English Dub Review: My Roommate Is a Cat “Eating Together”

Self-sufficiency isn’t all emotional breakthroughs. Sometimes it’s baby steps.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Subaru is in the middle of a day of writing. He is taking a break from his pending deadline to rest before continuing ahead. He decides to check his texts, and he sees a message from Yasata. Yasata tells him that his sister and her friend—the human Haru who fed cat Haru when she was a street cat—want to come over to play with cat Haru. Subaru is about to respond with a message of discontent when the pair of little girls arrive at the door. Subaru isn’t a monster, so he lets them in to play with Haru.

The two have not come empty-handed, however. Human Haru has brought food for both Subaru and cat Haru. Cat Haru smells the food and tries to attack the bag, but Subaru shoos her away. The girls are worried about encroaching on Subaru’s space, but his pride ensures that he remains a good host. While the young Yasata plays with cat Haru, human Haru and Subaru whip up a treat for Cat Haru. She loves the dish so much that Subaru asks human Haru for the recipe, and promises to make it for cat Haru in the near future.

The next day, Subaru sets out to make the dish, but he doesn’t know where to begin. He heads to the supermarket with human Haru’s pictographic list, but he’s quickly overwhelmed by choice paralysis brought on by the different kinds of chicken in the meat department and the overly-attentive supermarket staff. Subaru has reached his limits for personal interaction and starts to beat a hasty retreat out of the supermarket when he runs into Yasata. Subaru’s neighbor immediately diagnoses the situation and manages to get Subaru down to a reasonable amount of food for Haru’s treat.

Subaru heads home with his bounty and begins cooking. He’s not very surefooted in the kitchen, so he takes his time. He even resorts to measuring Haru’s mouth in order to make sure that he doesn’t make pieces of food big enough for Haru to choke on. He very nearly gives up (and very seriously cuts his fingers), but he manages to make the treat for Haru. He places it at her feet, and while she ignores it at first, as soon as Subaru starts to eat his own food, Haru scarfs the food down, even licking the plate clean. All she ever wanted was to make sure that Subaru was taking care of himself, too.

Our Take

As I’ve been watching My Roommate is A Cat, I’ve often given my highest praise to the moments of catharsis that a viewer experiences when watching Subaru come out of his shell. Last week was the largest of such moments, but even before then, I had lauded the moments where Subaru is able to overcome the depression brought on by his parents’ death in order to meaningfully interact with the world around him. The show is so naturalistic that this becomes the currency of the series. Will Subaru be happy? If he’s happy then maybe we can be as well.

These plaudits often come at the expense of the less flashy episodes. I’m never too harsh on My Roommate is A Cat, but the show’s lighter than air feel make episodes without substantial climaxes feel less satisfying. It was only by making it this far into the series that I realize that does a massive disservice to these episodes and makes me wonder how drastically my ratings might change on the second watch of this series. While the big emotional moments are what this show makes its bones on, the true heart of the show is in the episodes were nothing happens.

Now, nothing usually happens on this show. Even on its best day, My Roommate is A Cat climax with Subaru shaking someone’s hand, but there are episodes where nothing even approaches that level of excitement, and I think these are the best episodes. This show has managed to replicate the feeling of what it’s like to be depressed. It’s not just Subaru’s agoraphobic tendencies or how quickly he’s tired out by even the smallest social interactions. Subaru finds profundity in even the smallest task because he didn’t think himself capable of anything. As a result, everything is a victory. It may have taken a few episodes, but my sense of the show is finally calibrated to that.

The best shows teach you how to watch them, and that’s what this one does in spaces. My Roommate is A Cat move at a glacier pace, excepting some of Haru’s slapstick moments. Subaru’s authorial accomplishments are not of concern, so actual time goes out the window to some degree. What’s left are the emotional stakes of this man trying desperately to reach out to the world, but finding himself unable. We are attuned to what Subaru thinks he can do, and even if he usually does the thing he must in each episode, we can feel how hard it was for him. His pride and stoicism have spent too long at the forefront of his personality, and letting in other people and emotionality as a whole is an experience that the viewer has along with Subaru.

When the story began, Subaru only read, wrote, and slept. He ate intermittently at best, and he refused contact with the outside world. He’s a far cry from being altogether better, and there are probably some counseling/psychiatric options he should consider (but the show doesn’t want to go there), but if we’re relying on the support system methodology for treatment, he’s come a long way. This is something that is best illustrated in leaps and bounds when Subaru makes another breakthrough, and that is the most satisfying thing to watch. But becoming more mentally healthy isn’t just breakthroughs, it’s work. That work is undervalued by many, myself included, but My Roommate is A Cat doesn’t shy away from it. It celebrates doing the work, and that—in itself—deserves recognition.