (ねこ神さま, Cat God)
• Nekojiru Manjū (ねこぢるまんじゅう)
• Nekojiru Dango (ねこぢるだんご)
• Nekojiru Shokudo (ねこぢる食堂, Nekojiru Cafeteria)
• Nekojiru Senbei (ねこぢるせんべい)
• Jirujiru Ryokōki (ぢるぢる旅行記, Jirujiru Travel Journal)
• Jirujiru Nikki (ぢるぢる日記, Jirujiru Diary)

Nekojiru also worked as an illustrator and character designer on other projects.

Hashiguchi died by suicide on May 10, 1998.^[3] Her suicide note included: "Forget I even lived"; "I don't need a grave"; and "Don't talk about why I died". She also requested to be buried with all the CD albums made by Aphex Twin, according to a MuzikMusik magazine article. Yamano declined to provide details about motives but denied media allegations that it was a copycat suicide after musician hide's death. Contrary to her wishes, her family did bury her in a cemetery.

Shortly before her suicide, Nyāko and Nyatta, the two main characters of Nekojiru Udon, were selected to be used by Tokyo Electric in promotional campaigns. The death of their creator cancelled that.^[4]