If Cats Disappeared From The World: Embracing What Truly Matters

What would you sacrifice for an extra day of life?

If you grab a copy of Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared From The World (here I’m talking about the UK Picador edition) and check its back cover, that’s exactly the question this little book will throw at you.

What do you deem necessary in life? What do you consider to be more important than your own existence?

Finding it tricky to answer them? Well, these are some of the questions that our narrator will have to face.

First, a Quick Synopsis

If Cats Disappeared from the World is a 2012 book by Genki Kawamura that was only translated into English by Eric Selland in 2018. Our narrator is a 30-year-old postman (whose name we don’t know) who finds out he’s only got a week to live due to a terminal illness. He lives with his cat, Cabbage. His mom died a few years ago. He’s cut contact with his dad. And it’s also been a few years since he broke up with his girlfriend. He loves films. He has a best friend. And… that’s been his life. And now he’s dying? After receiving such shocking news, he goes home to find the Devil. The Devil wears Hawaiian T-shirts and is a cheery, talkative fellow who offers him a deal. If he allows the Devil to make one thing disappear from the world, he gets to live another day.

But the trick is: the Devil chooses what that thing is. Our narrator only gets to give him permission in exchange for an extra 24 hours of life.

That’s the incident that ignites this introspective, thought-provoking tale of existence and mortality.

The review for the book is spoiler-free, but further down, there are spoilers for the film! If you don’t have time to read this entire review, you can find our (spoiler-free) summary at the bottom!

If Cats Disappeared From The World: Accepting Mortality By Nourishing Our Relationships

Kawamura’s prose is simple, but he gave the story a curious, engaging structure. Each chapter is one day of the week, a day in which something disappears. Throughout each chapter, the narrative successfully blends past and present as our narrator connects the thing he’s about to lose to an important person (or people) in his life and the memories they shared. He explores its importance, and by mourning the loss of that thing, whatever it may be, he slowly walks towards acceptance of his fate and understanding of the meaning of his own life.

Love has to end. That’s all. And even though everyone knows it they still fall in love. I guess it’s the same with life. We all know it has to end someday, but even so we act as if we’re going to live forever. Like love, life is beautiful because it has to end.

The question of what is truly important to make a life worth living takes different shapes as the novel progresses, but it comes down to one crucial point: nourishing our relationships. Our time may be limited, but it’s our connection with others, whether people or pets, that gives colour to our existence. And these bonds only remain and flourish if we communicate.

The Importance of Communication and Embracing Regret

Surprisingly enough, for a book about mortality, communication ends up being a key factor in the story. Our narrator soon realises that nurturing and cherishing our relationships only happens through honest and open communication with our loved ones — and that includes showing appreciation and sharing one’s sorrows.

“In order to gain something, you have to lose something,” she always said. People are always trying to get something for nothing. But that’s just theft. If you’ve gained something, it means that someone, somewhere, has lost something. Even happiness is built on someone else’s misfortune. She often reminded me of this. In fact, she considered it one of the laws of the universe.

But of course, none of us excels at relationships. That’s natural. Mistakes happen, wrong choices are made, and people drift apart. As the postman dissects his own short existence, he realises that regret and grief are natural elements of life. In one way or another, we’re always losing something or someone. Things might not have been exactly the way we wanted them to. Life, and everything in it, eventually ends. But If Cats Disappeared from the World reminds us that facing and accepting our regrets and losses is part of the journey. It’s by holding dear what remains, embracing reconnections, and appreciating the little joys that surround us that we get to enrich our lives, no matter how fleeting.

“If Cats Disappeared From The World, What Would You Do?” and Other Questions

Our narrator is inquisitive and just melancholic enough. His narration is sharp, clear, and oftentimes, poetic as he gives his own answers to questions that now become ours, as the readers. What is it that really matters? Does this really matter to me, or am I just anxious about not possessing it? Am I cultivating my own relationships the way I want to? Am I letting go of my own regrets to focus on what is truly important?

A whimsical tale that hides a heartfelt exploration of life and death, If Cats Disappear From The World portrays the dazzling beauty of life by embracing the inevitability of death. Yes, I know that you’ve heard this story a million times. But Kawamura mixes the exact doses of philosophy, drama, and humour to engage, move, and comfort us.

If Cats Disappeared From The World: The Book x The Film

Spoilers for the film ahead!

If Cats Disappeared From The World was such a success that the book was adapted into a film in 2016. Directed by Nagai Akira and starring Satoh Takeru, the film doesn’t manage to fully convey the spirit and heart of Kawamura’s book (even though Kawamura himself was one of the film’s producers).

You can only imagine how challenging it must have been to condense such a contemplative tale into 103 minutes. With limited runtime, the script lacks the philosophy and the subtlety of the book. Instead, it fully relies on visual storytelling that doesn’t resonate with the same strength. Unfortunately, our protagonist’s reflections, his relationships, and the portrayal of his memories feel rushed and, at times, confusing. That’s because the adage “show, don’t tell” is overplayed here. We’re dragged between past and present, without a clear line that separates them. What, in the book, were his inner thoughts are sometimes translated into dialogues for the screen that don’t consistently reflect his personality and his newly-found understanding of life.

It’s clear that the film wanted to let go of the literary format of the original material and create something that was fully visual and cinematic. There are several scenes in which the things that the Devil gets rid of dramatically disappear in front of our narrator’s eyes, for instance. The film also tries to highlight the theme of relationships by changing some of the story, but I feel that it actually had the opposite effect. In the movie, the postman’s loved ones forget him as the Devil erases the objects that “symbolised” certain relationships. While that never happened in the book, it allowed the film to get rid of certain sequences, streamline the narrative, and stress the theme in a very (very) clear way.

If you haven’t read the book, the film will still be emotionally impactful since some of the reflective depth of the novel made its way to its movie adaptation. If you, like me, read the book before watching the film, you’ll surely feel the difference. Either way, some of its wide shots are beautiful to look at, and Satoh Takeru delivers an excellent performance (as usual), especially as the Devil. The score is melancholic and repetitive enough to emphasise the script, while the theme song, HARUHI’s Hizumi, is the one thing that truly reflects the heart of the postman’s tale.

You can watch If Cats Disappeared from the World on:

And So… Should You Read If Cats Disappeared From The World?

If Cats Disappeared From The World gives us a narrator who embarks on an exploration of his own existence. As he discovers what he truly cherishes and realises what really makes his life worth living, we’re encouraged to reassess our own lives. This is a book that resonates and makes us a bit more aware of why we’re here on this big blue planet. Why don’t you give it a shot?

[And my fellow cinephiles, the chapter on movies is a joy to read!]

No time to read the entire review? So pin our summary!

Have you read If Cats Disappeared From The World? Or watched the film? What did you think? Share in the comments your own ideas about our postman’s story!