After a disappointing update, Genshin Impact pulls out the big guns: a new cat girl

gamesradar.com:

After the disappointing release of Dehya and Mika in update 3.5, Genshin Impact is returning to Inazuma and pulling out the big guns with a new Dendro cat girl named Kirara for update 3.7. 

Kirara was announced (opens in new tab) out of nowhere this morning. New playable characters are often teased ahead of time through story missions, cutscenes, or at least lore trailers, but to my embarrassingly extensive Genshin knowledge, we'd never seen a trace of Kirara until now, making her a total surprise.

Unlike honorary Genshin cat girls like Keqing and Dehya, Kirara has actual cat tails and even paw padded feet (though those may just be her shoes, not unlike Diona's). "She's an adorable little nekomata," an accompanying blurb (opens in new tab) says of her character. "Just whisper 'the parcel delivery is gonna be late' in her ear while she's asleep, and she'll spring right up and start dashing faster than General Gorou does on the battlefield." The ears may be human, people, but we've got a bonafide cat girl on the premises. 

Kirara ‧ Cat Upon the EavesGold Level Courier of the Komaniya Express#GenshinImpact pic.twitter.com/xgBaxeN5DLApril 10, 2023

Kirara will be the first Dendro character hailing from Inazuma, but that's about all we know of her abilities for now. We can't even be sure of her rarity at this point. No other characters have been announced for update 3.7, which could suggest she's a solo five-star meant to carry the patch. 

That said, update 3.7 is coming at the tail end of the current regional arc, which is right around the time Genshin throws out a bunch of reruns with one new four-star to tide everyone over. We saw this in update 2.8 with the release of Heizou in a rerun-only patch preceding Sumeru, so I