Every so often, a show comes along that makes you say, “Wow, this is a great premise, but I bet it worked better in the original manga.” Too Cute Crisis is such a show. Based on the manga of the same name by Mitsuru Kido, the story follows a would-be alien invasion that's abruptly stymied when the head researcher discovers how adorable Earth animals are, with the basic structure following the formula of Liza (or another alien) meeting an animal and then having a complete and total meltdown. It almost certainly would have made for a great series of three-to-five-minute episodes, or maybe even ten-to-fifteen, but it gets old very quickly as a full-length show.

Or at least, the first three-quarters of it do. By about the tenth episode, the series settles into itself and starts to trust that viewers will still watch even if things are decidedly less formulaic. The shift comes when episodes are abruptly no longer divided into four or five mini-segments and devote their entire run time to a single plot. While things needed to be developed to reach this point (e.g., Liza had to develop a bit of immunity to cuteness), it could have happened sooner. While the show is never bad, it risks losing viewers by taking most of its run to reach this point.

Despite this issue, Too Cute Crisis does a remarkably good job of depicting the joys and anxieties of being a pet parent. By the end of episode one, Liza has taken in an abandoned cat, Yozora, and this sets the stage for her to experience what many of us are familiar with how weird cats can be, even if you're not an alien who has never seen one before. Yozora is an American Curl (or at least has their defining folded-back ears; the ears came from a genetic mutation initially, so Yozora could be a sort of surprise Curl rather than a purebred), and Liza quickly learns that the breed is known for its “dog-like” nature while still being all cat. He's playful, very attached to his new mom, and acts like a cat who knows he's been saved. Liza, for her part, is both adoring and terrified that she'll do something wrong, a feeling that I'm sure many first-time pet parents are familiar with – and that even us veterans know pretty well. From the certainty that he's escaped only to find that he was hiding in the apartment to the pains of trying to take the perfect picture, Liza's adventures are a hyperbolic depiction of the truth, right down to the way that everyone is sure that their pet is the best in the whole world. The cat behavior is spot-on, with a kitten Liza meets exhibiting both the dreaded zoomies and what my family calls “psycho hopping,” when a kitten stiffens their legs and hops back and forth with their back arched. This does make the fact that Yozora vocalizes much more than Maine Coon Cat Emily stand out a bit negatively because Maine Coons are objectively the much more talkative breed. Other animals' behavior is touched on, but cats get the lion's share of the focus.

One of the major throughlines is Liza's attempt to make her shipmates understand that cats aren't some evil monsters with humanity in their thrall. Since Liza, pre-Yozora, was a paragon of intelligence and reserve, everyone is utterly convinced that anything that could change her so completely must be nefarious, and many of the interactions between Earth and the spaceship are devoted to this misunderstanding. The aliens' mockup of what they think a cat is, is one of the funniest visual gags in the show, and the disconnect between what they consider cute and Earth animals is another good joke. This helps to balance the overwhelming use of the “aliens see animals and freak out” gag that is truly done to death. Even the opening theme overuses it. Tough-as-nails soldier Shamil's “secret” meltdowns over Yozora breathe some new life into the joke towards the end, but it's still heavily overdone.

Speaking of theme songs, the ending theme is notable because each episode features pictures of staff and cast pets, ranging from dogs and cats to birds, bunnies, lizards, and even a couple of beetles. These are major highlights, and some effort is made to line the pictures up with the episodes; for example, many more rabbits show up once Garmie goes to a rabbit café, while the actions of episode six with baths and finger-chomps show up in the photos for that episode. It's an entertaining addition to the show as a whole, and while not all pictures are perfect, they're all fun to look at.

That isn't always true of the show itself, which is bland. There are different races of aliens, which is well done, but the use of thick black outlines for all of the characters is a bit grating, and anything that isn't a cute animal feels like it was just thrown up on the screen. It isn't terrible, but it also isn't all that interesting, although it must be said that alien ideas about cats are always very well rendered. (The tentacle paw pads in episode eleven are something.) Animation is very basic as well, and while the use of cat puns in the theme songs is fun, what stands out is the depiction of feline behavior rather than anything else. Given the overall theme of the show, that's to be expected.

Too Cute Crisis takes a bit too long to come into its own. It drags watching it as a binge but taken singly, each episode has its excellent moments, whether that's understanding that saying Liza was “destined” to meet Yozora means that he was destined to be abandoned/traumatized, the terrors of the quest for social media likes, or the heartbreak of nature documentaries. It may have worked better as shorts, which would have highlighted these strengths. Still, if you can get past the lackluster visuals and discombobulated start, Too Cute Crisis confirms what many of us already know: that pets truly may save the world.