3,424 likesChainsmoker Cat (Yani Neko): Makoto Shinkai Called It "Wonderful" — Japan Reacts
Director Makoto Shinkai publicly called Chainsmoker Cat (Yani Neko) "wonderful," briefly sending the show trending. A YouTube reaction-compilation clip about it pulled 494 comments, and the top comment sits at 3,424 likes, referencing that exact trend. The discussion split between shock that the show's most chain-smoking, off-the-rails character is modeled on a real friend of the author (a claim that drew 1,423 and 861 likes in separate comments), and open admiration for how directly the anime depicts drug and smoking content despite modern broadcast standards — one comment at 389 likes favorably compared it to a 20-year-old manga that only implied similar material. It closes on a joke so on-the-nose it doubles as a genre observation about how many chain-smoking protagonists this single season somehow has.