Cats live interesting lives in manga: some fix coffee, give massages, or clean the apartment; others go to school or work in host clubs; and a few stick to the traditional feline pastimes of catching mice and grooming themselves. Here’s a look at some manga that put cats front and center.
Cat Massage Therapy (Seven Seas Entertainment) is a full-color manga set in a massage parlor where a cat is both manager and masseur. Weary workers shed their worries when the cat masseur goes to work making biscuits on their sore muscles. The first volume of this josei (aimed at young women) series is due out on December 21, so it’s a quick pick-up for last-minute shoppers; the second and final volume will be released in April. (Age 10+, $14.99)
Creepy Cat (Seven Seas Entertainment) is a 4-koma (four-panel) gag manga with a gothic look, similar to the American comic Emily the Strange. When Flora inherits an old house, she also gets a new friend, a very odd white cat with red eyes and some very strange abilities. The cat can change its shape in remarkable ways, and occasionally it opens its mouth and emits a series of identical cats, which then take over wherever they happen to be. Other cats, with the same shape but different coloring, also pop up seemingly at random, much to the puzzlement of Flora and Oscar, the local policeman, who has a mild crush on her. All the cats are smooth, rounded, and nonchalant, and they have a very feline way of appearing unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places. The artist, Cotton Valent, is from Thailand, although this book was first published in Japan. More of Valent’s cat manga can be found on the Tapas platform under the title Meawbin, the creepy cat. This manga is in full color and complete in four volumes; the first volume came out on October 19 and the second will be available in February. (Age 10+, $14.99)
I Am a Cat: The Manga Edition (Tuttle Publishing) is a manga adaptation of a classic work of Japanese literature from the turn of the 20th century. Soseki Natsume’s original novel, published in 1905, is not a cute-cat story but a satirical commentary on upper-middle-class life in Japan at a time when it was on the brink of modernizing. The story is told through the eyes of the nameless cat as he observes the humans around him, and the original novel is well known in Japan. This one-shot manga is not a warm and fuzzy story, and it doesn’t have a happy ending, but it’s a great gift for someone who is interested in Japanese life and enjoys having a cat narrator. (No rating, $14.99)
I Am a Cat Barista (Seven Seas Entertainment), by Hiro Majima, is set in a different type of cat café, one where the cats are the baristas, brewing a special cup of coffee for each customer. Each of the people who stops into the café has their own set of problems and worries, so this is really a collection of supernatural slice-of-life stories with a feline twist. The first volume of this ongoing josei series goes on sale on November 30. (Age 13+, $13.99)
I Am the Catlord’s Manservant (Yen Press) takes that joke about “Do you own the cat or does the cat own you?” to the next level. Orphaned, homeless, and deep in debt, teenager Yukiharu follows a note left by his late father directing him to a house where he hopes to find a warm welcome. Instead, he walks in on a roomful of bakenekos, supernatural creatures who can shift their shapes between humans and cats. His father, it seems, had a fondness for the creatures and rescued a number of them from dangerous situations. The bakenekos have no intention of repaying that kindness, however. Instead, they coerce Yukiharu into becoming their servant, and he can’t even escape when he goes to school: one of the shape-shifters is his math teacher and several more are classmates. There’s a lot of physical humor in this story, as well as the occasional note of pathos as Yukiharu realizes that as bad as his life is, the cats have been through worse. The story is complete in four volumes; the second will be released by Yen Press on December 31. (Age 13+, $13.00)
Li’l Leo (Denpa), by the celebrated manga-ka Moto Hagio (The Heart of Thomas, The Poe Clan), is a collection of lighthearted stories about a cat who decides he’s going to try his hand at human activities, from going to school to getting a job and even drawing his own manga. The stories are simple and funny enough for children to enjoy, although some of the situations will make more sense (and will therefore be funnier) to adults. The manga is complete in a single volume. (Age 10+, $15.95)
Marvel Meow (VIZ Media) is a gift book collecting the adventures of Captain Marvel’s cat Chewie, as first seen in nine-panel comics on the Marvel Instagram page and some variant covers (see “Marvel and Viz Team Up for ‘Marvel Meow’ and ‘Deadpool: Samurai’“). Chewie manages to both get in the way and be extremely charming as she prowls around visiting Wolverine, Spider-Man, and other characters from the Marvel universe. Marvel Meow has a classic gift-book format: Hardcover, 7″ x 7″ square, 72 pages. (All Ages, $14.99)
The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today (Seven Seas Entertainment) is another story of a capable cat, but instead of making coffee or giving massages, Yukichi, a giant housecat, takes care of the household. He lives with single working woman Saku, who is hopeless at doing adult stuff like shopping and housework, so Yukichi keeps things tidy, does the cooking, and tracks the sales at the local supermarket. This is an ongoing series; Seven Seas will publish the second volume in November. (Age 13+, $13.99)
The Walking Cat: A Cats-Eye View of the Zombie Apocalypse (Seven Seas Entertainment) mashes up two favorite tropes, cats and zombies, to put a new spin on the story of the walking undead. The human lead character, Jin, is fleeing the chaos when he rescues an endangered cat and brings him along on his journey in search of a mysterious island where his wife may be waiting for him. The story was published as three volumes in Japan but is complete in this 554-page omnibus. (Age 15+, $24.99)
What’s Michael? Fatcat Collection (Dark Horse Comics) is a new edition of a series that Dark Horse Comics originally published as slim volumes between 1997 and 2006. Each of the new 500-page “fatcat” omnibuses collects six of the original volumes. The stories alternate between Michael doing ordinary cat stuff, catching mice and so on, and more fantastic scenes where the cats are anthropomorphized. The first volume came out last year and the second in September. (Ages 10+, $19.99)
Wonder Cat Kyuu-Chan (Seven Seas Entertainment ) is a slice-of-urban-life gag manga about a young man who takes in an abandoned kitten. The story starts out with one vignette after another of super-cuteness, as the two get to know each other, but there’s something else going on: The cat can see supernatural beings that its owner cannot. Nonetheless, this full-color manga is more sweet than spooky, with lots of smiles and a palette that leans toward pinks and pastels. Three volumes are currently available in English; the fourth is due out in January. (Ages 10+, $14.99)
For all of the ICv2 Gifts Week articles on 2021 holiday merchandising, see “ICv2 Gifts Week 2021.”
Source: ICv2
