Characters If Cats Disappeared from the World Genki Kawamura

Aloha: The Devil in a Hawaiian Shirt

In Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared from the World, the devil doesn’t arrive with horns or a pitchfork. He shows up in a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, grinning like a mirror image of the dying narrator, and answers to the nickname Aloha. Far from a conventional antagonist, Aloha is a catalyst, a confidant, and ultimately a reflection of the life the protagonist never dared to live. This analysis traces Aloha’s role from his Monday bargain to his Saturday farewell, unpacking what the devil in flip‑flops tells us about trade‑offs, identity, and the quiet beauty of a life fully accepted.

Who Is Aloha?

The narrator, a thirty‑year‑old postman who has just learned he has a terminal brain tumour, meets his doppelgänger the same afternoon. The look‑alike wears a Hawaiian shirt—a detail so incongruous that the narrator immediately dubs him “Aloha.” As the devil himself later explains, he has no fixed form; he appears however a human imagines him. To the narrator, Aloha is a freakish twin: same face, opposite personality. He is “cheerful but shallow, wearing flashy clothes, doing whatever you want, whenever you want, without worrying about what other people would think.” That description is the key to Aloha’s entire function. He is the impulse the narrator has always suppressed, the person he might have been if he had chosen differently at every crossroads.

Aloha’s Plot Role

Aloha is the engine of the story. Without his proposition—erase one thing from existence and gain an extra day of life—the narrator would simply fade toward death. Instead, Aloha appears each day to announce the next disappearance, forcing the narrator to weigh his own survival against the cost to the world. The choices are never the narrator’s to make; the devil decides, and his selections move the narrative forward. Monday he takes the mobile phone. Tuesday, standing outside the movie theatre, he decrees that movies will vanish next. Wednesday he pressures for the deletion of films. Thursday, wearing a black Hawaiian shirt printed with a nighttime ocean, he declares that cats must go. Through these erasures Aloha pushes the narrator into confrontation with his own memory, his broken relationships, and the values he has never consciously examined. By Saturday, the narrator’s refusal to let cats disappear leads Aloha to reveal his true identity, after which he walks away for good.

Motivations and Personality Traits

Aloha at first seems capricious. He cannot bring himself to erase chocolate because the cookies “are just too good,” yet he feels no qualms about wiping out phones or films. He taunts the narrator, calling him “sir” and mocking his fear of death. During the Tuesday evening collapse, Aloha appears “in subzero temperatures wearing his trademark Hawaiian shirt and shorts, sunglasses perched on top of his head,” and laughs at the narrator’s terror. But the taunting isn’t pure malice. Aloha’s role is to hold up the bargain and see what the narrator will sacrifice. The textual evidence suggests that the entire arrangement is a wager between God and the devil, modelled on the Book of Genesis. Aloha says the narrator’s case is “kind of like what happened to Adam and Eve. God and the devil made a bet.” Seen this way, Aloha is not an independent agent; he is testing a soul, though he seems to genuinely enjoy the process.

The devil’s deepest motivation emerges on Saturday. He explains, “I’m the side of yourself that you’ve never shown to the world. … I’m what you wanted to become but couldn’t.” Aloha is the sum of the narrator’s regrets—the dare he never took, the spontaneity he smothered. His mission, then, is not to drag the narrator to damnation but to make him see what he has been missing. The devil’s disappointment when the narrator refuses to erase cats is tinged with respect; he leaves only after offering the advice, “Make sure the last thing you do is done with passion. Give it your all, go all the way!” Aloha’s intentions are less about collecting souls and more about illuminating the weight of a single human life.

Chronological Arc: From Temptation to Farewell

Monday – Aloha pitches the deal in the narrator’s living room. He toys with making chocolate disappear, then settles on the mobile phone, granting one last call. The narrator dials an ex‑girlfriend and realises how isolated he has been. Aloha exits promising to return the next day.

Tuesday – In front of the cinema, Aloha springs his next demand: movies. The narrator, overwhelmed by the thought of losing the art that shaped his romance and his boyhood, collapses.

Wednesday – The devil gives the narrator half a day to choose the final film he will ever watch. After a blank‑screen screening that replays the narrator’s life, Aloha makes movies vanish, and announces clocks are next.

Thursday – Aloha arrives in the altered Hawaiian shirt, bringing a “bonus” from the previous erasures: the cat Cabbage can talk. The devil’s good cheer vanishes as he announces the next disappearance—cats. His grin is “the look of someone with evil intentions,” yet moments later the narrator’s own doppelgänger screams, “Please stop!” foreshadowing the internal conflict that will soon surface.

Friday – The narrator refuses to eliminate cats. Aloha is stunned. “Are you being serious? … Need I remind you that you’re going to die?” The exchange prompts laughter from both of them, and then Aloha discloses his nature as the unlived self.

