Heather's Book Review: Chi's Sweet Home Volume 1 by Konami Kanata
Just about any decent artist can draw an adorable cat. However, it often seems that only a Japanese hand can portray adorable felines at the height of their potential, and Chi’s Sweet Home Volume 1 by Konami Kanatais another example of Japan’s amazing talent for portraying almost lethally cute characters.
The Chi of the title is a stray kitten who has been separated from her mama. She’s so young that she still has trouble articulating some of her letters when she talks (or rather, thinks, since this isn’t a talking animal story), resulting in a bunch of childish words like “scarewy,” “gwassy,” “wittle,” and “fwightened.” (Consider this the true Chi test, by the way; if you couldn’t stand this cuteified dialogue, chances are Chi’s Sweet Home won’t be to your taste.) While Chi is searching in a park, she is discovered by a small family, who takes her home but can’t keep her because of their apartment’s rules against pets. They try to find another home for the little cat, but as you would expect from a story of this nature, soon find themselves growing attached to the kitten and making efforts to keep it hidden from nosy neighbors.
Yes, the story is predictable, but honestly, this book has a cute little kitten crying pitifully on the cover. Are you really going to read it for an impressively complicated plot?
As cute animal comics go, though, Chi’s Sweet Home is not a bad read. Anyone who has ever adopted a kitten will be able to relate to the antics and hilarity that come from said kitten’s first bath, first experience with a litter box, and discovery that the best scratching post is actually dad’s new pants. Of additional merit are the relationships that are built between the characters, especially between Chi and Yohei, the family’s own “kitten.” According to this book, there are not too many differences between a kitten and a human child, and the plot plays upon those similarities to amusing effect. The art itself is pleasing, too, consisting of appealingly simple character designs and watercolor-like colors that give the work as a whole a very soft, relaxing look. Because of this look, it’s also a comic that might also appeal to readers who are not fans of the average manga.
The only glaring flaw in the comic—and even this is arguable, depending upon the reader’s taste—is the aforementioned insertion of “w”s into Chi’s thought-speech, which are so common early in the volume that they quickly become irritating. Thankfully, though, they begin to disappear as the humans work their way into the story, and the art provides such a satisfying distraction from them that, in the end, it’s a negligible flaw.
Readers who like Chi’s Sweet Home and similar titles may also enjoy the What’s Michael? series by Makoto Kobayashi.
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