Written by: Jaylin Emond-Hardin | Entertainment Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe amount of time you spent together probably matters, but less time doesn\u2019t mean less love. Whether it\u2019s a day or year, human or cat, and even if we may never see them again, there are those who are irreplaceable in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All it took was for me to see one quote from Syou Ishida\u2019s book, \u201cWe\u2019ll Prescribe You a Cat,\u201d on Instagram \u2014 and I was hooked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The novel, translated from Japanese by E. Madison Shimoda, explores the concept of prescribing a cat as medication for those who find the mysterious Nakagy\u014d Kokoro Clinic for the Soul. Often puzzled by this strange prescription, patients \u201ctake\u201d their cat for the prescribed amount of time and find monumental changes in their lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After falling in love with \u201cWe\u2019ll Prescribe You a Cat,\u201d I quickly searched for more translated works by Japanese authors, and found \u201cDays at the Morisaki Bookshop\u201d by Satoshi Yagisawa and \u201cBefore the Coffee Gets Cold\u201d by Toshikazu Kawaguchi at The Book Bin in Salem. With similar life-changing premises as \u201cWe\u2019ll Prescribe You a Cat,\u201d it made me wonder why these novels were becoming so popular in the US. After all, until recently, I had never seen any books translated into English from another language in stores unless they were manga. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn Japanese fiction, readers are finding comforting stories about ordinary lives transformed by small adjustments of attitude, suggesting positive change is something we can all reach if we are open to it,\u201d said Jane Lawson, deputy publisher at Doubleday Publishing, suggesting that readers are finding what may not be in English literature in its Japanese counterpart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This then led me to Korean Dramas, or K-Dramas, subbed and dubbed anime, movies and shows. Slice-of-life plots and heroes with super abilities were the majority of what I found, but they all had one similar theme: a life-changing experience for the better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The popularity of Japanese literature, K-dramas and other media from these regions is part of the \u201cHallyu,\u201d or Korean Wave, that started in the 1990s and gained momentum in the 2000s. Who could forget Psy\u2019s hit song \u201cGangnam Style,\u201d which rocked 2012?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As these books continue to hit shelves and gain popularity, I would recommend them wholeheartedly. It wasn\u2019t until I read \u201cWe\u2019ll Prescribe You a Cat\u201d that I realized how close to home Ishida\u2019s words had hit and how my own cat has helped me immensely in the last few months, even as he bites my hands while I type this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written by: Jaylin Emond-Hardin | Entertainment Editor \u201cThe amount of time you spent together probably matters, but less time doesn\u2019t mean less love. Whether it\u2019s a day or year, human or cat, and even if we may never see them again, there are those who are irreplaceable in our lives.\u201d All it took was for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5559,1123,5552,2338,1195,4426,5555,5553,5554,5205,5551,53,507,5557,410,5560,5558,5556,5550,1556],"class_list":["post-22120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-book-bin","tag-books","tag-cat-books","tag-cats","tag-coffee","tag-cozy-books","tag-gangnam-style","tag-hallyu","tag-k-drama","tag-k-pop","tag-korean-wave","tag-movies","tag-oregon","tag-psy","tag-salem","tag-satoshi-yagisawa","tag-syou-ishida","tag-toshikazu-kawaguchi","tag-translated-media","tag-western-oregon"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22120"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22125,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22120\/revisions\/22125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}