Nyaight of the Living Cat Episode 1: Kunagi’s Past, the Cat Cafe, and the Birth of the Nyandemic

Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1 finally dropped on Sunday, July 06, 2025, after a screening at the Crunchyroll stage at Anime Expo 2025. Author Hawkman and illustrator Mecha-Roots' series has, at last, been brought to life thanks to the team's efforts at OLM Studios.

This particular manga, now anime, too, is a unique concept in itself. Cats, owned by nearly 90% of the population, became the source of a "Nyandemic". Upon touching or being licked by them, humans turned into cats. Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1 introduces the setting for such a distinct world and how it started.

Protagonist Kunagi and his friends were brought into the spotlight as they sought safety, chased by a huge clowder of adorable cats. But these little creatures were as deadly as they were cute.

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Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1: Chased by a clowder of doom

Tanishi as a cat (Image via OLM Studios)

Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1 began with a group of three frantically running from something. As the scene focuses, it is revealed to be a massive clowder of cats. One of them, named Tanishi, trips and falls, leading to him being surrounded by the cats. They start to rub against and lick him, turning him into a cat, and his friends Kunagi and Kaoru watch in horror.

As it stands, the world was overrun by cats in the year 20XX. It all started when selective cat breeding birthed a peculiar cat, termed the "Origin," with a virus called the N.N. virus. This virus would proceed to spread to other cats and then to humans through physical touch. But here, the virus reacted with human DNA to them into cats. Thus began the Nyandemic.

Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1 reverted back to Kunagi and Karou. Nowhere was safe from the cats. At one point, the outside cats were clawing to be let in, and Kunagi felt the urge to do so, but Kaoru punched him back to reality. Eventually, they stumbled upon a high-pressure water spray in a storage room, which helped them escape the mall, and they drove off.

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Nyaight of the Living Cat Episode 1: Kunagi’s past and the Birth of the Nyandemic

Kunagi (Image via OLM Studios)

The episode then featured a flashback to a time before the Nyandemic - Kunagi and Kaoru worked at a cat cafe. The former was immensely fond of cats and was extremely protective of them, taking care to feed them in time and replace what they used in the cafe. Nyaight of the Living Cat episode 1 then revealed that Kunagi had lost his memories about 4 months ago.

He was found and taken in by Kaoru and her brother, Gaku, into their cat cafe, which wasn't doing very well financially. He chose to repay their kindness by working in the cafe, and they continued helping him by giving him brain teasers to help jog his memory. But there was one peculiar thing about him - Kunagi remembered every detail about every kind of cat.

Moving on, that same day, a suspicious-looking stranger entered the cafe and was almost immediately greeted by the cats. He seemed quite friendly towards them, but touching one of them led to him transforming into one. That is where it all began, as even outside, there was nothing but people turning into cats. As Kaoru and the company made a run for it, Gaku also seemed to get infected.

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