Saturday – After the narrator wakes to find Cabbage still beside him, Aloha returns one last time. He admits, “I’m made up of all those little regrets in your life,” and encourages the narrator to pour everything into his final act before vanishing. The narrator, once terrified of Aloha, now feels “kind of sad to see you go.”

Key Relationships

With the narrator – Their dynamic swings from fear and begrudging acceptance to genuine, if odd, friendship. The narrator initially sees Aloha as a whimsical tormentor; by the end he recognises him as a part of himself. When Aloha reveals his identity, the narrator asks, “do you think I turned out okay as I am?”—a question that could only be put to a trusted reflection.

With the divine – Aloha speaks of “the man upstairs” and a bet with God. He is an instrument of a larger moral framework, not a free‑roaming demon. This sub‑plot frames the erasures as a holy experiment, making Aloha less a villain and more a necessary, uncomfortable presence.

Key Decisions and Their Consequences

Every disappearance Aloha chooses reshapes the narrator’s final days.

  • Phone → forced reconnection with the ex‑girlfriend, unlocking long‑buried memories.
  • Movies → a life‑as‑film montage that helps the narrator process his mother’s death and finally answer his ex‑girlfriend’s question about why she rewinds sad movies.
  • Clocks → the talking cat moment and the flood of recollections about his mother, culminating in the realisation that her dying wish was for reconciliation with his father.
  • Cats → the ultimate test. Aloha’s pick brings the narrator to the brink: sacrifice the creature he loves most, or accept his own death. The refusal to erase cats is the turning point of the novel. It prompts Aloha’s revelation, and the narrator’s subsequent decision to write to his father and deliver the letter in person.

Aloha’s last piece of advice—“Give it your all, go all the way!”—propels the narrator onto the bicycle with Cabbage and the letter, coasting downhill toward his father’s house.

Symbolic and Thematic Connections

Aloha embodies several of the novel’s central themes.

  • Trade‑offs and the Cost of Existence – The bargain is pure trade‑off: gain a day, lose an object. Aloha is the bargainer, forcing the narrator to confront that existence itself requires loss. The devil’s presence makes palpable the idea that “in order to gain something, you have to lose something.”

  • Memory and Identity – Aloha’s true form is composed of the narrator’s suppressed possibilities. By externalising those regrets, he forces the narrator to examine who he really is. The question “what if I’d taken the other path?” becomes a character, and that character ultimately helps the narrator accept the path he actually took.

  • Mortality and Acceptance – Aloha’s departure coincides with the narrator’s acceptance of death. The devil explains that “no one knows exactly how much time they have … Things happen when they’re meant to happen.” The narrator’s refusal to erase cats is an embrace of finitude, and Aloha’s exit confirms that the test is over.

  • Love and Sacrifice – Aloha’s demand that cats vanish forces the narrator to gauge the depth of his love for Cabbage. Choosing to die rather than make the cat disappear is the ultimate sacrifice, and the devil’s reaction—shock, then reluctant admiration—underlines that love can outweigh self‑preservation.

  • Family Estrangement and Reconciliation – Aloha’s insistence on erasing cherished things cracks open the narrator’s buried grief over his mother and his rift with his father. The revelation about unlived paths includes the chances the narrator never took to heal that relationship. Aloha’s final nudge sends the narrator toward his father, letter in hand.

Frequently Asked Questions About Aloha

1. Why is the devil called Aloha?

The nickname springs from the Hawaiian shirt the devil wears on his first visit. It’s an absurd, harmless name that belies the gravity of the pact, reflecting the narrator’s initial disbelief and the devil’s own playful menace.

2. What is Aloha’s true identity?

On Saturday, Aloha states plainly: “I’m the side of yourself that you’ve never shown to the world. … I’m what you wanted to become but couldn’t.” He is an externalised repository of the narrator’s unlived life—the cheerful, blunt, un‑self‑conscious version of himself that the narrator suppressed.

3. Did Aloha actually want the narrator to stay alive?

Aloha’s behaviour suggests he enjoyed the game and even grew fond of the narrator. He is disappointed when the narrator refuses to erase cats, yet he never coerces; he simply presents the terms. His final encouragement to live fully indicates that his purpose was not to collect a soul, but to guide the narrator toward a meaningful death.

4. Why does Aloha’s Hawaiian shirt change?

The Thursday shirt—black with an ocean‑at‑night design—mirrors the darkening stakes. The shift is never explained, but it subtly marks a mood change from casual teasing to the harsh demand that cats must go, echoing the gravity of the final test.

5. What does Aloha’s final speech reveal about the novel’s message?

Aloha tells the narrator, “Humans tend to regret the life they never lived and the choices they never made. … Over the last few days, I’ve come to realize that there’s a certain beauty in those regrets. They’re proof of having lived.” The speech re‑frames regret not as failure but as evidence of a life fully inhabited, reinforcing the book’s central claim that acceptance of imperfection is not defeat but peace.