Anime Review: Cat's Eye (2025) - Breaking it all Down

It’s interesting looking at Cat’s Eye in the context of various 80s revival series like the Rumiko Takahashi revivals. Those series kept the setting in the original time, while lightly modernizing some of the more off-color jokes. Cat’s Eye – a heist series – also tones down some of the off color humor, while also leaving the core premise unchanged (Charlie’s Angels but Heists, and not wearing masks), and moving the series to the present day. That last bit is where the series starts to run into trouble.

Cat's Eye (the three thieves) In Action.

Part of this lies with the show having started as a Shonen manga in the 80s. While kids and teenagers can appreciate a heist story, they can be more forgiving about certain aspects of the story, even more in the 80s then now. More forgiving about the Cats not wearing masks. More forgiving about the Cats running a cafe called Cat’s Eye right across the street from the police station where the team tasked with catching them are based. More forgiving about all of that plus one of the sisters dating the lead investigator.

In short, when I picked this show for one of our weekly anime watches, my parents who were on board for the heist itself, bounced off like a super ball when the cafe came up. And, to be honest, I couldn’t blame them.

That said, the show is very well animated. The action is very fluid, though a few CG car chases stumble. The character designs and how they’re shot do a good job of hitting that Charlie’s Angels balance of “These ladies are hot” without also spending too much time focused on their boobs or butt (and certainly with very little nudity). Some of the writing of the heists themselves, and some of the ways modern technology is worked into the story are handled nicely. Oh, and Ado’s cover of the Cat’s Eye theme (moved to the ending instead of the opening) is fantastic.

It’s just some of the bits they don’t modernize clash so poorly with the parts they do, that it probably would have been better if they kept the series in the 1980s. There’s a lot that just falls apart with common night vision cameras.

I enjoyed it, and as a significant part of the plot is unresolved, I’d watch a second season if we got one. But this is the rare case of a series that I enjoyed but would hesitate to recommend not because of skeevy fanservice, but because of all the ways it’s just dumb. Not so dumb it’s clever – it’s just dumb. That is something that you’re just going to have to get past if you’re going to watch this show. If you can do that, you’re set. But if you can’t, you’re not going to be able to power through it.

Cat’s Eye is currently available for streaming on: