“I Want You to Make This Cat Purr, Meow.”
What They Say:
Takane Takamine is the goddess of her high school. With perfect grades, athletic prowess, and unrivaled beauty, this student council president is the apple of everyone’s eye – including Koushi Shirota, a below-average student with no friends or social prospects whatsoever. But he’ll soon find out the secret behind Takamine’s unbelievable success – her underwear! When she strips, she can undo any of her past actions, and now that Koushi knows, Takamine won’t let him off so easy…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One series I was surprised to some degree that got a Crunchyroll pickup was this one as it’s a bit smuttier than they usually go for. The project is based on the manga by Yuichi Hiiragi which kicked off in 2019 and has ten volumes out so far with an English release through Yen Press. The adaptation itself has set Tomoe Makino to direct it from the scripts by Yu Sato. Makino has some good credits to their name, including both seasons of Aharen-san, but also the Woodpecker Detective’s Office, while Sato has a smaller list of credits but worked on all of Ninja Slayer to projectsl ike Sorairo Utility. Liden Films has definitely grown and changed over the years to meet the needs of each project and they generally have some strong production values and ways of executing a work depending on the material, which had me interested in how they’d handle this.
Shirota’s life continues to be difficult here, as he has to manage not only being Takamine’s closet but also focusing on all of his own things for school. I do like that we get the idea pretty early on that there’s more to Takamine’s interest in Shirota than just abuse, and I hope it’s not just a minimal piece teased once in a great while. Takamine’s a difficult character to enjoy on some levels because of just how she operates when it comes to the time travel, but just some of her intense personality. She does seem to be growing just ever so slightly in how quickly she’ll go to turning back time, as we see during a classroom sequence here, and that feels like a huge win. That she was holding on as she did so he could remember all the things he’s studying really makes it all the more real, considering how much she’s struggling with the culmination of it all. Her perfectionism is definitely a nearly fatal flaw that she is truly struggling with.
Where it feels like things are going to get more dangerous for Shirota is when summer break arrives, and she works to teach him one-on-one to help him. That means a lot of time together in regular clothes, which has its own appeal, but also plenty of instances of her having to strip down to keep him in line. Her teaching methods do get hilarious along the way, wearing cat ears and writhing on her bed while he has to stay focused and study, and it’s the sweetest of tortures. It’s one where the nudity side of the show comes out in full force, which is definitely more than Shirota can handle – even his ears get incredibly red which delights her so. The two do spend some fun time together without studying, since the power goes out at one point, but I love that what throws her off the most is that her cat is completely accepting of Shirota when it would normally be anything but. It’s one of the best moments, to be honest, in how she reacts.
In Summary:
The frustrating release schedule of the series for streaming in my region has me halfheartedly checking in with it since I do enjoy the absurdity of the show. But my enthusiasm for the show has certainly dwindled because of it. The episode is pretty fun overall, and seeing how Takamine is handling things with Shirota continues to work well. We get some fun with her wanting to see him succeed in school, and some summer studying has its moments as well. But the larger past the two share that is becoming clearer is a really neat part to bring in as it’s showing just how big of an impact he had on her life before, without him realizing it. It makes it so much clearer why she acts like she does and the meaningful childhood she had for a time because of him. Yeah, it’s all silly and smutty most of the time, but watching him go through the process here – and how she manages his discovery – is just hilarious.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
