Chi’s Sweet Adventures Volume 1 Review

Chi is a kitten, a silver tabby, and takes delight exploring her family (human as well as feline) and her world. Everything is new to her and very exciting; we see her learn how to cope with dogs, try out human food – cheese!, get dressed up by her young owner Yohei for Halloween, encounter the family vacuum cleaner and make other alarming and fascinating discoveries.

Chi’s Sweet Adventures started life as a spin-off from the popular 12 volume manga Chi’s Sweet Home by Konami Kanata which has also been made into an anime TV series (a colouring book is also available). This new series is described as ‘adapted by Kinoko Natsume’. Here the 4-koma format has been retained but this version is in full colour; even the chapters have different pastel backgrounds, with little trails of paw prints! This manga is flipped, which will offend purists, but this doesn’t seem to be too detrimental to the contents as each page hosts two complete 4-koma sequences.

Chi will appeal to readers of all ages, especially cat lovers, as her antics are lovingly – yet realistically – portrayed. In Jan Cash’s translation, little Chi has a cute speech impediment ‘Where is evewyone?’ when talking with other cats but all her humans hear is variations on ‘Myaa’.

This a delightful little book that’s best to dip into or share with a younger reader. I say share because, even though I’m keen to recommend manga titles that readers under eleven will enjoy, the lettering here is not very large and, in places, a little difficult to read due to the size of the panels. This is not, however, a major problem, and won’t deter young and keen readers.

A free sample is available at Vertical Comics here