Nekogahara: Stray Cat Samurai Vol. 1–2 Manga Review (And Why Are Furry Stories So Difficult To Tell?)
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Posing moral and social questions through the projection of human characteristics to animals, and inanimate objects, is a very old trope of storytelling and it can be found in most cultures and time periods across human history (Aesop’s Fables is one of the most basic and well known examples). As Scott McCloud pointed out in Understanding Comics, humans are self-centered creatures and anthropomorphic representations are clear evidence of our tendency to impose human behaviors to creatures and objects that lack a form of “consciousness.” McCloud provided a very detailed typology of the different degrees that comics artists represent reality, ranging from minimalistic cartooning to near photographic realism, but he never discussed the questions of anthopomorphism as form of metaphoric storytelling.
The lack of an anthropomorphic typology (or in more simple terms, the degrees that separate Disney from the dreaded furry aesthetic) is quite obvious because of the challenges and different uses that this technique in the history of comics and animation. It’s all about how and why are you using animals to tell a “human” story. Let’s say that we create a scale that places “anthro” stories between two extremes: one side is a simple aesthetic choice based on certain artistic traditions and the second uses animals as a metaphors for social and cultural conflicts. In practice, this scale easily falls apart when you start naming examples.
Bojack Horseman uses talking animals to set up silly puns that contrast with the bleakness of its characters and their very human issues. Besides the infamous chicken episode in season 2 (episode 5), the show never really addresses the social implications of human and non-human relations (something that, I may add, results in a bunch of odd and uncomfortable situations when human-animal sex is used as a plotpoint). This cartoon logic is very similar to, say, the webcomic Lackadaisy, where the use of cat people in Prohibition Era Missouri is merely an aesthetic choice that allows Tracy Butler to play with human and animal expressions. And both stories are very distinct from something like the comic Blacksad or Disney’s Zootopia, which use animals as human stand-ins to portray racial divides or the effects of prejudice and social discrimination. Something like the countercultural comic Fritz the Cat is even trickier, since both the film and Robert Crumb’s original source material use animals in contradictory fashion. Some are racially coded or used as references to other stories (the crows represent black people, a nod to Dumbo), while others feel like random choices; Fritz is a cat coded as white, but there also humans in the story and policeman are portrayed as literal “pigs.” I like to refer to this wide variety of anthro representations as the “furry scale,” one that can easily break or improve your story if you use it in a smart or haphazardly way. Too close to the animal side can end up as a muddled and dangerous biological argument (see Zootopia); too much reliance on animals as a cartoony joke and it feels superficial or even unnecessary (Bojack Horseman).
I explain these distinctions, dear reader, because Hiroyuki Takei’s Nekogahara: Stray Cat Samurai provides an interesting example, for good and bad reasons, of how difficult it is to craft an anthropomorphic story without muddling the storytelling and thematic structure. But first, a quick note on my opinion about Takei. Besides Shaman King (the anime and manga), I’m not very familiar with the rest of his work. I think he is a master craftsman with a distinctive style demonstrating a lot skill and an impressive command of art fundamentals. In terms of his abilities as a storyteller, on the other hand, I’m more or less partial to them. Shaman King proved that he has a good handle on the basics of shonen while bringing a very pulpy grimness (as well as dark themes) to action and character development that is often marinated in cross-cultural references (some questionable to say the least). After his work in Ultimo, Nekogahara marks the start of an edgier side of Takei (more akin to seinen) in a smaller and more experimental manga magazine (Shonen Magazine Edge). Nekogahara might be a samurai manga, but its roots are closer to grim chambara films than say, manga like Rurouni Kenshin. In other words, think more of Harakiri than Kurasawa’s Yojimbo with a thick custard layer of cat puns. Oh god So many cat puns.
