book review she and her cat

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

She and Her Cat — Makoto Shinkai’s feline fable

• She and Her Cat — Makoto Shinkai’s feline fable on x (opens in a new window)
• She and Her Cat — Makoto Shinkai’s feline fable on facebook (opens in a new window)
• She and Her Cat — Makoto Shinkai’s feline fable on linkedin (opens in a new window)
• She and Her Cat — Makoto Shinkai’s feline fable on whatsapp (opens in a new window)

Jonathan McAloon

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

An unnamed narrator takes shelter from the rain. He thinks about his mother, and wonders how his life has come to this. The first strong indication that this narrator isn’t human is how far a passer-by has to bend to look at him. “Her hair and my fur were heavy from the rain, filling our surroundings with a lovely smell.”

The perspective of Makoto Shinkai’s novel She and Her Cat , a bestseller in Japan, swaps between humans and the cats that bond with them; or rather between cats and their humans.

Miyu, a college administrator, struggles to express herself, and her inability to ask for clarity about a casual relationship leaves her feeling lonely — until she finds Chobi, abandoned. Reina is a talented student at Miyu’s college who makes the mistake of believing that gifts are all she needs to succeed. She is supported by Mimi, a small stray who projects confidence but is aware of her fragility. Cookie, Mimi’s kitten, helps a manga artist called Aoi to process a friend’s death. And Kuro, the dominant feral in the neighbourhood, comforts Shino, a woman who has grown old giving herself to other people. There is a wider supporting cast in their Tokyo suburb, human and feline. (As well as canine.)

She and Her Cat is a light-hearted, wistful novel. It’s good on depicting the small lives that its cat-linked human protagonists lead and the sense of alienation and disappointment they carry. Cat and human subject matter are linked thematically too. Cookie, a house pet, longs to go outside, but she finds the reality just as daunting as her agoraphobic owner does.

The finer descriptive passages are seen through cats’ eyes: a depressed human “spent almost all the time in bed with her eyes closed, and slept as much as we cats do”. It is a quirk of this world that cats understand human language and rituals, but cats remain as inscrutable to people as they historically have.

This book’s 2013 Japanese original, written with the novelist Naruki Nagakawa, is based on a five-minute animated film by Shinkai from 1999; its black-and-white palette accentuates everyday urban details while adding a dreamlike wash. Shinkai’s work has broken records. His 2016 film Your Name is among the most successful animes of all time.

Best Books of the Year 2022

From economics, politics and history to science, art, food and drink — and, of course, fiction — our annual round-up brings you top titles picked by FT writers and critics

But whatever the balance of creativity was between him and Nagakawa when turning the story into continuous prose, their collaboration — or Ginny Tapley Takemori’s translation — hasn’t quite managed to bring to life the richness and delicacy of the original short film or of Shinkai’s other works available in the UK. Events are flagged before they happen. Characters baldly announce the lessons they learn and other revelations. “That would be an incredible coincidence,” they remark about plot contrivances. Dialogue is often stilted, unless it’s between animals.

The cats themselves remain magical. As cats do. But everything is heavy-handed, where Shinkai’s work in other media feels more — for want of a better word — feline.

She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, Doubleday £10, 160 pages

Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café

Promoted Content

Follow the topics in this article.

• Books Add to myFT
• Fiction Add to myFT
• Jonathan McAloon Add to myFT

Books, books & more books.

Straight to your inbox..

Sign up to our emails and be the first to know about new releases, special offers and more.

Become a Readings Member to make your shopping experience even easier. Sign in or sign up for free!

Hello Readings Member ! Go to the member centre to view your orders, change your details, or view your lists, or sign out .

Australian Book Retailer of the Year 2021

She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai, Naruki Nagakawa & Ginny Tapley Takemori (trans.)

Reviewed by Alexandra Gleihs

She and Her Cat is a collection of Japanese short stories centred around the power of connection one can have with their pets. In classic Japanese style, it evokes a slice-of-life feeling. While reading this book, I felt as if I could be any one of the women at the centre ofthe story, each of them battling familiar issues of loneliness, mental illness and grief. While I thought this might be a sad read to begin with, the presence of the cats in each story brings hope and comfort.

The cats are definitely the stand-out characters here. One particular highlight is Mimi, the bashful but feisty stray, who forms a bond with an aspiring painter.

She and Her Cat doesn’t try to tell a whole story from beginning to end. Instead, it asks the reader to exist in transient moments, and in doing so, allows readers to consume the storymore as a stream of consciousness. The experience can be odd to read at first, but for me, I found it very Zen. Combined with gorgeous illustrations at the beginningof each story, She and Her Cat is a highly enjoyable short-story collection which I gladly have added to my growing shelf of translated fiction.

She and Her Cat

Makoto Shinkai, Naruki Nagakawa (trans.), Ginny Tapley Takemori (trans.)

In stock at 6 shops, ships in 3-4 days In stock at 6 shops

Sign up to receive our emails.