Mountain Devil

Recommend: Yes

Sometimes a book (or in this case, Manga) comes at the right time in the right place, indulging whims you didn’t know you had. A book blogger published a review of Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu while we were having breakfast in Tono. The bleak, cold rain that swept through the towering pine trees above the inn reminded us of Blackheath. We were browsing our phones, sipping the nation-standard abrasive black coffee, a little reluctant to go outside.

Manga is a dangerous hobby to embark on. It promises high costs, prolific volumes to collect, and difficulty sourcing English translations. But if we’re going to dip our toes in just this once, we’ll surely be safe in the crafty hands of Junji Ito.

Junji Ito is a famous horror manga artist, known across many continents for his bulging-blood-shot-eye’d characters looming over what could be real life, sweating and scared. Declan has read a few already.

In Cat Diary Ito polishes off his horror tropes once more except this time the storylines are decidedly adorable and affable rather than shocking and scary.

For around 100 cartooned pages we get to share in the trials and tribulations of owning a cat. Mostly, the cats are just being really, really cute.

Ito is hesitant initially to let these four-legged furies into his house. When Ito is asked whether he is a cat or dog owner by his wife, we sense there is a right answer and then there is his true answer. Evasively, he says, “why, I am a hamster person”. But it doesn’t take long for Ito to want to love and be loved by the newly adopted cats. The rest is hiss-tory.

And these cats, as drawn by Ito, are so filled with curiosity and life. Even Declan, a self-declared Dog Person, said “maybe” we can get a cat in the future after reading. The future, now plausibly filled with fluffy friends, looks grand indeed.

There are two reasons why I had a great time with Cat Diary. Sure, the cats were cute, but artistically two choices made this an enjoyable read.

Firstly, Ito’s style is ceaselessly horror, even when his subject matter couldn’t be less fearsome. This juxtaposition is pleasing. You notice the cats’ personalities more. Yon’s exaggerated skull-like pattern on her back makes her seem like a demon poised to attack, so it’s super cute when she just wants to cuddle on Ito’s lap and suckle his finger.

The cats’ reign in the household is also bought to life effectively through Ito’s horror framework. The humans seem possessed by love, to the point of being deranged. Ito is driven to insanity when the cats don’t prowl and play with the cat wand like they do with his wife. The artwork makes them equal in character to the humans in a way a novel never could.

Secondly, Cat Diary is so delightfully personal for Ito. You see him there working at his desk on his manga. You see him jealous of the attention these cats are giving his wife. There’s even a chapter set at his in-laws house. Scattered in-between these chapters are Q&As between Ito and his fans (“Question 5: You draw A-ko’s eyes almost entirely without pupils. What does your wife think of this?”). And of course, a colour photo collage of real life Yon and Mu, as photographed by his wife.

All these intimate touches makes for an endearing and humorous read.

If your partner is one of those D-Lovers, buy them Cat Diaries and watch a transformation unfold before your very eyes. You won’t find a more persuasive argument to get a cat.