The summer 2026 anime season has been remarkably rich, but no new series has kept me as hungry for new episodes as The Cat and the Dragon, a lovely fantasy romp from studio OLM, known for the likes of Komi-san and contributions to The Apothecary Diaries. With 4.9 stars on Crunchyroll after some 8,500 user reviews, it's clearly hooked a lot of other people as well.

To the surprise of no one, The Cat and the Dragon begins with a cat and a dragon – specifically, an intelligent, magical Cait Sith raising an orphaned dragon whelp. Brought up alongside cats, the dragon, eventually nicknamed Uncle Wings, ultimately becomes the defender of the local Cait Sith population.

Withholding major spoilers, the first three episodes are a pacey introduction that uses cats as a vehicle for worldbuilding. Genius. Cait Sith summoned by human sorcerers become a bridge between the dragon's pride and a nearby kingdom. We soon learn that the eponymous dragon's mother is even more motherly than implied, having raised numerous distinctly-not-a-cat creatures over the years, and they're also folded into the story. The many other cats in the forest are affected by the dragon's influence and broaden the whole species' horizons.

Every episode of this series has told a small but meaningful story within its runtime while slowly adding to the overarching plot and setting up encounters to come. The world can support itself and stay compelling even with the titular dragon temporarily out of the picture, and though it does carry some of the litRPG baggage endemic in modern fantasy anime, it avoids the more tired tropes. This is not another isekai power fantasy, and the only wish being fulfilled is one humanity has held for millennia: more cats, please.

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