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| Movie poster. (source) |
How was I not aware of this movie until now?
To preface, I'll state upfront that I am half Filipino on my mother's side. Growing up, I didn't think I would ever see explicit Filipino characters outside of what was produced in the Philippines. That changed in 2017 when I saw Lars Barriga from Steven Universe make an ube cake in one episode. It blew my mind to see a Filipino character in a major Western production. Ever since then, I've been interested in seeing Filipinos in mainstream media.
So imagine my surprise when I found the trailer for a Filipino animated film being produced for Netflix:
Content warning: violence, implied sex scenes
Hayop Ka!, which means "you animal" in Tagalog, is a story about a cat named Nimfa who works as a saleswoman. She has a dog boyfriend who works as a janitor. One day she meets another male dog who is rich, and after falling for him she must decide if she will go for him or stay with her boyfriend. Basically, a generic love triangle story that has been told millions of times before.
The animation and backgrounds look very impressive for an international non-anime film. The characters are anthropomorphic animals along the veins of other Netflix properties like Beastars and Aggretsuko. Heck, the main character almost resembles Nicole Watterson from The Amazing World of Gumball minus the blue fur.
I would like to see this out of curiosity, but unfortunately, it isn't available in the US, only in select regions. As long as this is better than The Nutshack, the gosh-awful attempt to have a mainstream television series featuring a Filipino cast, then I'd consider this a win for Filipino animation, or at least a step in the right direction.
