Doukyonin wa Hiza might be called shameless, but I hope that never changes.

As the cat anime I’ve been waiting for all my life, I suppose I could look at Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue. one of two ways.  It might be seen to serve as a weekly fix to help salve the pain of having to live a cat-free life at home.  But it could also make things worse by reminding me of just what I’m missing out on.  And truthfully, as much as I love this series I’ve been finding the latter is winning out – never do I feel the absence more profoundly than during (and especially after) watching an episode of Doukyonin wa Hiza.

As if this show weren’t pitched to my frequency enough as is – cats, books, a writing addiction – there’s the whole introvert thing too.  I have a theory on being an introvert, which is that while we can learn – with a great deal of patience and hard work – to live with our anxiety and become more comfortable in social and public situations, we’re never “cured”.  I think of people like me as “recovering introverts”, and we can fool people pretty well once we get our act down.  But deep inside, we know who we are – we knows the pleasures of solitude and the rigors of forced companionship.

Are cats naturally introverts too?  A lifetime of experience with them leads me to believe that the answer is yes.  Cats are like people in that they come in an infinite variety of natures, and I’ve certainly known and loved some clearly extrovert felines.  But mostly, they’re like Haru and like me – they’re happiest living a quiet life where they can be alone when the need strikes, and share time with those they’re closest to the rest of the time.  That’s not to say they can’t adapt to more social situations, but if they can’t do so on their own terms they tend to be very stressed out.

It was downplayed in the episode (for narrative reasons, I would argue) but what Hiroto did to Subaru this week was a pretty big violation, if you ask me.  Drop-ins are bad enough for anyone, much less an introvert, much less one with social anxiety disorder – but to bring kids?  God, I hate it so much when that happens – I have since I was a kid myself.  I felt every particle of Subaru’s – and Haru’s – stress over this surprising turn of events.  It was actually a good thing for once that Kawase-san was there, because Kawase is basically an overgrown child himself – he could relate to them on their level and take some of the heat off Subaru to do the same.

While this is a generally not an ultra-dark drama but rather a wistful and sometimes comedic one, and the events of the episode were tailored to that style, Doukonin wa Hiza absolutely does get what it’s like to live through this.  That leads me to believe the mangaka is probably every bit as much an introvert as a cat lover, because this just felt too authentic to believe otherwise.  Hiroto’s younger siblings provided the full range of experiences – a toddler, twin 8 year-olds, and a middle-school girl named Nagisa who Subaru barely remembered from when she was the toddler’s age.  She at least offered him a chance to relate, given her love of books – but the nature of his neuroses actually made this the worst of all for Subaru (through no fault of Nagisa’s) because he had to try and connect with her on a human level.

Control is, absolutely, a big part of this.  And damn, this ep just nailed that aspect of it.  It’s the lack of control that always freaked me out when drop-ins happened, especially kids – what the hell are they up to?  Are they bothering the cats too much?  Are they making a mess?  What if they break something?  Cats in my experience are very much the same – they like to be in control of things, and the unexpected is not their friend.  Haru comes through like a trooper when the 3 year-old takes liberties with her – and yes, in my experience even stressed-out felines will tend to take it easy on small children.

That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, so they say – and so it is for both Subaru and Haru, I suppose.  She gets to go berserker mode over Chinese food and play with Kawase’s irresistible feather stick, and he actually eats for a change – and sees that he can survive even such a calamitous day.  In real life this would probably have thrown Subaru into a panic attack, but I don’t begrudge Doukyonin not going there – it’s only got 12 episodes for us to share Subaru’s development.  Hell, it may even convince him to suffer through an autograph event – which actually is something he should do (on his own terms) as part of his recovery.  And at the end of the day at least the two introverts have each other to take solace in – which is why having Haru in his life is every bit as much a positive step for Subaru as it is for her to be a part of it.