A Man & His Cat Volume 12 Review
Retired concert pianist, widower Fuyuki Kanda has become a cat-lover since he brought exotic shorthair Fukumaru into his life. In fact, his home has become more like a cat rescue centre as Kanda is looking after five rescue kittens for his young friend and fellow pianist Geoffroy Lambert, not to mention another rescue cat, ‘Siam’, who has still to find an owner. Finding Fukumaru balanced high up on the curtain rail one day, Mr. Kanda realizes that his cat needs… a cat tower! So he sets off to the pet shop where the very helpful Miss Sato shows him three very different types of cat tower: a mountain cat tree, a traditional Japanese-style cat tower and a very pretty cat tower. Mr. Kanda can’t decide which one would be best, so he takes some photos and goes off to ask his friend Kobayashi (a dog owner) for advice. After canvassing other friends and family, he eventually goes back to the pet shop to find that all three have been sold! A compromise is reached which seems to suit Fukumaru, so everyone’s happy (except, perhaps, Kobayashi).
“If you get bullied, it’s your own fault.”
The focus of the story then switches to introduce a teenaged school refuser. Makoto has been bullied for so long – without any real support at school or at home – that he just can’t take it any longer and opts out. Feeling so low that he hasn’t even the desire to pick up his beloved guitar and play, he’s roused from his depression when his mother brings home an exotic shorthair kitten and persuades him to take care of her. He names her Happy and finds her antics so adorable that he starts sharing his photos on the internet under the name ‘Mack’. And that’s where he comes across ‘Twinkle Bell’, another cat-lover who also owns an exotic shorthair. He fondly imagines Twinkle Bell to be a cute young woman and as they chat online, he reveals that he plays the guitar. Naturally Twinkle Bell encourages him – and Makoto starts practicing again, eventually saying that he’s going to start busking. He’s thrilled when Twinkle Bell says they’ll come to hear him play – and they’ll be wearing a lily corsage. Who is Twinkle Bell? And what happens when Makoto’s two worst bullies turn up on the street to cause trouble as he starts to play?
Twelve volumes in and A Man & His Cat has lost none of its charm and energy. If you’re especially fond of the chapters dedicated to the cats’ antics, you won’t be disappointed as there’s plenty of action – and feelings – here. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to Siam, the Siamese cat rescued by Mr. Kanda and his student Kuju Teruaki (Volume 11), and Teruaki’s disappointment that he can’t adopt the cat because of his landlord’s strict ‘no pets’ rule. And what happens when a lost dog turns up in the garden and tries to get into the house? Cue much confusion among the kittens, as Fukumaru boldly tries to take charge of the situation.
Ongoing threads are not forgotten either, most notably the efforts to get a band going with Yoshiharu Moriyama, Kanda’s young colleague at the music school and Kanda’s somewhat disaffected son, Hoshinari, and an agent who’s putting the pressure on them. Where big artistic personalities are involved, nothing is ever easy!
The translation is again provided by Taylor Engel who excels at transcribing Fukumaru’s meowy conversations with the other cats – and the wonderful variety of lettering that brings all the conversations to life on the page, both feline and human (with a little added canine this volume, for good measure) is again by Lys Blakeslee.
Volume 12 looks as good as all its predecessors thanks to Square Enix Manga, who include colour pictures at the front and conclusion (a double-page spread at the front!) as well as a sneak peak at the end of Chapter 104 from Volume 13. There’s also the usual mixture of fun 4-koma pages about Fukumaru’s antics and full chapters developing the ongoing story. However, as we’ve just about caught up with Japan now, #13 isn’t scheduled for release until April 2025. In the Afterword, mangaka Umi Sakurai celebrates reaching the 100th chapter in this volume and looks back at the modest beginnings of the story as four pages on Twitter! With plenty of story threads still unfinished, there seems to be lots of material to be developed and to look forward to for Fukumaru fans. That band, for starters…
Read a free preview at the publisher’s website here.
Our review copy from Square Enix Manga was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).