The setting is pretty simple. Norachiyo is a one-eyed ronin samurai (a “stray” in the jargon of the manga) wandering across towns and getting into violent encounters with cat gangs of drug dealers, police, ninjas, and killers. Norachiyo is eventually placed in a war between gangs, the police, and the Shogun warlords becoming a target after his purrrsuers (haha… sorry) discover that he’s a legendary cat samurai, the only cat in history to defeat a human samurai, the Red Warrior. And yes, this is not a joke; rather than just presenting a cheesy samurai story with cats as characters, Takei instead presents Nekogahara’s cat society as intrinsically connected to feudal Japan. Here, the cats of the Shoguns are, in turn, the lords of their respective lands ruling over peasants and merchants through the regulation of catnip, land, and taxes (yes, this is all pretty dumb). This creates a hierarchical society of obedient cats with masters and masterless “strays” with no place to call home. Norachiyo, as a good ol’fashioned anti-hero, remains in-between this sides. He wears a bell, indicating that he had a master, but he follows a self-destructive “stray” path in order to find a place to die.
As you can see, Nekogahara is a very straightforward story that seems to delve into the usual themes of its genre: regret, the samurai code, honor, etc. However, the actual experience of reading is quite the opposite. This is not a very classy rumination of Bushido and Feudal Japan and Takei seems interested in delivering stylish pulp. Using digital techniques and an artstyle inspired by Japanese ink artistry, Takei creates a visually astonishing manga filled with sketchy lines and beautiful strokes that evoke actual ink lines on a canvas. The character designs are also fantastic and Takei really shows his flexibility and cartoony art muscles. The cat characters in Nekogahara are diverse and they rarely feel like cheap copies of one another. Clearly Takei did a lot of research for his fictional cat society that presents a very diverse mix of kitty bodies and breeds that realistically mirror the social hierarchy of Edo Japan. Fort example, bobcats and other common breeds are peasants, while persians and sphinxs reveal the more privilege strata of the Shogunate. I can definitely say that the art in Nekogahara is it’s main selling point, even if it has some notable issues. The action scenes in particular are so stylishly experimental that they affect clarity. Sometimes Takei gets so excited with the strokes that the pages and spreads turn into abstract (beautiful) nonsense. Another frustrating issue is that Takei commits a very common mistake found in a lot of anthropomorphic (ejem, “furry”) art: his designs of female cats are just terrible. While the male cats are portrayed with a good range of sizes and shapes, female cats (specifically the Kunoichi cats in the second volume) are sexualized to the point of ridicule with gigantic boobs and impossible tiny hips. And this, I think, is not an arbitrary choice.
As I mentioned above, I described Nekogahara as “pulp” because that’s what this manga is and is kinda unapologetic about it. Putting the amazing art aside, the writing and content of the story never rise above crass samurai-exploitation constructed on top of a very overt silliness. The manga is violent and filled with references to sex and drug use that are then juxtaposed with cringe-worthy cat puns (Norachiyo’s signature phrase is, I shit you not, “puuurrayer for your soul”). It’s, in general terms, entertaining in its jarring tone to the point where I’m still not entirely sure what Takei is trying to do with the larger story and the cast of characters. Is it a so bad-is-good facsimile of samurai pulp? Is it a metajoke when everything is presented in a super straight serious way and contrasted with cheap puns?
I think that the overall failure of this manga goes back to an issue where both the writing/tone and the premise work against each other. What I’m saying is that it feels like Takei focused too much on the premise/setting, leaving the story without a clear perspective or theme. Take for instance, the main character Norachiyo; on paper, is a very basic trope common in samurai stories: a wandering ronin with a dark SAD past (probably presented to us at a later point in the story in a very SAD flashback) fights evil dudes. It’s pretty hard to ruin a proven formula, but after two full volumes I’m not sure what Takei is attempting with Norachiyo. He’s presented as a violent anti-hero following a vague “stray cat” code, that is not conveyed very well, and a self-destructive path of drugs and general asshollery. There are some hints that he is, you know, a cool cat with a kind heart, but after two-hundred pages I still cannot conclude whether I like him or I want him dead. Takei portrays him as a sort of broken amoral warrior even when the writing never finds a point of connection for the reader or, at the very least, a minimal attempt at hinting why Norachiyo acts the way he does. We are only left with his actions, which are lovingly repulsive: he impales another cat while he’s in the litterbox (it’s not as funny as it sounds) and he spends most of the second volume buttnaked while he attempts to rape a Kunoichi cat. Again, is this supposed to be cool or gross in a super hilarious way? I have honestly no idea, since the author spends over two hundred pages following mean cats that are irredeemable jerks for no apparent reason.
