Narration alternates between human and cat perspectives, often to humorous or emotional effect. The novel is brief, can be easily digested in less than a couple of hours, and is split into four short linked novelettes, each about a different female human character and the cat they care for. The novel elaborates on the OVA’s barely-hinted source of Miyu’s emotional distress - she has a weird on-off relationship with her ex-college best friend Tamaki’s male friend Nobu that when it implodes ends up with her not only losing her sort-of-boyfriend but also destroying her closest friendship. At first glance it starts as an expanded version of the OVA, with the titular “she” (now named Miyu) finding the abandoned white cat Chobi in a box. Think “heartbroken teens pining anxiously for a couple of hours”, and that’s a reasonably reductive yet accurate description for much of Shinkai’s oeuvre.įirst off is 2013’s novel adaptation She and Her Cat, written by Naruki Nagasawa and “inspired by” Makoto Shinkai. Whereas Miyazaki’s works for Studio Ghibli are usually (mostly) widely accessible, often following action/adventure/fantasy templates, Shinkai’s works tend to be more introspective, usually with a singular focus on a central, idealised relationship between a couple usually separated by something - whether it be space, time, sometimes both, or perhaps some other impediment. Fellow AniTAY author and editor Protonstorm (who currently resides in Japan and so has been lucky enough to see it already) recently reviewed Suzume here. April 2023 brings his newest production, Suzume, to western theatres. Often incorrectly identified as “the next Hayao Miyazaki”, Japanese filmmaker Makoto Shinkai certainly found international success and acclaim following the release of his 2016 film Your Name, which he then followed up with the slightly less widely rapturously received (but still extremely successful) Weathering With You in 2019.

She and her cat