Japan’s beloved literary masterpiece brought to life in manga form!
Soseki Natsume’s comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle-class Japanese society in early 20th century Tokyo. Written with biting wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a rather cynical stray kitten. He finds his way into the home of an English teacher, where his running commentary on the follies and foibles of the people around him has been making readers laugh for more than a century.
This is the very first manga edition in English of this classic piece of Japanese literature. The story lends itself well to a graphic novel format, allowing readers to pick up on the more subtle cues of the expressive cat, while also being immersed in the world of his perceptive narration. It is true to classic manga form, and is read back to front.
The cast of characters includes:
Kushami—His master, who is not good at his job and quite stupid
The Kenedas—A conceited couple with a spoiled daughter
Meitei—Kushami’s friend who is fond of jokes and tall tales
A group of local cats including lovely Mikeko, and violent Kuro
Beautifully illustrated by Japanese artist Chiroru Kobato, this edition provides a visual, entertaining look at a unique period in Japan’s history—filled with cultural and societal changes, rapid modernization and a feeling of limitless possibility—through the eyes of an unlikely narrator.
This blurb is a lie. That is all the cats. The people are basically right but it really boils them down to nothing.
You would think that someone who chooses to make a manga called I Am A Cat would know better how to draw cats.
Perhaps I would have better appreciated this book if it weren’t a manga. As a manga, though, it is not always well-constructed or well-paced. The framing of the cat as the narrator, coming to understand and then grow nihilistic, offers whimsy where there isn’t any.
Eventually he comes to embrace the idea that the world is becoming terrible and accidentally drowns himself.
I feel that making it into a manga perhaps did a disservice to the book— maybe it is much better with descriptions and storytelling— and perhaps it didn’t. I will not know.
I did not care for it.
