Nukozuke! Volumes 1 and 2 Review
Part-time worker Yuya Amane is on his way home when he hears little voices calling for help and sees two tiny nukos, part-cat, part-human, abandoned in a cardboard box. Yuya, a kind-hearted soul, takes them home and decides to adopt them. One, a calico kitten with long hair, is male and is called Kei; the other, black-haired, is female and is called Sasame. “We’re cats who evolved to be more like humans,” they tell him. It seems the pet shop where they lived has gone out of business and they have nowhere to go. So begins an unusual co-habitation in which Kei and Sasame behave just like cats when Yuya goes out to work and leaves them behind (mewing and scritching at the front door pathetically) even though they can have a conversation about how they feel. They are fascinated by the birds outside his flat – and hate having baths. However, they’re also dexterous and can help around the home by washing and drying up and doing chores. And, luckily for them, Yuya is a good cook, so they eat well. Maybe too well, as they start to put on too much weight and he has to devise healthy meals and activities for them to keep fit!
Volume 1 also introduces Yuya’s schoolfriend, Yamato Kishimoto, now a school nurse, who sometimes cat-sits to help Yuya out. He’s not a good cook at all, which doesn’t endear him to Kei and Sasame. Yamato is around to help the little family in Volume 2 when, as the summer sets in, the little nukos can’t cope with the heat and Yuya tries to devise ways to cool them down. More feline incidents occur: they start to shed their coats, leading to Kei getting a hairball – and claws get too long and sharp (Yuya gets scratched) so need to be trimmed. But it’s when they’re out and meet Kei’s older (twin) sister Kana, another calico nuko, that things really start to get lively!
I was surprised to discover that Nukozuke! has been running since 2012/13 and the strips have been collected into many volumes. These two volumes from One Peace Books are the first of twenty-one (!) and the series, having garnered a keen following online, is ongoing. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised to find that the contents of the first volume date back twelve years as the character designs for the humans and the ‘nukos’ are just a little dated (yet none the worse for that). Told in short chapters – sorry, chat-purrs – this cute and attractive take on pets that are a cross between kittens (tiny) and small children (they can talk) builds gradually from its very simple opening premise where Yuya takes in the two abandoned nukos and cares for them until they’ve made friends in the local shopping district. One sign of how times have changed comes when Yuya is described as having already filled three photo albums with pictures of his adorable companions – taken on a real camera, not a smart phone.
Mangaka Yugi Iro sometimes draws Kei and Sasame as kittens, especially when glimpsed in the distance, to remind us of the feline nature of the nukos, but in close-up, the two look more like very small children or chibi figures sporting cat-ears and tails. I found it difficult to remember that Kei is not female as he’s drawn in a very feminine way with long pink hair and Sasame looks like a little boy; the clothes that Yuya makes for them don’t help, either.
Translation for One Peace Books is by Laura Egan (no letterer is credited) and she deals deftly with the cat-based puns (chat-purr is a great example) as well as the everyday chatter of the nukos. There are two pages of helpful translation notes at the back of each volume. There are also plenty of extras in both volumes: short bonus stories/4-koma strips, character guides and illustrated afterwords ‘The Nuko Room’ from the mangaka. The page in Volume 2 where Yugi Iro tells us about her own six cats (and dog) is genuinely touching. Perhaps the most interesting extra is where roles/identities are reversed and Yuya is drawn as a nuko and his pets as the humans who care for him (also in Volume 2). Volume 3 is due out in March 2025.
Nukozuke! is a charming read for cat-lovers and readers looking for a touch of slice-of-life (or slow-life) to dip into. And dipping in, reading two or three of the short chat-purrs at a time is probably the best way to enjoy this short-format series.
Our review copy from One Peace Books was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).
