Unfortunately, this volume’s writing isn’t as strong as its artwork. The characters themselves are also drawn emotively, and the artwork carries a lot of the volume’s emotional weight in general. Yamaguchi’s style isn’t hyperrealistic per se, but the art has strong internal consistency and backgrounds feel like actual surroundings that the characters interact with. Light sources and shadows are also depicted in a very realistic fashion. Hard surfaces appear hard, fur looks soft, and wet surfaces look believably slick. The texture work in particular is wonderful. The characters’ world is rendered in stunning and intricate detail, and I can’t recall a single panel ever feeling flat or underdrawn. I’ll start by addressing this manga’s strongest feature: its artwork. The manga version features artwork by Tsubasa Yamaguchi, and differs somewhat from the anime but still adheres largely to the original premise. 1 collects the manga adaptation of Makoto Shinkai’s anime short of the same name.

A whimsical short story anthology unlike any other, it effortlessly demonstrates that even in our darkest, most lonesome moments, we are still united to this wonderous world-often in ways we could never have expected.She and Her Cat Vol. With clever narration alternating between the cats and their owners, She and Her Cat offers a unique and sly commentary on human foibles and our desire for connection.

So begins the first story in She and Her Cat, a collection of four interrelated, stream-of-conscious short stories in which four women and their feline companions explore the frailty of life, the pain of isolation, and the limits of communication. Just as he fears that the end is near, a young woman peers down at him, this fateful encounter changing their lives forever. With his mother long gone, his only company is the sound of the nearby train. Lying alone on the edge of the sidewalk in an abandoned cardboard box, a nameless narrator contemplates the indifferent world around him.

For fans of Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs and Murata Sayaka’s Earthlings, this Japanese bestseller from renowned anime director Makoto Shinkai features four inspirational and heartwarming vignettes following women and their cats in their quests for love and connection.

She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai