User Reviews

This movie caught my attention because the plot sounded similar to Alien and The Thing. It was very heavily inspired by those two movies, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The movie took elements from those two and created its own story. The story itself was very interesting at times, but unfortunately the short run time made the pacing way too fast, plot wise. There were several scenes of the crew members bickering amongst themselves, and the interesting reveals were very short. For the story it was trying to tell, it would have been better to be 2 hours long, rather than 70 minutes. I would have liked to see more about the plot lines that gave more character development, rather than the action scenes. It was also unfortunate that you never even got to see what the planet they were trying to get to looked like.

The animation and music were very typical of the 80s, something you can't really knock points off of for. The voice acting was pretty good, I liked all the different accents each character had, depending on where they came from. The design for the cat, Lily, was also very cute and realistic.

If you are a cat/animal lover, be warned: Lily the cat does die. She dies in a horribly gory and disturbing fashion. She's sucked into a wall and her body explodes into a mess of blood and gore. Once you see her owner crying and freaking out while facing a door, it's going to happen.

Inspired by Alien, The Thing and the novel Forever War.

The first time i saw this in the early 90's I loved it and I recently re-watched it (2002) and still loved it, it lost a bit of it's surprise though. The characters start get knocked off pretty quick, but the animation is good for it's time. Like Aliens series...then watch this!

Lily C.A.T.'s characters aren't the most original, nor is the plot. But if you like anime, you should get some enjoyment out of this film. There are some good scenes in it, and it may have been better had the script been cleaned up a little.

To me, and presumably a number of others, there was something special about Robotech. For all it's many convolutions it was lightning in a bottle. The energy, the complex sci-fi packaged in a youth demo-graph, the richly drawn characters struggling against real darkness and danger, the music and everything else. There has been a lot of similar anime that has fallen far short, not least the turgid, corporate 'Shadow Chronicles'. So the fact that lily C.A.T. was brought to us by the same people that constructed Robotech potentially promised something special, or at least something in that familiar style. Pleasingly, the animation is pretty much the same, and several familiar voice actors crop up, but ultimately the question would be whether it stacks up on it's own.

The story is disappointingly derivative, in equal part to 'Alien' and 'The Thing'. There are a few interesting ideas, mainly concerning suspended animation over long periods in deep space travel, and time and effort has gone into the ship design and the future technology, but it is essentially nothing new. The story concerns a deep space expedition that travels to a distant planet to investigate the possibility of habitation but along the way is contaminated with some form of alien life which eventually starts picking the passengers and crew off one by one. Add to this an A.I. that has it's own agenda and two passengers that are not who they claim to be and we are ready to go down a pretty familiar path. Telling an old tale is always forgivable if it is done inventively and with energy and I would say, in this regard, that lily C.A.T. gets a pass mark. It is more problematic, I feel, in it's indecision over whether it is more for adults or for kids. There is some horror and some of the concepts are quite adult yet it fails at creating an adult internal reality. Mostly in regards to the characters reactions to some pretty horrific events. It might well work for more adventurous younger viewers but it is hard for me to say. The characters are mostly interesting and well realized but their interaction falls way short of the mark for adult sensibilities which is generally not the case with Macross, Mospeada and Southern Cross, or Robotech.

I refer to these other anime mainly because it would be hard to recommend Lily C.A.T. on it's own. A fan of the aforementioned franchises would have a much better chance with this than a random viewer. This, like Robotech is storytelling on the cusp between adolescence and the adult, and that would be a problem for some, who had no prior fondness for the work of Carl Macek and his ilk. Ultimately, for lovers of Robotech I would recommend Lily C.A.T. as worth the effort. It may not be a masterpiece but it definitely has that same mood and feel. It has that sense of energy and fun for the most part and it's flaws are there, but it can still be enjoyed if you are in the mood to be generous with it.

Okay, not an original film (plot easily taken from ALIEN.) But for anime, it's much better than most of the 90's garbage, without being too silly. Animation is good (think TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE.) And the dubbed version would probably better to see than the Japanese version as the dubbed version uses different ethnic type voices to represent the different characters. Not perfect, but I would give it a 7 out of 10.

Lily C. A. T. (1987) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime and tells the tale of a space expedition that includes people who don't know each other from all over the world. Shortly after their expedition starts they discover there's some people on the ship that weren't intended for the trip. When people start dying the people will need to work together to try and figure out who the stowaways are, even if they know they may be working with the people they're trying to find.

This movie was directed by Hisayuki Toriumi (Gatchaman) and contains the voices of Masako Katsuki (Ninja Scroll), Eiko Yamada (Metal Gear Solid), Chikao Ôtsuka (Lupin the 3rd), Yoshiko Sakakibara (Ghost in the Shell 2.0) and Tesshô Genda (Akira).

