English Dub Review: My Roommate Is a Cat “Feelings Crossing”

It’s never too late to take that trip.

Overview

A month has passed since the events of the first ten episodes. Subaru’s latest book is a certified hit, and now his publishing company is wondering what he’ll do next. The only problem is that Subaru has writer’s block. He looks to Haru for inspiration once more, but nothing is coming to him. He heads out to his backyard and notices, for the first time, a garden full of flowers. He starts to water it when his neighbor and her dog startle him. He then manages accidentally waters both of them with his garden hose.

It turns out that Subaru’s neighbor has been tending to his mother’s garden ever since her passing. She tells him that when Subaru’s parents would go on a trip, his mother would find a plant that the region was famous for, and she would bring home a few saplings in order to add to her garden. Subaru is surprised by this but allows his neighbor to continue tending to the garden, thinking it a wonderful memorial to his mother. He heads inside and finds Kawasei at the door. Kawasei tells him that someone has been lurking outside the house. Sure enough, Nana’s brother comes to the door before long.

He has come to apologize to Subaru for the way he treated him back at Nana’s apartment. He says that he’s a massive fan of Subaru’s work and that it inspires him. Subaru is flattered, but he doesn’t exactly know how to express it. After Nana’s brother leaves, Kawasei asks Subaru about his new book, and Subaru confirms his writer’s block. Kawasei suggests that Subaru take a trip to gain some new perspective, and to his surprise, Subaru takes him up on his offer. Subaru eventually decides to go to a place from which his mother was never able to get saplings for her garden.

Subaru asks Yasata to look after Haru while he’s gone, and he sets off. He finds a town that is famous for its indigo. He realizes that one of his favorite sweaters is a souvenir from the last time his parents came to the area. Subaru watches the local dye artisans, and he gets very emotional when he thinks about his parents last trip. On the day that he is set to leave, the owner of the hotel he’s staying at gives him indigo for his mother’s garden. Subaru heads to the airport, but his flight is canceled, leaving him and Haru apart for their first night since meeting.

Our Score

With only a single episode to go, My Roommate is A Cat has a lot that it needs to accomplish. We’ve spent the last few episodes focusing (to great effect) on Subaru’s writing career and how it allows him to connect with other people and to grow as a person. But, with the series winding down, the show needs to close a few loops, mainly related to the true meaning of Subaru and Haru’s relationship and Subaru finally forgiving himself for not appreciating his parents as much as he should while they were alive. It seems poised to do one of these very effectively.

I’ve said before that My Roommate is A Cat can occasionally stumble when it comes to the outright tragedy behind its premise. The show is firing on all cylinders when it’s able to leverage that tragedy into motivation for its characters. Interactions that have the full weight of the show’s backstory are among the series’ most effective moments, but dwelling on the sadness that led to Subaru’s isolation in the first place has not always been My Roommate’s strongest suit. I’ve found it to be a well that they return to often, with diminishing returns.

This episode fares better than some others, mostly because of the weight that the episode should have in the arc of the season. This being the penultimate episode, we should be facing the true darkness within Subaru’s soul, and how he will need to face that darkness in order to accept others into his life. Interestingly, this episode feels like it pulled some punches. Subaru’s breakdown at the indigo dying complex was not nearly as cathartic as some of the show’s other big money emotional beats. Additionally, the ending—where Haru and Subaru will be temporarily separated—really didn’t pack the punch or the suspense that the show thinks it does.

Haru was missing from this episode. Not just literally, as we see very little from her point of view this week, but her relationship with Subaru has taken a backseat to Subaru’s relationship with his parents. I have no doubt that this pendulum will swing the other way come to the finale, but its absence this time around was certainly conspicuous. I will say, however, that the mirroring in this episode was very well done. Subaru getting his neighbor wet with the hose, then unintentionally soaking the hotel owner by having her get him his indigo was a nice touch. And the antepenultimate and penultimate scenes, where Subaru pets his sock thinking of Haru and Haru snuggles herself in Subaru’s sweater were adorable. The final scene doesn’t even need to juxtapose them, we know implicitly why Subaru is so upset not to be making it home on time.

I’ll be the first to admit that I hold My Roommate is A Cat to some seriously high standards, but that’s because the show has managed to blow me away more than half of its runtime. It’s light but substantive and plotted simplistically with a deep emotional core. When the show fails to live up to its potential, I am disappointed more than anything. I believe in My Roommate’s ability to be superior anime, so it hurts that this episode didn’t do it for me. I am certain that the finale is going to solve more than a few of my concerns, but as a standalone eleventh episode, “Feelings Crossing” is one of My Roommate is A Cat’s lesser showings.