Feline Friday is my chance to celebrate famous cats across the arts, whether their origins are in gaming, film, anime, literature or anywhere else.

If you have a request for a future feline, please let me know on Twitter.

イヅツミ (Izutsumi)

First appearance: Dungeon Meshi chapter 32 (2017)

Delicious in Dungeon is a quirky, unique story set in a mythical realm. One day, an elaborate fallen kingdom appears, with the promise that whoever can conquer its many floors will become its new ruler. Eager adventurers brave this hazardous dungeon en masse, including one such party led by the Touden siblings, Laios and Falin.

When an expedition goes awry and Falin is devoured by a red dragon, Laios and his remaining allies resolve to rescue her immediately, surviving off of the dungeon’s monsters for sustenance. It’s not a universally appealing notion, and one member — the solemn swordsman Shuro — returns to his homeland on the Eastern Archipelago, gathering up his troops before commencing his own rescue mission.

Amongst his group of retainers is a masked ninja, Asebi. She doesn’t have much to say, but when she comes across Laios and company, learning that they’ve been dabbling in dark magic in an effort to revive Falin, she jumps ship to forcibly join their squad instead.

The reason for this, is that she has been inflicted with a curse that has fused her once human body with a beast; a curse she figures they would be best suited to remedy. That’s right, our girl isn’t just a girl… she’s a cat-girl. Enter: the nekomimi.

And this is how the Touden faction gains its newest member. Her real name is Izutsumi, having been branded with the moniker Asebi as some kind of messed up form of ownership once she shacked up with Shuro’s folks. I’d judge it more harshly, were it not for the fact that I myself renamed Lafayette once I adopted her, as well.

Izutsumi is a fiery and immature young lady, standoffish to the point of antagonistic. She very quickly rubs her new colleagues the wrong way with her impulsive behaviour, and worst of all, she has awful table manners. That’s a major no-no in this narrative.

At a glance, it appears as though the Touden crew are in over their head — oh no, she’s a bitch!! — but what they soon learn is that Izutsumi is just extremely defensive. Her upbringing has made her fiercely independent, living life as she sees fit and rejecting whatever she deems as unnecessary.

Long story short, she joins the fluffy little boi Hakutou as our next honorary tsundere kitty.

Having been afflicted with some monsterism for so long, Izutsumi has picked up a great many feline traits such as curling up into a ball to sleep or hissing at her enemies. Indeed, the line between human and beast has become so blurred, she’s actually started to more closely resemble the latter.

On the plus side, this means that she has peerless agility, bounding about the battlefield with the grace of a gymnast (or I guess, a cat). When the situation suits her, this makes her a helpful ally against slower, bulkier monsters like golems or Trump voters. As time goes on, she even starts to open up a little, accepting her new brood as kin and maybe, just maybe adding some mushrooms into her diet.

Considering how late Izutsumi was enlisted to the roster — roughly 40 chapters into the manga, or 19 episodes out of the 24 that make up season one of the anime — I figured she was only a temporary addition; a minor plot element who would be shed before too long. So you can imagine my delight when the intro for the following episode had been altered to include her amongst the central quartet of protagonists.

As one commenter so succinctly put it, “Izutsumi really joining in the OP like she’s a DLC character”.

The meaning of this, at least for me personally, was that I was open to becoming invested in Izutsumi as a character. She wasn’t just some two-bit nobody, she was a fully fledged member of the Dungeon Meshi crew; an added dash of spice into a carefully brewed concoction.

It’s a risky proposition, because historically making such an amendment to the cast is deemed the likely moment a television show “jumps the shark”. That was my initial suspicion as to why they brought Falin back, only to remove her in short order. But what I later realised is that the post-dragon arc of Delicious in Dungeon is all about change. Change from the familiar formula, change from the relative safety of ravenous dungeon spelunking. And with Izutsumi’s inclusion, change from our tight-knit group to grow into something even better.

Just as was the case with Laios and company, I welcomed her with open arms, and I hope that you will, too. So be sure to add an extra place at the dinner table for our feisty feline friend, and beware of any potential curses that could be lurking in the shadows this spooky season.