WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 1 of With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun, "Untitled," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Clocking in at only a minute-twenty-five, with two distinct segments, With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun comes off surprisingly more like a 4-panel webcomic than a fully-fledged anime. Interestingly, the manga of the same name that the show is based on is not a 4-panel comic -- each "segment's" source material takes up approximately two pages.
While some may wonder at this short runtime for an anime, the brevity actually works in the show's favor. Like many of the webcomics it can be mistaken for, it draws its humor from portraying everyday situations in an unexpected way, or subverting our expectations with the ending. This, working with the series' fast pace, keeps jokes from overstaying their welcome, as well as keeping the viewer from having the time to attempt to predict the punchline.
As a result of the fast pace, clarity of speech and visuals is paramount, and as a result, the makers of the anime chose to follow the manga very closely, as well as having speech appear written over some frames. A lot of work clearly went into stylizing the text to fit the scene and voice actors' performances, as well as timing the text to appear as the words are being said, and not before. While this cuts down on misinterpretations, it does also have the added effect of making the show look more like a motion comic than a fully-fledged anime.
Another reason that the show may appear more like a motion comic than an anime is the lack of full animation. While most anime have limited animation, With a Dog AND a Cat takes it to the extreme, often using tweens, or the aforementioned text in order to give the appearance of movement without actually drawing any new frames. Given how short the anime is, one might expect something a bit more fluid, though there is an argument to be made that such impact frames increase the absurdity of the situation and help keep the pace.
But by far the biggest draw for the show is its premise -- a human living with, and caring for, both a cat and a dog. This famous oil-and-water mix, as any cat or dog owner will know, is rife with hilarious situations and altercations. If cats can be funny when there's no dog and vice versa, then with both, the jokes basically write themselves.
With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun is a short, comedy-filled show that knows its source material and has a laser-focus on its goal of making you laugh. At under two minutes long, there's no reason not to give the first episode a watch and see if it can bring a little light into your day.
