I have been successfully creeped out by horror manga-ka Ito's Uzumaki (a town driven to madness by spirals) and Museum of Terror (boys driven to madness and murder by a girl/femme fatale), so I just added this to my tbr list, and was surprised to find it is basically diary comics, the funny story of how dog person Ito got pushed into living with two cats by his wife. In "Yon is a Weird Cat," J-kun, while finishing his manga on a tight deadline one night, imagines that Yon transforms into various beings, including a slug, the supernatural snake-like creature tsuchinoko, and an elderly man. To J-kun's surprise, this leads to an encounter that he hopes isn't a hallucination.

Tears of Joy: J-kun when Mu sleeps next to him. Except it's not really Mu, it's just a fold in his bedding. Mu Appears" opens with J-kun's move to a new home with A-ko. While J-kun wrestles with his apprehension over living with Yon, A-ko adopts a kitten to keep Yon company. She names the kitten Mu, since he will be the sixth cat her family has kept, with her mother's cat, Goro, being the fifth. J-kun is eventually won over by Mu. What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: J-kun initially wants nothing to do with Yon, who's not very cute, even disregarding his spookiness, but he gradually warms up to him. Nov 24 Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space Releases an Update Featuring a New Episode 'The Cliffs of Wyrmrest (Wryz Saga I)' on November 24Then played straight in the final strip in the collected edition where Junji Ito explains Yon's deteriorating health and finally his death due to heart failure. No.2 ２月号 2008年12月26日 (in Japanese). Kodansha. Archived from the original on 22 May 2010 . Retrieved 30 July 2019. My biggest takeaway from this book is that it is incredibly funny. There were more than a few points where I found myself laughing out loud, which doesn’t usually happen with Junji Ito comics. I mean, there are darkly-humorous parts in each of his works, but to call any of them a comedy would be a mighty big stretch. And that’s one more way that “Cat Diary” is different. At the end of things, this feels like a comics that’s supposed to be funny before anything else. One aspect I really enjoyed were the color photos of Ito's two real-life cats contained near the end of the manga. After seeing them, I was even more impressed by Ito's fictional depiction of them in the manga. Then again, as a cat lover myself, I know there is a little devil inside even the most innocent of cats!

Cuteness Proximity: With a healthy dose of Nightmare Face. J-kun immediately falls for Mu when seeing his reaction to getting kisses.Ito, Junji (2015). "Translation Notes". Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu. Kodansha Comics USA. ISBN 978-1-63236-197-4. to eventually accepting their presence in his life to the extent that he is jealous of their relationship with his wife. Lighter and Softer: In content, it's much lighter than most of his works, but in visual impact, it's only slightly less disturbing. Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu” is a collection of strips chronicling the artist’s first experiences living with feline friends. Readers witness Ito’s anxiety over his fiancé’s desire to bring two cats into their home, which is only compounded by the ‘cat proofing’ that precedes their arrival. From there, anxiety gives way to acceptance and, eventually, a deep bond between the artist and his new companions.

Affectionate Parody: Of Ito's own work as a horror mangaka, since he still draws this series in his usual horror-oriented art style despite it being an autobiographical Slice of Life. I feel that without prior knowledge of his works, this will come off as just a bizarre little book and many won’t get the joke. That said, people who are into his sort of horror might not like that when all is said and done, he just wrote a cute little book about his cats.The most common obsessions are with beauty, long hair, and beautiful girls, especially in his Tomie and Flesh-Colored Horror comic collections. For example: A girl's hair rebels against being cut off and runs off with her head; Girls deliberately catch a disease that makes them beautiful but then murder each other; a woman treats her skin with lotion so she can take it off and look at her muscles, but the skin dissolves and she tries to steal her sister's skin, etc. In stark contrast to his typical works, the series isn't horror, instead being an autobiographical slice-of-life piece detailing Ito's domestic life with his fiancée upon moving house and getting the titular cats. this is a comedic-horror manga, and it speaks to those of us who have invited these little devils into our hearts and homes, and the everyday horrors we endure as a result.

a b c McCulloch, Joe (8 April 2015). "This Week in Comics! (4/8/15 –– Sit, Ubu, sit!)". The Comics Journal. Archived from the original on 28 November 2019 . Retrieved 28 November 2019.Price, Austin (1 November 2018). "Comic Horror: The Work of Junji Ito". The Comics Journal. Archived from the original on 28 November 2019 . Retrieved 28 November 2019. Much of the humor comes from ominous set ups, actions that in his other comics would lead to gruesome murders or hauntings instead pay off with a joke. Visuals that could be alarming in other works are played for comedy (for example an extended mouth with over large teeth moving towards a cat and a panel saying “I’m going to gobble you up” then the next frame showing kissing/cuddling the cat). The individual chapters detail different episodes of dealing with cats, from their adoption to them curling up on a bed to one escaping and being caught. It's entertaining enough for cat lovers and owners, but one obviously shouldn't expect Ito's usual creativity. It is, after all, a cat diary. Ito was smart enough to end it after 10 chapters, before the cat's antics became repetitive, and the charm of the horror-style presentation faded away.