English Dub Review: Nekopara “The Melancholy of Shigure”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

We start in the middle of the night, in the dead of summer, at Shigure’s house. The four cats that live there are all having trouble sleeping on account of the heat. Maple huddles in a doorway, Azuki sprawls out by the window, Cinnamon lies beside a fan, and Coconut sleeps outside on a hammock.

The next morning, Coconut regrets her choice because the mosquitoes feasted on her all night long. Azuki finds this hilarious, and the two of them almost resort to blows, but when Shigure enters the room, the kitten coven becomes concerned. Their owner seems to be missing a step that morning. First, she cooks breakfast and really cocks it up. The fish is dry and the soup is too salty. Also, why are they having such hot dishes when it’s scorching outside?

Later, she sucks Cinnamon’s tail in the vacuum and doesn’t seem to give a shit. Sure, the suction and vibration cause the horny cat to come, but it was still a pretty crappy thing for Shigure to do. After that, she hangs all the cats’ panties out to dry which is super embarrassing—particularly Azuki whose undies have little cartoon characters on them.

Not knowing what’s wrong with her, the cats bring Shigure to work so she can spend some time with her brother. Ever since Master opened up the patisserie, the siblings haven’t had much time to hang out. Shigure plays along, and even dresses as a cat so she can service a few tables. She’s not very good at it, but she gives it her all.

Once he closes up for the day, Master sits down for tea and cake with his little sister. Shigure’s polite and amicable, but it’s clear that something is still wrong. After promising to get together more often, Shigure leaves the shop, presumably to go home. Of course, her four cats are still worried about her, so they tail her inconspicuously. On the train, they realize she’s not headed in the right direction. In other words, she’s not going home.

Instead, she heads to a cliff, as the night settles in, and a storm starts to brew. I’m not going to lie, it looks like the woman is about to kill herself. Obviously, that’s not what is going down, but you can’t blame the cats for overreacting because Shigure was sure acting strangely. Anyway, they rush to save her, but all wind up going over the cliff into the waters below.

Back at home, Shigure realizes that she’s depressed because the cats don’t sleep with her in the summer because it’s too hot. She misses them. So, for one night only, they agree to have a slumber party. Cuddled up together all night long, they’re lucky nobody dies.

 

Our Take

Seeing that this was a Shigure-centric episode, you don’t even know how tempted I was to skip over this one entirely. It’s not that she’s a “bad” character, but she is a bit much, and she doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the show’s thematic elements.

On top of that, we only had a few scenes with our favorite cats: Chocola, Vanilla, and Cacao. The smallest, mintiest of the bunch had a small subplot showcasing her continuing relationship with Chiyo, the stray girl she helped out a few weeks ago. Such a nice scene, but ridiculously short. Vanilla got to be her weird self for an even shorter period (I think 42 seconds of the episode’s total run time), and Chocola didn’t get to do a damn thing. I’m just going to come right out and say it: if Chocola isn’t involved, it’s NOT going to be a great episode.

With all that other crap aside, it was nice to see the house cats working together for a change. There are only so many times we can watch Azuki and Coconut fight or Maple unintentionally make Cinnamon “moist.” We’ve lived through the tropes, now let’s explore the characters instead.

I’d really like to see Maple take charge more often. She seems to be the one Shigure trusts the most, and should be the one to take over when their owner is in a funk; however, she remains the most reserved member of the team. It’s not that she’s shy either. When she does speak, it’s at a reasonable volume, and no subjects seem to be taboo with her. But when it’s time to take charge, the louder, more developed personalities, like Coconut and Azuki, tend to drown her out. You got to stand up for yourself, Maple. Nobody else in that damn house will.

I get that Shigure is sad—we all get sad sometimes. That doesn’t excuse how irresponsible she acted throughout the entire episode. When you have cats, you have responsibilities. Sorry, Shig, when you have four independent lives that are dependent on you, you lose the luxury of having a breakdown. Sure, these girls can cook a dinner every now and again, but overall they need you to survive. So if you need help, find help. Talk to someone, get medication, do whatever it is you need to do. But when you’re needed you have to actually be there.

Did I just put way too much thought into a tongue-in-cheek anime?

Yes.

Yes, I believe I did.