Chi's Sweet Home, Volume 1 by Kanata Konami

 

I found a full-color version of Chi's Sweet Home in a Little Free Library and it was honestly just the thing I needed after a slew of books about dark shit and murder-joy. A book about a family that adopts a lost kitten? Be still, my heart. I actually have a cat that we rescued as a kitten. She came to our house starving and shivering, and you could see all her little kitten bones through her fur. Now she's a lazy fatty who-- I kid you not-- has her very own chair, and a toybox where she keeps enough toys for like five cats. Spoiled? I think so.

Anyway, Chi is distraught when she's separated from her mama cat and embarks on a series of misadventures that culminate in her winding up with a family that consists of a mom, dad, and toddler. They are not allowed to have pets in their apartment but nobody wants to adopt Chi, so they kind of end up stuck with her. Also, "chi" apparently sounds like the Japanese word for pee, which is funny because when they're trying to box-train her, they keep yelling "pee" at her while taking her bag to her box after every pee incident, to the point where she thinks it's her name. WHOOPS.

(Hi there, Pee the Cat!)

This mangaka has done another kitten-related comic called FukuFuku which is about an orange and white kitten who lives with a sweet old lady. I think I actually like that one better because they humor is slightly more subtle and I just really loved the way that the kitten kind of brought joy and youth to this old woman's life, while at the same time, she gave the kitten nuturance and a home. That said, this was still super sweet and very cat-like and I laughed out loud at least four times.

4 out of 5 stars