English Dub Review: My Roommate Is a Cat “I Reach Out to You”

What? No? Shut up, you’re crying!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Haru begins her morning staring at Subaru. He’s not in his usual spot, and he’s much more active than he is on a typical day. Subaru futilely attempts to straighten his tie. He sets out extra food for Haru and takes off for the day. Haru quickly realizes that she has the place to herself. She starts out enjoying herself, but after talking to the neighbor’s dog, she realizes that she just might miss Subaru after all. In response to this emotion that she isn’t ready to handle, Haru starts trashing the house.

It turns out that Subaru went to a book signing with Kawasei, but he’s still incredibly nervous. When his fans start to show up, he freaks out and hides behind the table. Kawasei tells him that everything is going to be okay and straightens his tie. This gives Subaru the push he needs to start signing books. He starts interacting with his fans, and he slowly gains confidence throughout the day. He even shakes the hand of a young fan who tells Subaru that he’s his favorite author.

As the day is coming to a close, Kawasei does one final sweep of the store and finds Nana. She has come to get an autographed copy of the book for her brother. She and Subaru recognize each other at exactly the same time and are both immediately apologetic. Nana thinks that Subaru must be annoyed with her for purporting to know so much about literature, and Subaru thinks that Nana will believe he’s a liar. Luckily, the pair settle their misunderstanding, and Subaru signs her book. She leaves with a smile on her face, even after Subaru awkwardly yells his thanks to her for coming from across the room.

After sharing a beautiful moment with Kawasei, Subaru heads back home to find his house in shambles. He thinks he’s been robbed but, using some solid detective work, quickly deduces the Haru is the one to blame. He pours her another bowl of food and considers that this is the longest he’s ever been away from the kitten. For her part, Haru is not yet emotionally mature enough to acknowledge her separation anxiety, so she decides that it was her extreme hunger that made her act out rather than any genuine feeling for her human companion.

Our Take

By god, they’ve done it again. Each week, I believe that My Roommate is A Cat has reached the pinnacle of their wonderfully weaponized sentiment, and each week they outdo themselves yet again. I don’t think they’ll be able to top this one, though. While the show does frequently threaten to bring me to tears, the moment where the young child shakes Subaru’s hand in the bookstore is one of the most sentimental moments I have ever seen animated. If that doesn’t move you, then I don’t think anything can.

This episode was a finely-tuned machine from start to finish. In addition to a beautiful moment of human connection, the episode had some great plot mechanics at work. Firstly, this week had the most seamless transitions between Haru and Subaru. While the two mostly work like a featured artist dropping in a verse on another musician’s song, this episode had the two trading narration like Run the Jewels trading bars. I was left seeing wonderful contrasts in the two protagonists’ views on the world, and neither felt superfluous as they can when My Roommate’s writing is less sharp. While Subaru was certainly the emotional center of the episode, showing his growth ahead of Haru for the first time was delivered elegantly and with deft precision.

We also had some wonderful character moments this time around. While I think Nana’s moment had more mechanical catharsis to it (My Roommate is A Cat doesn’t go hard on the plot machinations, but the case of mistaken identity Nana had with Subaru’s authorship of her brother’s favorite book is as convoluted as the show gets), the Kawasei moment stole the show for pathos. In a show full of niceties, Kawasei is still a comic relief character, his kind nature and Haru obsession mostly being played for laughs, so it was really great to see him get the handshake he had deserved since episode one.

If I had any worry about My Roommate is A Cat going forward, it’s only that they will never top this episode. The show’s themes of growth through connection and the ultimately futile fronts that hurt people put up to prevent that connection have never been put on better display. Subaru has learned the most valuable lesson of this universe; if you reach out, someone will reach back. There’s still plenty of ground to cover, though. Subaru is far from conquering his survivor’s guilt and Haru still denies feeling anything for Subaru, even though it’s obvious to everyone else. This episode still has me interested in those developments, but I doubt anything will top the satisfaction of Subaru at that book signing.

I can’t speak highly enough of this show. They have very little in the way of characters, the stakes are as low as they could possibly be, and the plot is wildly simplistic, but every single episode works. Even my least favorite episodes of this series are only slightly too sentimental. Where a show like this could devolve into unearned schmaltz, My Roommate is A Cat earns is big moments. We’ve seen Subaru struggle to deal with basically any interaction with another human being. We’ve also seen him fail to connect with both children and his fans before. So, when we see him pull off that hat trick in the bookstore, we believe it. He earned it. He’s spent time with Kawasei, Yasata, Nana, and Haru teaching him to come out of his shell.

I’ve never done this before, and it’s very likely that I won’t do it again for some time, but this episode has earned a perfect score. It’s far and away the best thing I’ve reviewed for this site; it’s the best episode of a slice of life anime I’ve ever seen; hell, it might be a top five animated episodes ever. Don’t miss this one.