Think of the bloodiest, most ruthless, death-cursed samurai tale, add in every cat pun ever and you've got yourself a story that works. Really well. For any cat fancier with an understanding of the darker sides of felines. ( )

I picked up this manga at the bookstore because it looked like something my son would like. I ended up being a bit disappointed and decided that it wasn’t appropriate for him to read quite yet (he’s 10 years old). The story is very typical “roaming noble samurai” and the artwork was hard to follow.

The story follows a cat named Norachiyo who wanders from place to place helping cats in need. He has a bell on his sword (which means at one point he was a kept cat, not a stray). He violently attacks and kills those he deems to be “bad”.

A lot of the story deals with “kept” cats versus “stray” cats. The stray cats are the only truly free cats while the kept cats are looked down upon by the strays since kept cats answer to humans.

The story is appropriate for young adult and older but not really for the middle grade audience. Norachiyo has an addiction to catnip which helps to ease his injuries (this is treated like any other drug addiction) and yet he prosecutes the cats who peddle and sell catnip in the cities. The book is very bloody with Norachiyo regularly slaughtering other cats in his righteous fury at how they treat others. Although some of the mystery surrounding Norachiyo is interesting...he is generally an unlikable character.

The manga takes itself way too seriously. There are a few cute cat references, but mostly this is just another typical samurai story but in this case the lead character is a cat. I thought there would be some humor in here, but it’s pretty cut and dry.

My biggest complaint about this book is the illustration. The action scenes are impossible to follow and it’s very hard to tell what is going on. While I didn’t mind the style of illustration, I was frustrated by how difficult it was to follow the action scenes.

Overall this was okay but not great. Some of the ideas are interesting and the whole noble samurai thing is always fun to read about (if overdone). However the story took itself too seriously and the illustration was pretty hard to follow (especially the action scenes). I won’t be reading anymore of this series; there’s just nothing here that interests me. I also won’t be giving it to my son to read because of the drug abuse and excessive violence (besides he loves cats, so watching them slaughter each other to bloody bits might be a bit disturbing for him!). ( )