We’ll Prescribe You a Cat

Ishida’s (Tomato Sensei) English-language debut joins the likes of Mai Mochizuki’s The Full Moon Coffee Shop and Hiro Arikawa’s The Travelling Cat Chronicles, offering a poignant contribution to Japan’s time-honored tradition of feline-centered literature. Down a narrow alley amid Kyoto’s labyrinthine streets is the Nakagyō Kokoro Clinic for the Soul, a most unusual office staffed by odd but amiable Dr. Nikké and his efficient, prickly nurse Chitose. The clinic materializes in front of those who need it most—people with depression and ennui, and those who are feeling out of place, misunderstood, or lost. In Ishida’s five interrelated stories, listeners will encounter several such people, along with the cats prescribed as their therapy. Naruto Komatsu and Natsumi Kuroda narrate, with Komatsu voicing the men patients and Kuroda voicing the women. The narrators’ somewhat choppy delivery may not appeal to all, but their facility with the language is a delight. Above all, listeners will be moved by their deft treatment of the characters’ emotional transformations, which are infused with gentle warmth.