This week I started reading the manga She and Her Cat, written by Makoto Shinkai and illustrated by Tsubasa Yamaguchi. The story follows the young adult life of Miyu, a woman who lives alone with her cat, Chobi.

As Miyu deals with the challenges of loneliness and living independently, Chobi gives his perspective on living with a human and Miyu’s struggles.

I thought the first chapter was absolutely adorable. The way Chobi observes Miyu is fascinating; he notices the little things Miyu does as she waiting for a phone call to end to pick up the phone, and knows the time she comes home from work by waiting for her at the door. It is how I would expect a cat to react to living with a human.

Chobi observes Miyu passionately, but still does not understand everything about humans or Miyu’s outside life.

Everything we learn about Miyu is through Chobi’s eyes so there is not much of her we know besides she works and is very close to her mother.

Something to take away from Chapter One is that Chobi notices when something is wrong with Miyu and I believe his intuition or his feelings toward Miyu are going to be very important later on in the story.

There is only one chapter released, but there is a show the book is based off of that is under the same title, She and Her Cat. You can read the manga at kodanshacomics.com/SheandHerCat.