English Dub Review: My Roommate Is a Cat “You and I”

A bond that can weather any storm

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Subaru, whose flight home from vacation has been canceled due to inclement weather, catches a bullet train to try to get home to Haru before the day is out. He calls Yasata and asks him to look in on Haru because he’s worried that she might freak out again if he’s been gone for too long. Yasata heads over to Subaru’s house, but he can’t close the back door because the storm winds are too strong. Haru, thinking Subaru is in danger, dashes out the open door to try to save him. Yasata tells Subaru what’s happening, and the search for Haru begins.

The author arrives home and immediately starts looking for Haru. Without thinking, he faces his fear of social interaction and starts asking strangers on the street if they’ve seen Haru. Unfortunately, none of them have. Yasata calls Kawasei and gets him in on the search. Subaru’s editor holds down the fort in case Haru comes back while the pair of neighbors roam the neighborhood in search of the missing cat. Subaru thinks back to the accident that took his parents and promises himself he’s never going through another tragedy.

Subaru finds Nana as she’s closing the pet shop and asks her if she’s seen Haru. She hasn’t, but she gets her brother in on the search. Haru, meanwhile, is wandering the neighborhood thinking of all the times Subaru has passed out from not eating and wondering if the same thing has happened outdoors. She wanders past Subaru’s parent’s grave and is knocked into a paved drainage ditch. She tries to escape, but the ditch is too steep and too slippery. She fears being washed away by the rising current, but finally, Subaru makes it to the gravesite and finds Haru.

He reaches down to pick her up out of the drainage ditch, but he falls in himself. At first, he’s merely overjoyed that he managed to find his missing friend, but, before long, he realizes that now he too is stuck in the drainage ditch. Nana, Kawasei, Yasata, and her brother come upon Subaru and Haru and help them out of the ditch. They take them both back home, get them cleaned up, and feed them both a nice dinner. Subaru is humbled by the generosity of his support system, and he thanks them profusely as they leave for the evening. In a final scene, he and Haru renew their pledge to take care of each other, no matter what.

Our Take

I can’t say that I was looking forward to the end of this one. My Roommate is A Cat has been a bright spot in my week, and I am more than a little bit sorry to see it go. Additionally, after last week, I was worried the show would fumble the baton right before the finish line. Luckily, while it isn’t their best work, My Roommate is A Cat brings it home with aplomb and heart.

While I wasn’t thrilled with what My Roommate is A Cat chose as their final conflict, I can say that they carried it off well. I don’t think the show was ever going to have me buy into any real danger. I think the worst thing that’s happened to any of the characters since the show started was Haru getting a shot. What the series had to make me buy into was their emotional stakes. Luckily, that’s their strong suit. The moment when I realized Subaru talking to strangers was, silently, his biggest moment of growth in the entire series was the same moment that this episode earned its place amongst the season’s stronger showings. This is Subaru’s story, and no matter how many friends he populates his new life with, it’s his growth that has me the most invested. Seeing him find something more important than his misanthropy, and more importantly, something not forced upon him, was exactly the challenge he needed, and it was heartwarming to see him rise to the occasion.

I can’t say Haru’s plot was as well-executed, however. The show has made hay out of Haru’s misunderstandings of the human world often, and so it makes sense for one of those misunderstandings to have potentially dire consequences in a season finale. It doesn’t work for me totally for a pair of reasons. The first is that it’s a little too much. Haru (and by extension the writer) doesn’t seem to have any plan after leaving the house, only to wander until Subaru is found. This is a dumbing down of Haru’s logic that, to me, the series had established fairly well by the twelfth episode. My other issue was the lack of tie-in to Haru’s story so far. It’s clear that she regrets not always being able to help her family, of whom she now considers Subaru a member, but a show that uses flashback as intricately as My Roommate is A Cat could have chosen a better selection of memories to get this week’s point across.

This far from ruins the episode; I just have exceedingly high expectations for My Roommate is A Cat. As a show that nearly always makes me feel something, even if not as intensely as they would like me to, this finale hits all the right notes. An existential, external threat to Haru and Subaru’s friendship makes them both realize how much they care about each other and how much Subuar’s friends have come to be an indispensable part of his life. It’s a simple story told with only a few moving parts, but quality trumps quantity every time, and when it’s on, this show has something special.

Looking toward the future, I’d love to see some more to challenge Subaru. So far, he has only been validated in his decisions to trust others. I’m very interested in what happens when it turns out the smarter choice would have been his misanthropy. Additionally, some side characters could have been expanded upon (Haru’s brother, Roku, and Subaru’s neighbor come to mind), but if you need a show to warm your heart this year, I can’t think of a better choice.