The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today – Episode 13

Posted on by Irina

Here it is, the final episode of The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today. I’m going to miss this little show. It was a nice soft start to the weekend. The good news is that this last episode was wonderful! So at least we leave on a high.

I figured the last episode would have some returning characters but would have bet on Saku’s supervisor rather than Yulkichi’s kitten fan. Not that I wasn’t glad to see her again. I hope she does become a celebrity.

So we all know that pictures of cats blowing up on the internet is a thing and that pet owners cannot stop showing you dozens of pictures of their pets. I would have liked to see them explore how Saku feels about not being able to do that. Also, I think they should have dug a little deeper into the idea of keeping Yukichi a secret in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I think Saku’s fears are perfectly founded. I could certainly see her worst fears coming true. But we’ve also seen that everyone who does know Yukichi has accepted him pretty readily without much question.

That in itself might be something to explore but when I really think about it, if my friend had a giant cat who could make us delicious snacks but was otherwise just a really big cat, I would be very cool with that as well. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that!

The second vignette sort of established everything we would need to know for the rest of the episode. In what seemed to be just a cute random scene, and The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today does have a lot of random scenes so I didn’t question it too much at the time, we see kitten Yukichi watching his beloved Umyuu-Sea for what appears to be the first time. This sweet but seemingly random little moment is going to grow into the warm heart of the episode and have me sniveling by the end.

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

In case I haven’t made it clear enough, I identify with Saku quite a bit. I feel very represented! Except I don’t actually have a giant cat to set me straight so I’m just the mess version of Saku. I like to think of myself as a work in progress. A fuzzy little caterpillar if you will! One day I will find my giant domestic cat and reach my full potential. Just you wait! In the meantime though, I got to enjoy seeing someone else obsess over some silly and probably imagined issue for one night, try something random that probably didn’t work, and then forget about it. I have done it a lot. Not with my mind going slow, thankfully anime keeps me intellectually spry! It does!!! But tons of other things. I tried to meditate an entire evening before deciding I was just not the type who meditated and also I had other ways to relieve stress. Icing my face for beautiful skin or buffing my nails with oil and soaking my hair in coconut for shine and strength and something else because they were just so awful you see. And then completely forgetting that concern the next day. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I should exercise my mind more.

But let’s get to the best part and in my opinion the perfect place to leave these characters. Once again we go back to Yukichi and Saku’s meeting. And I would complain about this but it’s a little different this time. It’s entirely from Yukichi’s point of view and picks up after right after Saku brings him home for the first time. We already had the gist of the story. Saku is a mess and so is her apartment but she’s still the well-meaning goof we all love. And Yukichi is a very masterful cat who pretends to only be annoyed by her but can’t seem to not care about Saku.

The whole gimmick here is that Saku ends up being the helpless little creature that Yukichi has to take care of. And to accomplish that he really has to push the limits of his mastery. And somewhere along the way, they go from strangers to family. But we see it through Yukichi’s eyes who is trying as hard as he can to fool himself into believing that he’s just hanging around for the food or because he’s afraid Saku will die without him or something. So the roles are reversed but Yukichi never wanted a pet human and feels like he has to pretend to be all aloof.

As I watched him obviously melt, it made me realize yet again, it’s really hard to love something you have to take care of. I’m sure it’s possible but in my experience, after you’ve put in a couple of sleepless nights trying to keep someone other than yourself happy and healthy, you just naturally start to really care about them. Maybe it’s some sort of Stockholm syndrome. I have had cats that clearly hated me and would dump me for the first home that gave them better food without a second’s hesitation and still, I would have sold a kidney for them.

But the trick is, the real secret to winning the whole thing, you have to take care of something or someone that sometimes also takes care of you. You manage to do that and you are golden. And from where I sit, I’m thinking that Yukichii and Saku will be just fine!

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1 thought on “The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today – Episode 13”

  1. This was such a cute ending! And I loved that the reason Yukichi likes that idol band is because they taught him how to make his first recipe! I can truly sympathize with Saku in forgetting her words. If I go too long without talking to people face-to-face, I also have a hard time finding the right words to say when I’m suddenly in a social situation. It’s really embarrassing when I can’t even remember simple words!

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