Cats are a trope in many of Murakami’s novels and short stories. He uses them frequently, not only to explore the absurdity of everyday life but also to act as guides to various characters. In Men Without Women, cats act as a symbol of guidance from unknown forces. In “Kino,” Kino opens his bar and soon finds that a cat moves in. When Kafuku, the narrator of “Drive My Car,” visits Kino’s bar, he sees the cat and immediately makes a connection between it and Kino: “The bartender was a quiet man of about forty, and a skinny gray cat was curled up on a display shelf in a corner of the room. It appeared to be an alley cat that had moved in for the time being” (31). The impression the cat makes is that of a companion to Kino. Kafuku sees it as belonging to the bar and senses that the cat recently moved in, though only for a short period of time. 

This relationship between Kino and the cat is further explored in “Kino.” Kino sees the cat as bringing luck to him, its appearance marking the start of an uptick in his business: “The cat may have brought some good luck along with it, for after it appeared so did a scattering of customers. Some of them started to come by regularly—ones who took a liking to this little backstreet bar with its […] gray cat sacked out in a corner” (154). The cat acts as a guardian and guide for Kino. The cat brings him good luck, but also acts as a warning. When the cat disappears, snakes arrive, coinciding with Kino’s journey away from his bar to finally heal. The cat is a companion that helps Kino make sense of the world around him, even if the cat cannot explicitly communicate with him.