The animation for this was classic 80s and reminded me of a not as good G. I. Joe. The ghost/monster elements in this were pretty good and entertaining. There were also some good kill scenes and gore. The storyline was just okay and felt like an Alien knockoff a little. My favorite part of the movie was the cat.

Overall this is an above average addition the genre that is worth seeing once. I would score this a 6/10.

I went into this expecting nothing. Saw this movie on some youtube video about horror manga and anime iceberg.

Noticed that it's only an hour long and long forgotten so I thought "why not? Could use it to fall asleep fast tonight".

Eh I had some fun with this. It's clearly a rip off of Alien and The Thing and I went into it knowing that so I am not disappointed.

A few cool visuals here and there for something so old, I do miss the old style of anime to be completely honest. And one monologue that the captain has about how they are just relics of the past after a few space runs, having issues to catch up with things after all those cryosleeps was cool. Never really though about it that in these situations some people can, in theory, be 250 years old. Or at least that much time passed on Earth so everyone they knew is dead. Culture has completely changed. Information has changed. Everything is different and you can not keep up the pace.

All in all, a fun little watch. You can definitely do a lot worse than this.

Lily C.A.T. is a science fiction/horror anime OVA from the ripe age of horrible anime like this one. The film follows the spaceship on a 40-year mission. Under the instructions of an unknown force (that remains unknown and is never address again throughput the entire anime) the ship's A.I. computer system accidentally introduces an alien bacterium into the ship while its human crew is in cryostasis. Naturally, both the ship and the unknown force want to eradicate the bacterium from the ship but also to cover up for this blunder. And that's what sets the plot into disarray.

You have a misfit crew that doesn't get along at all and only wants to look out for their own selfish goals and they are attacked by man-killing bacteria that took over a cat. You can already see it coming. The story is typical horror; the mysterious, scary, evil pursuer picks off the crew one by one. The alien wants the humans dead. But that's not too bad, it's mundane, but typical horror, but so can still keep watching.

But when you look at the characters, things start to get much, much worse. My main gripe with the characters is that not one of them, except the obvious couple, Hiro and Nancy, get along. Not one of these idiots. It's as if the writers made them forget that a dangerous, life-erasing bacterium is gunning for them, and they need to work together to survive. Then there's Hamilton, who defines the meaning of determination so hard, it has to be seen to be believed. It's very... BAD! None of the characters were in their right mind. In my eyes, characters as simple-minded as the ones in Lily C.A.T. deserve to be food for bacteria. Hamilton chases Hiro for pride, Hiro comes out of the blue as a murderer without any evidence that he was beforehand, and a complete lack of any back-story to boot, Nancy acts like a schoolgirl for almost the entire anime, Hiro comes off as a bad stereotypical stoic, Carolyn is awful, and for one member of the crew, it's so obvious he's not gonna make it, you consider him dead meat right after his first speaking line. It's all pathetic. One more thing, Guy is the only black male in this crew. His position like other characters that weren't the cop, the heroine or the lead males Hamilton and Hiro was debatable, and that says enough on its own.

If it isn't a secret by now, Lily C.A.T. delivers a crushing, gut-wrenching, horrible experience for the viewer. It contains your fan service girl and an action girl, and the blood and guts that defined those ovas of the time, complete with a sub-par, rushed, but passable plot that is ruined by unsettled characters and holes that pop up in pivotal scenes (Pay attention to the background check interviews and Hamilton himself-- Believe me). To top it off, in order to screw with the viewer more there are two things from an actually good horror movie, Alien, that Lily C.A.T. adapts. Not going to spoil it or the "ending" as some might call it, but these elements that Lily C.A.T. graciously and proudly copies only complicate the story even more. It's almost a guaranteed re-watch to understand what is what and which is which, but this anime is not even worth the first time you see it-- it's a mediocre, gory, bloody, confusing mess. Its enjoyment factor is destroyed by its horridness and I'm dead serious. When Lily C.A.T. isn't boring me in the opening, or disgusting me through the "jump scares" (they suck, really), it's killing me throughout because it's a painful, confusing and pointless mess. The characters even lampshade how pointless it is in the anime. I apologize for this drawn out review, but it's better than wasting an hour watching the anime itself. Friends of mine have praised this series and call it a great horror anime. Some even claim it is an obscure buried treasure. The only place I want Lily C.A.T. buried is in the bottom of my crappy anime basket pile, never to see the light of day again.

