Cat/Girls are cute too
I’m a sucker for cute anime cat-girls, but Mii-chan isn’t
exactly what I was expecting...
In this series by Waka Takase, our protagonist Natsume-kun,
works in a supermarket, where he gets pushed around by the ladies at his job;
but, he’s generally a good guy who’ll pitch in and help out when things get
tough – as a result, he’s always exhausted and burnt out.
One day, on his way home, he takes in a stray black cat for
the night, even though his building doesn’t allow pets. When he wakes up in the
morning, he finds the cat’s gone, but an extremely beautiful (buck-naked)
black-haired girl is sleeping in his bed.
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| The series is only mildly NSFW |
As it turns out, Mii-chan, is a seventeen year old runaway cat/girl,
who is a human during the day, but turns into a cat at night. The details have
yet to be really explained; is it a curse? Is it just in her nature? Not too
sure. Will I read on to find out more? Probably.
I really enjoyed the book for the first 90% of the volume.
The interactions between the two main characters are pretty funy. Mii-chan’s
cute, and the MC dude’s not annoying (honestly the most important thing in any of
the manga where the MC is meant to be a self-insert protag). It’s also really
funny how he’s got such a soft spot for Mii-chan as a cat, but is really hard
on her in her human form.
<<Moderate spoilers for the end of volume 1 to follow,
but I think it might affect whether some people pick this book up.>>
Toward the end of the volume, Mii-chan has a conversation
with another Cat/Girl, and in that conversation, it’s revealed that one aspect
of their “affliction” is that unless they have sex with a guy before they turn
18 they’ll eventually be stuck in their Cat form forever…
I’m generally not too stuck up about stuff like this, but
this seemed so contrived and deliberate I got a bit annoyed – especially since
the MC is in his early twenties; maybe the age-gap tension will turn into a
plot point. I guess it’s always possible Mii-chan chooses to stay with
Natsume-kun, but in her cat form, since he’s pretty obviously got a thing for
cats. Who knows? I think that’d be kind of a funny possibility. I’m interested
enough to see how it plays out that I’ll probably pick up the rest as it comes
out. So far, Japan has 3-ish volumes worth of chapters and the manga is still
ongoing.
This is one of those weird series where I enjoyed it, but
the hook might make it super annoying. Also makes it very hard to recommend, so
if this is your kind of jam, go for it.
Volume 2 is due out in August.
Mii-Chan Wants to Be Kept is published by Seven Seas Entertainment.
