While Shonen Jump is mostly associated here in the west with big action titles like Naruto or Jujutsu Kaisen, the magazine has always had a bit more variety beneath the surface than it's usually given credit for. All sorts of unique series have made their way into its catalog over the years, and Cat's Eye is one such example of this in practice. A story centering around a trio of cat burglars who live a double life running a coffee shop isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your average JUMP series, but it performed well enough to spawn an 18-volume run, two anime series in the 80s, and now a remake. It's because of this that I've been curious to see exactly what this series is all about ever since this reboot was announced, and while I haven't had a bad time with this show so far, I've also been a lot less impressed than I expected.

For the most part, these first six episodes follow a very basic formula where the titular Cat's Eye trio of Hitomi, Rui, and Ai attempt to steal valuable pieces of art while also evading the eyes of a police detective named Toshio whom Hitomi has been in a long-term relationship. There is a larger plot going on in the background regarding the girls targeting art connected to their missing father, but this point only comes up a couple of times within this batch of episodes, so the focus is largely on the cat-and-mouse games between them and Toshio. It's certainly not a bad formula for writing weekly heist stories, and from what I've seen of the '80s version, it gives the series an almost old-school sitcom vibe that gives it plenty of room to play around with any given scenario. This remake, on the other hand, is only set to run for 12 episodes and has opted to update the setting to modern day. I don't see either of these as an actual dealbreaker since revivals of older manga properties like Trigun Stampede or of the various Lupin the 3rd adaptations have proven that these loose adaptations can make for good standalone shows if there's a strong enough creative vision behind them. When it comes to what we got here from LIDEN FILMS, however, that vision feels a little lacking.

The most immediate problem hindering this remake is that, for a show centered around big heists, it doesn't actually spend a lot of time on them. While we're given a general idea of the girls' individual skills with Rui as the strategist, Ai as the one who makes all their tech, and Hitomi as the one who normally carries the jobs, we rarely get to see them in motion as the show rarely spends more than a few minutes on any single caper. They're decently entertaining, and it's decently funny seeing Toshio always be one step behind our main trio, but the lack of any real suspense or buildup for these heists results in none of them coming off as particularly memorable. We also aren't really given much time to spend on the girls themselves as characters, except for Hitomi. While they're likable enough, I would have liked to learn more about each of them individually, or at least see how they got into the thieving business.

Instead, a lot of the drama comes from the girls trying to keep their true identities hidden from Toshio, but since they don't use any disguises during their heists and Toshio getting close enough to spot them would break the status quo, it never feels like there's any actual risk of him catching them which sucks a lot of the energy out of their heists. The closest he ever gets is in episode 6, where he and Hitomi fall into a ditch during one of her heists. The two have to work together to escape, but he conveniently loses his eyesight for the entirety of this ordeal. It makes the situation feel so contrived that it's nearly impossible to take it seriously. The relationship drama between Hitomi and Toshio itself also isn't all that interesting on its own, and while this all seems to have been less of a problem in the 80s version, where the series had more episodes to space all of this out, for the first half of a 12-episode remake, it starts to get repetitive very quickly.

That's not to say that this show is completely reliant on the aforementioned formula, and the couple of times it strays from it are where it's at its best. The episode where the main trio has to deal with a self-proclaimed gentleman thief called Mouse has a good back and forth between the two sides where we get to see the girls putting their skills to the test to outwit him, and the one where we're first introduced to Toshio's new partner Asatani provides the much needed tension when she comes dangerously close to revealing their true identities. The latter scenario is also the most this reboot makes of being set in the present as the girls have to use everything from motion capture to pre-recorded deepfakes to throw Asatani off their trail and while the use of realistic digital tech feels like a bit of a downgrade from the mini jet planes or car jacking remote switches that girls used in the 80's anime, I'll happily take some effort to utilize the new setting over none at all. Neat as that one is, though, it doesn't quite make up for how repetitive the rest of these episodes are, and if this remake was going to insist on sticking with an episodic format, I wish that the team working on it had made better use of it.

As far as the look of the show goes, the production by LIDEN FILMS is perfectly solid, if not very remarkable. Yōsuke Yabumoto's character designs do a pretty good job of updating the look of the characters to feel a bit more modern while still retaining some of their original charm, but there aren't any notable animation highlights within these episodes to fully showcase them, and there isn't much about this show that stands out visually. Yūki Hayashi's jazzy musical score, on the other hand, is a lot more distinct, and Ado's cover of the original Cat's Eye theme makes for a standout ending song (the OP song a little less so, but I'm certainly not complaining about getting two Ado songs in one show). Great as that cover is, I wish it were attached to a better-looking sequence, as the clunky 3DCG montage used for its visuals leaves a lot to be desired. The dub by the team at Iyuno is also quite solid, with Alejandra Reynoso, Erin Yvette, and Ari Thrash turning in good performances as Hitomi, Rui, and Ai, respectively. Of the three, I especially enjoyed Ari Thrash as Ai, and despite being relatively fresh to the anime scene, she did a great job getting across the spunk and youthful energy of the character, so I can only hope that this will be enough of a breakout role for her.

While this is far from being a bad show, the first half of this remake feels lacking in energy. It's perfectly digestible, but almost none of the episodic capers displayed so far have been particularly exciting, and the romantic tension between Hitomi and Toshio hasn't felt very compelling for the amount of focus it's gotten. I'd rather not be too harsh here since the overall formula here seems to have worked just fine in the '80s, but this shorter remake doesn't have that luxury. It's hard not to wish that it had either gotten more episodes so it could be a little more flexible or opted to ditch its episodic format altogether in favor of a tighter story. As is, while this seems like a relatively functional introduction to Cat's Eye, it's hard not to feel like you might be better served with the 80s anime instead.