Read more at http://myanimelist.net/anime/3258/Lily_C.A.T#xIVlgC5qtoFWPYtZ.99

No matter how far humanity pushes to go beyond the stars, technology they won't be able to define death, threats, problems and their emotions.

This blatant rip off, brought to English speaking audiences by Carl Macek who also ruined Robotech with the same poor adapting/terrible voice actors, is simply a Japanese mish-mosh of alien and the thing, even to a point where, when the audience sees the creature change, it's right from the 1982 the thing. Typical stereotypical characters whose clothing doesn't match being on a space ship, this is barely worth watching. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more dubbed?

I first watched this anime back in the 90's when the scifi channel actually showed a bit more variety and such having anime weeks, Godzilla weeks and for a short span having Mystery Science Theater 3000 on their station. I enjoyed it then and I recently re-watched it as I was in the mood for a scifi horror hybrid that was not Alien. I originally wanted to watch the original 1987 Nightflyers as I had only seen it on the same channel I saw this on originally and I was hoping to see an uncut version, but I struck out on Amazon Prime and several other streaming networks only pulling up the recent television show. Just was not into watching a television series so I thought about this movie and tried to see if it was available and it was! I was so surprised and happy so I gave it a watch and I still enjoy it.

The story has a spaceship that goes on an expedition to a remote planet to gather samples and such. The kicker is that the trip will take 20 years, so the crew will be in a suspended animation for that time and will only age a year. The captain is a veteran as is his crew, but the ones on this expedition and not part of the crew are from a corporation. They all have their reasons for going on this mission; unfortunately, two of them are not who they say they are. The captain dismisses this at first, but it is not too long after they awaken from their suspended animation that one of them turns up dead! Seems a strange bacteria has gotten on board and it begins killing the crew, it also morphs and becomes an even bigger problem as it has the ability to kill! However, this is not the only problem as something seems to have control of the ship and seems to be trying to cover up its mistake of taking on this alien bacteria!

While good, the anime is not perfect...though the main problem I have with it is the English voice overs which is not really the fault of the original makers. Most of them do all right, but at times they do a horrible job of portraying emotions, most notably when the blond falls on her knees and begins sobbing. That being said, this film gets points for being only an hour and seven minutes long and still able to develop its characters and have lots of action. Kind of wish more American movies were capable of this.

So, not perfect, but still a fun and wild ride. It does take a lot of inspiration from Alien and The Thing, but it adds its on spice to the dish as well as it truly is not just about the creature on the loose. It adds a touch of mystery as there are the two members of the crew who are not who they say they are and the mystery of who is controlling the ship. Some of the characters are dubbed poorly and I would like to see this with the original voice actors; however, the one doing the captain did a pretty good job and he was my favorite character.

I, too, loved this movie. Like the other reviewers, I first saw it on the Sci-Fi Channel's Anime Week's ROBOT CARNIVAL. Lily C.A.T., whose plot is directly lifted from James Cameron's Alien, is about the crew of an STL, (Slower-than-light,) starship, who age one year for every 20 years they're in space. The crew is told that there's a prisoner on board by Detective Dick Berry, who's come aboard to return an escaped criminal to Earth to face justice. Then there's a mysterious virus that's killing the crew. The ships captain asks Dick Berry if he's sure he wants to return the criminal to Earth for trial since it will be 20 years before they return to Earth, and all the witnesses will be either old or dead. H E R E B E S P O I L E R S The captain tells Dick Berry that they're all over a hundred years old though they look like they're much younger. Finally, Berry agrees with the captain that it's not worth it. Lily, one of the crewmembers' pet cat, is actually the source of the virus. It's Lily C.A.T., the ultimate biological weapon. Lily C.A.T. starts killing the rest of the crew. Finally, Captain Hamilton, tells Berry to save himself and his prisoner and says that there's a planet nearby and that they should leave before Lily C.A.T. finds them. He provides them with a means of escape, (an obsolete space shuttle that he'd kept as a souvenir.) and orders them off the ship. Lily C.A.T. senses that they're trying to escape, and goes after them. They finally and escape, and presumably land on the planet. That's where it ended.

Being a Alien film franchise movie fan, I happened to stumble on this older anime film. After finishing watching it, I must say, Not bad. Interesting that this is clearly set in Alien "esque" universe. The AI computer on the ship is named "Mother" just like the film. The crew is a corporate ship crew exploring the colonizable frontier for profit. Like the movie, the evil faceless megacorp back home is a secondary villain of the tale. The story is fresh and unique twist similar to both Alien and the Thing. It held my attention the entire time and kept me guessing. I watched a very well dubbed version on Youtube with good english voice acting.

All in all a decent little scifi horror space story. It isn't at all predictable and I didn't see the twist coming.