What’s Michael? Fatcat Collection vol. 1

I thought Dark Horse was done reprinting old flipped manga titles from their back catalog.  I’m glad that they’re not, both for this and other titles that have long since gone out of print.  Some history about this one first: “What’s Michael?” was something of an anomaly in the publisher’s seinen (young men’s) heavy output back in the late 90’s.  Where they were best known for titles that skewed older and male-friendly like “Blade of the Immortal,” “Ghost in the Shell,” and “Oh! My Goddess,” “What’s Michael?” was an attempt to appeal to the lucrative “everyone” demographic.  Or at least the portion of the “everyone” demographic that likes cats.

That’s because most of the humor will be easily understood by anyone who owns or has an affinity for cats.  It’s easy to see oneself in the owner who can’t stop playing with his cat (even if it doesn’t want him to), the office lady who can’t bear to say goodbye to her cats each day, the guy who teases his cat by wearing a Godzilla mask, or even the tough yakuza who’s a complete softie for his cat.  Mangaka Makoto Kobayashi renders all this with an expert’s eye towards caricature, giving the cats and their owners outlandishly exaggerated expressions that still feel appropriate to the comedic nature of the material.

Surrealist nature of the material as well.  Kobayashi isn’t above having his cats dance, do rhythmic gymnastics, torment human-headed flies that are their prey, or just straight-up anthropomorphise them into human situations ranging from a police interrogation, poker game, or even wrestling.  Such things help keep the humor in this omnibus from getting too predictable, and Kobayashi even manages a cast of recurring characters — both human and feline — to further hold the reader’s attention. Which is good, because while I can appreciate the mangaka’s style, and all the cats he draws, “What’s Michael?” only managed to get some chuckles out of me rather than full-on laughter.  I’ll pick up the next omnibus because my love of cats is strong (and because maybe buying this will convince Dark Horse to reprint Kobayashi’s fun “Club 9” series), but this series feels like one that can only be appreciated by cat lovers.