And this same issue applies to how the themes of the manga relate to the anthropomorphic setting. Takei aims for the typical moral questions of chambara stories: the confrontation of duty and honor and the duality of the samurai code and of free-will, etc. How this relates to the cat-human relationship remains fussy and unclear. There’s some stuff about how cat society has become dependant on humans as a source of catnip (uhmm, okay) and a few hints that cats became domesticated by the Shogunate against their natural masterless behaviour (oh, right, I mean…). This thematic threads run wild across duels, executions, and brutal fights that never result in a cohesive idea. And when you add to this the fact that this is a story about, like, real cats (as opposed to samurai cats as human stand-ins), and how they relate to humans, well then everything just starts falling apart. And the result is a premise and a setting that is, to put it mildly, quite baffling and it’s hard to parse Takei’s intent.
Let’s say that Takei was only interested in pure style and producing a facsimile of chambara pulp with cats as a superficial gimmick. This does not hold water because he added the human component to the story. Is evident that he’s trying to accomplish something else and this is where the dangers of the furry scale move to one side: since these are actual biological cats within the human society of Edo Japan, it’s difficult to take a face value their human behavior and actions. Now, let’s shift to a different idea; if the cat society in the manga changed based on their relationship with humans then is not much of a stretch to assume that perhaps Takei is attempting some kind of colonialist metaphor (think of Fantastic Planet) where you can see the ripples that a dominant society produces in the cultural/social structures of their colonies. This is also unlikely since Takei focuses mainly on the political intrigue of the cat Shogunate. In fact, humans have not made a single appearance in the manga so far even when they serve a major role in the setting of the story. As an example of a “furry”/anthropomorphic/”funny animal” story, Nekogahara serves as a good example of how the use of animals as characters can seriously damage the integrity of the story you want to tell. It’s fascinating as a big strange failure.
I may sound super harsh, but Nekogahara is mildly enjoyable even if it’s kinda bad. At the very least is trashy-fun-bad instead of boring-awful-bad. I mean most of my gripes can be easily fixed in a few volumes and there are a few indications that Takei is switching gears in the third volume. The ending of the second volume does something pretty smart by turning a minor character into a major player in the events to come and I have a slight feeling that Takei is moving forward with the story beyond Norachiyo as the main character. This is really smart in that having a second or third character allows for a clash of personalities since Norachiyo is a good example of a seinen anti-hero that works better as some kind of terrifying presence that is always looming on the sidelines of the story. That said, I need to be honest and accept that my patience is wearing thin. I’ll give it one more volume, but if things don’t get better fast I’m out (maybe, I’m too much of a sucker for media with kitties).
Scattered notes:
-The Kondasha English edition is handsome and high quality. The volumes include color pages and the covers are thick and well designed.
-Kudos to the translator for reaching maximum cheesiness with the cat puns (the side notes are sparse but efficient).
-Like many shonen artists, Takei tends to write mostly sausage fest stories but I never really considered him overtly sexist. Shaman King has a small amount of female characters, but the few that play a major role have strong and interesting personalities. He also seems somewhat “progressive” in terms of gender attitudes even if his takes on queerness are questionable (looking at you Ryu).
-Nekogahara was the central new series of the inaugural issue of Shōnen Magazine Edge. This is a monthly magazine so the pace of the published tankōbon has been sluggishly frustrating.
