Cat Paradise

Honestly have to say that this is a stealer! Lovely art and unique plot! One of my new favorites. I have been following for a year now, and the manga has not let me down yet. If you don't like the characters, which are sort of okay, then you will surely fall for the lovely art, which is the same as the Darker than Black~Shikkoku no Hana. I love the cats (even though they are not my favorite animals) and like the idea of talking to them and other animals as well! Giving them unique powers? What an awesome idea! Makes me want to get a kitty,raise it, and then go to get superpowers too! Overall there is nothing super disappointing in this manga, save the dialogue of course (needs some serious work). I find the speech a little stereotypical, but every manga has its negative pointers! Read it and enjoy it!

A couple of years ago, I picked this manga up on a whim because I had a buy three, get one free deal at Borders, thinking very little of it. At this point in my manga buying tenure, I was in a bad mood. Del Rey canned their manga division, which spelled the end of Princess Resurrection and Yozakura Quartet being released in the U.S., Kurohime was promising for several early volumes before becoming a lousy Inuyasha clone, and I reached my breaking point with Bleach. Suffice to say, I have been down on shonen-style manga and anime for quite some time. They go onway too long and are never as captivating as their first story arcs, the characters all have the same template personalities, lack chemistry, and they hate being around each other, yet somehow, friendship wins the day, and the fighting is always horrible, littered with drawn-out action sequences that become boring rather than engaging the longer they go. So, what does that long-winded slam on shonen manga have to do with Cat Paradise? It takes most of the things I've been griping about since joining this site and delivers a competent, linear story that I found myself enjoying a lot more than I ever thought I would. STORY (6): I was interested to see what the author would do with this kind of concept with kitty cats doing the primary fighting. It put me in the mind of combining Pokémon and Mai Hime. It's pretty straightforward and doesn't try to overshoot its intended tone and try to be something it isn't. "There has been a long war raging between these two sides, will Yumi and Kansuke help fight?" GOOD!! That's all I ask for!! It's probably not a fair comparison, but take the manga Kamui, for example; another school featuring exceptionally skilled students tied into a battle with supernatural beings that got way too wordy near the very end and it's climax came off flat. Cat Paradise is well-paced for only 29 volumes, the theme of companionship and teamwork is interesting, showing the strong bonds between the cats and their owners. ART (7): I was initially put off by the hard, jagged lines on the characters' faces. I felt it made them look too rough, especially for Yumi. After a couple of chapters, not only did I get used to the look, but character facials are very expressive. Backgrounds and the scenery seem to take a back seat to the character designs, so locations never really stuck out to me. A fight could've taken place in a parking garage or a Dragonball Z wasteland, for all I could remember. Speaking of which, action scenes are a bit of a chore to follow due to all the heavy lines and solid inking can make panels look very busy and cluttered. This is where some thinner penciling could help create less of a visual conflict with the speed lines, which at times can be as heavy as a character's leg when they are attacking. CHARACTERS (6): Cat Paradise' cast may not be super stellar, groundbreaking, or memorable, but they a solid balance of shonen archetypes that don't offend me with utter blandness. I really liked what was done with the cats' individual powers, it helps them stand apart from each other and the variety of techniques keep most of the fights from being the same panel to panel shot of pugilistic pornography that most fights are comprised of in this genre. Perhaps what hurts most of the other main characters outside of Yumi and Kansuke is that their personalities and backgrounds are just kind of summed up in a couple of sentences instead of progressive storytelling. Like Kotori and Kaiya clearly like each other, but it simply establishes THAT and really does nothing with it in terms of making me care any more or less about them. Shin is the "by the books" robot guy, who will show a flash of humanity and learn a brief lesson in friendship...and that will be the end of that. That kind of parody writing always bothers me because it keeps you from getting to know the actual character or watch them grow in any kind of unique fashion other than their personality presets. I really liked watching Gohan grow up before my eyes, but I haven't seen another character do that since. Why? Shonen is great at establishing a character, but for crying out loud, cant they evolve them without the help of a time jump? OVERALL (7): Cat Paradise was a pretty fun manga to read, by the by. Fun characters, a pretty decent entourage of antagonists, and it is pretty action packed with nice pacing. The art is a bit flawed, but the characters look pretty neat. As a cat lover, it was also pretty refreshing to see something unique done with cats other than the obligatory cat girl shtick that I never want to see again (thank you, Nyan Koi) and puts them in a more meaningful role.