Review by Frank Plowright

Riko Kozakura is a mystery to the people she shares an office with. She’s friendly, and legendarily efficient, so she never needs to stay late to complete anything. She also never socialises after work. There’s speculation as to what her secret is, but no-one guesses the truth, which is her addiction to online gaming. It substitutes for a real life, but real life intrudes when Riko impulsively agrees to adopt a kitten found at the office.

She has absolutely no experience with cats, but as drawn by Wataru Nadatani even the hardest of hearts wouldn’t be able to resist this critter. Riko’s substitute for experience is applying the skills acquired during successful gaming strategies to raising the cat.

No-one ever lost popularity points by posting or forwarding pictures of cute cats, so Nadatani’s tapping into a potentially huge market likely to be seduced by the cover illustration. It might be assumed she was already a cat lover when starting the series, but at the end of this opening volume (of eight, eventually) she confides to acquiring a kitten as a model. That certainly pays off with the number of poses that probably wouldn’t occur to an artist without a cat.

Away from the cat itself, Nadatani’s pages are exceptionally neat and orderly. Even when drawing what’s intended as Riko’s messy living room, she makes it look as if the set designers have been in beforehand, but the art is extremely appealing, and both Riko and cat, eventually named Musubi, are expressive.

If the art is great from page one, the story meanders over the first few chapters. It’s when Riko realises Musubi has fleas and views them as similar to the monsters affecting her game characters that a series of clever connections fall into place. Whereas beforehand Riko had little life beyond gaming, a cat doesn’t follow game parameters, and there’s a gradual recognition of new priorities. Perhaps vets are cheaper in Japan, but with visits to them, cat toys and frequent in-game purchases she must be earning well.

Life progresses in stages until the final chapter when Riko’s really taken the plunge and begun to post online. Will it reveal her to the office, though? Find out in Cat + Gamer 2.

Charm and grace carries Cat + Gamer a long way over this opening volume, but an injection of substance is going to be needed.