If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Chainsmoker Cat is the grossest, most honest portrayal of addiction in anime [Popverse Jump]

Netflix is delivering one of the most memorable anime in recent years and it is, arguably, about cat girls getting high.

Popverse Jump Header Chainsmoker Cat — Image credit: Netflix / Popverse

Features by Trent Cannon, Senior Contributing writer

Published on Mon Sep 21 2026

I find myself utterly confused by Chainsmoker Cat. Here is an anime that begins with a series of fart and poop jokes, portraying the main character as disgustingly messy to the point where family refuses to visit. There is gross-out humor from start to finish, but it is almost a case of misdirection for the raw, painful impact that addiction can have on people’s lives.

Chainsmoker Cat is a difficult watch, but that is kind of the point. The opening moments inflict a surprising amount of poop and vomit on the screen for a show that is, obstinately, about a cute cat girl. It takes the horrors of addiction, even addiction to a legal substance like tobacco, and delivers it into a package that initially feels relatively harmless. That is the beauty of the anime and the part that makes me so damn intrigued by it.

Chainsmoker Cat Farting — Image credit: Netflix

I’ve talked about being the child of an addict before and how it colors my perception of most media, particularly those dealing with forgiveness or family issues. Right from the first scene of Chainsmoker Cat, I got the vibe that this was going to be a little bit more than it initially seemed.

It is something that could be lost on people who haven’t experienced addiction, either first or second hand, in the past. As Yaniko lit up a cigarette butt she found in the trash while desperate for a hit of nicotine, only to make herself violently and predictably ill, my wife sat beside me, shaking her head and bemoaning how weirdly gross it was. And she was right. It was weirdly gross.

And yet, I couldn’t stop watching it.

Most of the overtly gross moments were in the opening episode, seemingly as a sort of shock to the system of new fans, but it remained as a sort of background noise to the rest of the show. As memorable as many of those moments were, they weren’t what the show was about. It was about how dehumanizing and demoralizing addiction can be, how it destroys people even as it gives them what they think they want. While Chainsmoker Cat dresses it all up in a more palatable way by filling the screen with cute cat girls, there is a seriousness to how it portrays addiction that feels almost too real.

I’ve watched my mother dig bottles out of the trash, hoping there are enough dregs at the bottom to satisfy her. I saw her lose jobs and friends and isolate family when she was gripped by her need for her next fix. While Yaniko’s actions in Chainsmoker Cat are exaggerated for comedic effect, they felt oddly, frustratingly real to me.

Chainsmoker Cat Crouching — Image credit: Netflix

But the hardest blow to me came in the second half of the season with the reveal that Yaniko’s mother is also a smoker, albeit a more functional one than her daughter. We get influenced by our parents in weird, almost imperceptible ways that follow us for years. While it isn’t stated in the episode, my mind immediately went to the idea that Yaniko picked up her smoking habit from her mother, that this was learned behavior inadvertently passed on and intensified.

The overall lesson of Chainsmoker Cat is that… well, there is no lesson. Yaniko doesn’t get better. She doesn’t overcome her addiction with the help of family and friends. She simply exists from one moment to the next, never making any true effort to get better even when presented with evidence that she is hurting herself and the ones she loves. Addiction is ugly and messy and, though stories like to tell us differently, not everyone gets better.

Most people won’t think this deeply about an anime about a catgirl whose apparent superpower is being grossly addicted to cigarettes, but that is what trauma does to you; it changes the way you process the world. While the poop and fart and puke jokes and the harmless design of the characters present addiction in a way that feels palatable for general audiences, Chainsmoker Cat satisfies a surprisingly dark corner of my mind in a way few shows have.

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to: