My Cat Loki

An impression of the series from the first two volumes

Today, I’m going to be taking a look at My Cat Loki. Let’s take a look at the blurb:

As a child, Ameya had always considered his cat more a sibling than apet. As the years went by, their bond grew even tighter.

But the day his feline “brother” died was the day Ameya withdrew from the world.Several years later, Ameya encounters a drenched stray cat in the park. Little does he knowe what fate has in store for him...

Beautifully rendered and hauntingly crafted, Bettina Kurkoski’s heartwarming story will touch everyone who’s grown up with a furry friend.

Right then. It sounds a little bit like a fantasy thing. “Cat becomes human!” Well, not quite. It’s more an imagination thing. Ameya  had two cats: one who he had as a child, which died and sent him into a depression-cycle, and a new one that he finds under a park bench at the start of the comic. 

Each cat that he has, he likes to pretend that it’s a human being who talks to him. It’s almost like an imaginary friend, in that he talks to the cats - even when other people are around who think he’s really odd for talking to the cat - and we assume that he imagines what the reply would be. It’s almost like Garfield, except that Jon never hears Garfield’s reply. Ameya hears what his cats say - or at least in his mind, he does - and everyone things he’s a little bit nutty for taking his cat around, talking to it and pretending it replied to him.

So, that’s how the Manga goes. You have the imaginative side, in that something happens and we hear what the cat’s feelings on the situation are (or at least what Ameya thinks the cat’s feelings would be). It also seems a bit bipolar at points; one of the plot points is that his agent, who also helps him run an art gallery, is in love with him yet he is blind to her advances. Yet the cat sits on the side and monologues that Ameya is stupid for not seeing that she is in love with him, showing that Ameya seems to grant his cat knowledge of the situation that he himself doesn’t have.

Apart from the whole fantasy, “I‘m imagining that my cat can talk” thing there is a very normal story being the Manga. There are no aliens invading the planet, there are no people with superpowers, it’s just an artist and his relationships with people, plus his journey to overcome his emotional withdraw triggered by him finding a new pet. 

So, that’s My Cat Loki in a nutshell. I really enjoyed it, and would recommend it. If you liked Peach Fuzz, which I think is the closest thing I can compare it to; they both appear to be original English Manga in left to right format, and they’re both quite uplifting tales. If you enjoy that sort of thing, then go check it out.