I am looking forward to this novel. One of my favorite reads last year was a modern Japanese novel,
The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa. Therefore I am curious to read another cat book from a different era.
Perhaps a quick overview of the Meiji era of Japanese history (time period when the book was written) might be helpful in understanding the satire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_(era)