A Thousand Miles

Cat Paradise

****

Cat paradise is a supernatural action manga by Yuji Iwahara. It ran originally from June 2006 to December 2008 in the Shonen monthly, Champion Red.

It follows high schooler Yumi Hayakawa and Kansuke, her cat, as she attends Matabi Academy. Said academy becomes a battleground as the next chapter in an ancient conflict erupts. Yumi and Kansuke find themselves wrapped up in the war the student council has with the numerous evil spirits that are seeking to wreak havoc on campus.

So, do I like Cat Paradise? It’s a story about people with cat battle partners that give them superpowers fighting big monsters – OF COURSE I LIKE IT. Why wouldn’t I? There are a multitude of reasons, really, why I might not. But, fortunately, Cat Paradise doesn’t hit any of them.

Cat Power

In this universe, so far, powers are invoked by using some representation of what a particular character is good at. The character that stands out in volume 1 is Yumi’s new friend from the student council, Kotori. Her power is that her cat grows stronger, and larger, as she feeds him her cooking. The interesting thing is that she thinks all problems can be fixed by talking them through. Despite being shown that problems can still persist despite talking things out, she chooses to believe that less favorable outcomes are a result of a lack of genuine effort in doing so. She has no delusion about people’s unwillingness to talk things out, though, so she’ll just get her cat to beat you down until you do. She’s definitely not naive in and of the fact that she doesn’t think force isn’t ever necessary, but she does seem too optimistic as far as her faith in the success rate of negotiations. I can’t hold that kind of youthful optimism and rebelliousness against her because things like peace, justice and valor don’t always work the way we want them to but if we don’t show a constant belief in and dedication to them, they won’t work AT ALL.

Although Kotori and, to a smaller extent, Yumi are the ones who gets to shine this volume, roughly 13 characters of import are introduced. A large portion are introduced as a part of two main groups: the student council or their cat partners. The student council consists of 3rd year President Shin Kamio, 3rd year Vice President Kotori Hatsutani, Disciplinary Committee Head Kaya Yamamoto, Health Committee Head Futaba Aoki, 2nd year Chief Secretary Tsubame Akifuji and 2nd year Cultural Committee Delegate Tsukasa Hinode. Shin is strict, bearing a passing resemblance to the school’s Vice Principal and is shown to be a sword fighter. Kotori seems to be to most outgoing, spending time with and teasing Yumi. Tsubame is popular with the girls and cats alike and is noted to be an avid reader. We don’t learn too much about the remaining three in this volume, but Kaya’s demeanor makes him seem rather self-confident, it’s noted that Futaba isn’t much of a people person (thus Kotori hanging out with Yumi) and Tsukasa is said to be constantly preoccupied with girls.

They are complimented by their cat partners Yamato, Musashimaru, Hisui, Gekkou, Raimu and Sakura. We haven’t delved into their backstories yet, but their formal introductions (among other things) do clue us in a bit to their personalities. Yamato is introduced in a panel all to himself as he calls a meeting to order, making him the de facto leader in a similar fashion to Shin. Musashimaru and Hisui push back on this notion in their shared panel – Musashimaru because he wants to boss people around and Hisui because she doesn’t want to be bossed around. They themselves catch a rebuke from Gekkou and Raimu in their shared panel. Gekkou just isn’t interested in such minutia surrounding the meeting whereas Raimu just isn’t interested in the meeting at all. Sakura’s introduction sees her leading Kansuke around campus, explaining the history of the conflict to him and even convincing him to stay in the fight. She’s as every bit persuasive as Tsubame is popular.

Beyond the student council and their cats, we have a few regular folks and the two main faction leaders of the conflict. Nanako, Yumi’s new friend, and the principal have little panel time in this volume. The only school official really in play here is the Vice Principal. He comes across as an overly strict (to a fault) kind of guy that seems a bit to self-obsessed in his first interaction with the main character. He’s still stern the second go round, but does come across as genuinely concerned for the students safety and less petty. Kaen, the big bad of the story, is an ancient feline spirit beast and ancestor of all cats. He controls fire and seems to have bad blood with humanity, having knocked off a few civilizations.One such civilization, Futakago, was the home of the spirit princess, Kiri, we see in the story. She and her cat, Shiruyuki contained Kaen. A teacher, Sandou, sealed Kaen away during the early years of Matabi Academy.

What Works

Pacing – I find the pacing to be superb. This may very well be my first time explicitly talking about pacing as a thing, so forgive me if it isn’t as eloquent as it should be. To be concise, the narrative wastes no time and neither do the characters. It makes reasonable use of exposition and narration to establish premise and keep the characters (and the audience) up to speed. There’s five chapters in volume 1 and by the third chapter I felt at though I understood the main conflict, which characters were on the playing field at the moment and how invested they are in the present set of events. It just felt like a solid case of base world building.

What Doesn’t

Let’s talk about it – while I think the pacing is super, I must admit that some of this relies upon exposition. Whenever a concept is first introduced, it is explained. Magic Patron Saint of the school appears? She tells them who she is. Kotori uses her power? She explains what it is. It’s really not all that bad. There’s only one instance where it bothers me in the whole volume – and that’s because what would’ve been better as an incantation, instead reads like a rote narration of what the character is doing in those three panels. I mention this because it seems like this is the kind of thing that will continue throughout the series.

Yumi – The MC, while not bothering me, is easily flustered. At this point, she’s a character that’s been pulled into a fight she didn’t explicitly choose to be a part of. So she hasn’t sussed out why she’s fighting yet. She might turn into a Madoka, but she could just as easily turn into an early Future Diary Yukiteru. Only time will tell.

The Rub

I’ve found myself reading mostly Seinen manga, so my Shonen fare has been few and far between since high school and monthly Shonen Jump. The last two Shonen I really cared about were Psyren and Mardock Scramble. I liked Mardock Scramble because of the crazy cyberpunk bent and the displays of power that the fights enabled. But what really shined was the moral conflict that rose out of that, pushing Rune to be a better person than the people she was pitted against. Psyren captured my attention with the mysticism of its powers and its alternate world battleground. A world like that of Psyrens is practically built for superpowered fighting.

Cat Paradise carries on the tradition of interesting powers and introspection. There’s only two fights in volume one and they are rather short, I can’t hold that against the story. They’re tactfully employed for more than spectacle, by both the story and the characters. Considering the roster of characters, I look forward to the pool of new powers and abilities we’ll see. The introspection isn’t on the level of Mardock Scramble, but neither was Mardock Scramble for the first couple volumes. Cat Paradise starts out asking it’s protagonist the hard questions “How invested are you in this conflict and why?” only a couple chapters in. We don’t get a definitive answer from either Yumi or Kansuke, despite seeing their initial willingness (or hesitancy) to fight. However, I believe that sorting that conundrum out will be key in solidifying their resolve pushing their growth as characters.

I don’t have any outstanding complaints for this volume (as opposed to the previous entry) simply because I feel like it hit all of the story beats it needed to in order to get the ball rolling properly and I await what else the series has to offer.

Continue: Yes, Definitely