Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito Review

Cats - the final frontier.

At least it feels like it’s inevitable that if you’re a comics creator then you’re going to make a cat comic at some point in your career - even horror mangaka Junji Ito’s made one!

I’ve read a fair number of Ito’s books over the years and, completely unexpectedly, I think it’s the best thing he’s done.

Ito and his wife Ayako move into their new home with her cat Yon (the white cat on the cover) and quickly adopt a friend for Yon: Mu (the other cat on the cover). Ito’s more of a dog person but quickly falls in love with both cats and the stories follow his learning to be and the foibles of being a cat owner.

But Ito doesn’t change his style just because he’s making a cat manga - he’s still the consummate horror artist. He draws his wife’s eyes without pupils so she looks demonic (although this changes halfway through the book when she complains to him about her depiction) while Yon looks unnervingly monstrous for most of the book. Not that he draws himself any better - he’s frequently depicted ghoulishly, gibbering and rushing about his house like a possessed madman!

I think that’s what I enjoyed the most about the book - the bizarre juxtaposition of completely innocuous stories about being a cat owner and applying the unsettling intensity of Junji Ito’s signature horror art to such banal material. It’s very funny and elevated the material from mundane to more entertaining than it has a right to be. The quality of a book is often due to how the story is told rather than its content.

I might also be a bit biased as I have a couple of cats, one of whom looks like Yon, and who have almost identical personalities to Ito’s cats, and I’m sure many cat owners will relate to the stories of a cat escaping into the neighbourhood for the first time or getting neutered. And that’s where I felt the book was somewhat weak: the stories aren’t the most memorable or original as every cat owner will have experienced some or all of them themselves.

Still, this was a very enjoyable manga that manages to fit in with Ito’s horror library well despite being, conceptually at least, slice-of-life rather than straight up horror. Excellent art with a fun mix of humour and Ito’s warped imagination, Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu is one of the best cat comics I’ve ever read, up there with Matthew Inman/The Oatmeal’s comics.