One of today’s biggest obsessions is cats. While people have loved cats for thousands of years, today there are cat-themed everything. One of the craziest ways for cat lovers to get their fix is through comics. Manga artist Makoto Kobayashi wrote a series in the 1980s about a cat named Michael called “What’s Michael?†and it’s a cat lover’s dream.
Each chapter of this series is about the many misadventures of a tabby cat named Michael. Everything from mundane cat stuff (being afraid to go to the vet, waking up owner) to Michael’s crazy dreams (him and other cats playing baseball.)
There’s really nothing else to the story. Just a cat being a cat and once in a while his wild fantasies. In a way, that is exactly what cat lovers want to see and Kobayashi does more than deliver on that. All the crazy things that cats do is right here. They have that one person who they hate and try everything they can to get away, sleep on top of their owners and even just stare at a human who’s trying to play with the cat or teach it a trick.
If you’re not familiar with what 1980s slice of life manga looks like, you’ll be in for a shock. While the typical big eyes, small mouth are there, the men look a lot more macho than in modern manga. The best way to describe it is to think of the background humans“Dragonball Z.†Basically, comedic looking even the men. Thos works in favor of the story because this is supposed to be lighthearted/comedic. It’s a manga about a cat. The designs of the cats will please cat lovers because they look close to life. Not to mention cute and their facial expressions give a lot of personality to each cat.
While “What’s Michael?†is a basic story about a cat, that’s fine. This was written for cat lovers and Kobayashi does that by making each chapter about life with a cat and combines art that even the stingiest of cat lovers will want to buy every volume fo this series as they come out.
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