Review by Frank Plowright

By supplying Michael as looked after by an assortment of owners Makoto Kobayashi has hit on an instant supporting cast, because the peculiarities of those owners are spotlighted along with Michael’s activities. A case in point is the opening strip of a scatty young woman always in a hurry for whom the adage of more haste and less speed rings true.

That’s followed by new territory as Kobayahsi extends a joke beyond a single strip. A middle-aged couple who adopted Michael after finding him in an alley discover he can dance, so invite a TV crew to their house to film it. The joke, of course, is that Michael doesn’t perform to order. The joy of that focus is the really surreal ending to the second part. Dancing features again later in the collection at a surprising moment.

As has already been proved, Kobayashi is an excellent cartoonist when it comes showing Michael and other cats in motion, which applies to the cat fights of the fourth strip and several later strips. There’s folk attempting to prevent Michael stealing their sushi, a concert appearance and the owner attempting to imitate Michael’s house routine, each beautifully animated.

Kobayashi is also straying into broader comedy than traditional jokes of cats causing havoc, one such diversion featuring the previously seen owner with multiple cats. It turns out they’re not all his. Another surreal joke is casting a bunch of cats as business executives at a board meeting, yet following their natural instincts. There’s also a return for the idea of Yakuza gangsters, one introduced in Living Together whose greatest fear is his colleagues discovering his love of cats. Here another gangster is shown as having a fear of cats. They meet in Michael’s Mambo.

Cat lovers will delight in what Michael gets up to, and he’ll even raise a laugh among those who couldn’t care less about cats. If you’re already convinced, instead of picking up the slim volumes, you might want to head straight for the first Fatcat Collection.