Cat Paradise vol.2

There's totally a T-Rex in this volume!

In this volume, several demon animal things infiltrate the school by possessing the bodies of students, and most of this volume involves Yumi and two of the student council members trapped in the library without their cats (thus, unable to fight) with a girl possessed by a spider demon. Outside of the library, Kansuke encounters an enemy as well (a werewolf-ish fellow) before trying to go after Yumi.

It's about as enjoyable as the first volume. With introductions out of the way, it's right down to business, and the business with the spider girl ends up taking the whole volume. The one thing that bugged me about the first volume is that they dropped this whole team on us, the student council, but we didn't really get to know them that much. But judging from the last story in the first volume, which focused on Kotori, and this volume, which focused on Akifuji and Tsukasa, we'll learn more about them and their powers as they each get their turn at bat. But until then, they're kind of just background people. By the end of the second volume, there should have been decent screentime for the whole group, but there wasn't, really.

But, this volume is still a good time. Even without their powers (until later in the volume), the action is still pretty suspenseful. I could see Tsukasa's power coming from a mile away because of something that happens early on, but I wasn't quite expecting it to manifest in the way it did. I loved that the characters' reactions were exactly the same as mine when the T-Rex appeared; I said "What the hell?" and then saw the spider was saying it too...it made me laugh. So that was fun. The new characters, the group of possessed students, are an interesting addition as a sort of rival group to the heroes. Each one is a different animal (spider, wolf, snake, etc.).

The art is as solid as last time, with some cool action shots throughout. I want to see more of the cast in the next volume, and also hope they don't spend the entire next volume on one enemy. Not there's anything wrong with that, just that there's only three volumes left!

Cat Paradise vol.1

I've never read any of Yuji Iwahara's work before Cat Paradise, but I'd heard nothing but good things. While his past stories seemed to be a bit dark, this is straight up action/adventure fun.
Yumi is a new student at Matabi Academy, and like many other students, her main reason for going to this school is that they allow cats on campus. We soon find out that a demon cat is sealed somewhere on the school grounds, and that the student council and their cats watch over it. Yumi and her cat, Kansuke, soon encounter a demon and gain their own power similar to the student council members'.

There's well tread ground here, but Iwahara obviously knows it. In the author's comment section, he says he was aiming for creating something that felt like an anime, and I'd say he hit his mark. Ancient sealed demons, students fighting monsters, a mysterious student council, seven "chosen" kids, etc.; it's all fairly common for anime. The twist in this scenario is the fixation on cats. Each student/cat pair has a unique power based on some aspect of their personality (Yumi creates costumes for Kansuke which turn him into a humanoid cat person). Their powers also allow them to communicate with cats. There are plenty of pet owners who dress up their pets, and Yumi is no expection, so when Kansuke finally gets to talk with her, it's funny to finally see an animal get to complain about being forced to wear clothes. In addition to Yumi, we get to see one other student council member's power in this volume.

There's a kind of silliness to the story's underlying premise, but that's what makes it fun. The other thing that make this series worth reading is the art. His art actually reminds of Eiichiro Oda's (One Piece), not in his character designs (they're nothing alike), but in the thickness of the linework, and the way that he uses parallel lines for shading instead of screentoning. Except in Iwahara's case the shading sometimes stands out a bit too much, and can look a little weird. Here ,for instance, Yumi's tongue and neck just seem a bit odd (click to enlarge):


Otherwise, I really like his style. I'm no cat expert, but it seems Iwahara put in the effort to make the cat's breeds all look distinct and like real cats...or as real as is art style would allow. There's also a touch of Disney to the way he draws the cats, but maybe that's just me. I loved this small little gag where they're in a library and Kansuke has the sudden urge to scratch a book for no other reason than the fact that he's a cat. The way he looks at Yumi as he's about to do it is just cute. It's something a real cat would do:


This manga is fun in the way something like Digimon is. You know it's silly, but you can't help but get wrapped up in it. Your mileage may vary, but I'm looking forward to more. And if you want your shonen fix, at 5 volumes, this is a good alternative to other, more epically-sized series.