Pros
- Fun slice of life anime that reveals some inner workings of Japanese corporate life
- Giant cat that behaves like a human
- Relatable protagonist
Cons
- No real major conflict outside the daily struggle of everyday living
Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu (The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today) Review
Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu or The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today is a relaxing anime that portrays the everyday life of a young female professional in a seemingly large and demanding Japanese corporation.
The appeal of this anime is that the protagonist isn’t some high school student or college student. Instead, the hero of our story is Saku, a young salaried worker in a nameless Japanese business. Nameless entities in any literature generally represent their real-world versions—that we never quite understand what role Saku occupies means that she can be anyone.
In short, while Saku is a woman, she’s a symbol for all young Japanese professionals who find themselves overworked, underpaid, and struggling on their own.
The anime illustrates some common expectations held by Japanese businesses: excessive overtime hours that many times results in sleeping at work overnight, late night drinking with the boss, and too few hours for taking care of oneself. There are a few other revelations about professional corporate life throughout the series.
The series doesn’t have one connecting theme, though there are some character stories sprinkled throughout. These story arcs give the series a sense of continuity across the otherwise episodic narrative of a cat acting as a domestic partner to a busy young female professional.
Those who want a more serious plot may want to look elsewhere. There is no serious critique about Saku’s life, nor is there any anger at the society that has come to accept such a life for its young adults. In a way, there’s a kind of acceptance, one that is maybe illustrative of a larger Asian attitude toward accepting one’s role in society rather than fighting to improve it.
The characters around Saku certainly accept the strangeness of an enormous bipedal cat in their community. Saku’s elderly neighbor doesn’t question it. Nor does the clerk or manager at the grocery store where Yukichi, the cat, shops. In fact, they accept this strangeness, reasoning that it must be someone in costume.
Of course the implication is that in our society today, perhaps in Japan, the United States, and around the world, single professionals can no longer survive on their own. That’s illustrated through the before and after presentation of Saku’s apartment prior to her discovery and adoption of Yukichi.
Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu or The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today is a fun, relaxing anime for viewers who want to see more mature, mundane struggles of everyday living in an increasingly demanding world. While the anime itself is fun and cute to watch, its underlying implications regarding the real world for young professionals is bleak. It’s no wonder the cat, however masterful, is depressed.
Read reviews of other relaxing anime below.
