Review:
Nanao used to be a house cat, but he's now yet another abandoned stray cat. He spends his days alongside his best friend Machi, a fellow stray, trying to survive just like all of the other strays in their neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Yoshino, who for some reason has an aversion to cats, runs the Narita Bathhouse with help from her younger brother. The neighborhood the bathhouse is in is known for its feral cat population, which creates some cute moments for tourists to photograph but has negative aspects as well. In the interests of reducing the local feral cat population, people are now forbidden from feeding them unless they're on the neighborhood cat feeding schedule, which all the local shops are part of. To her shock, Yoshino is first up on the schedule, which requires her to face her feelings about cats and her memories of and grief over her husband, who died in an accident shortly after they were married.
This manga is a combination of several things: a "keep your cats inside" PSA, a story about a widow overcoming her grief over the death of her husband and learning to love the cats he loved, and a story about cats dealing with feline politics and trying to figure out how and whether to trust humans.
A warning: there's some on-page cat death in this, as well as some on-page animal cruelty (a guy who catches Nanao and plans to torture and kill him - he does get as far as breaking Nanao's tail), and lots of "cat in peril" moments. One of the main ways this series tackles its "keep your cats inside" PSA aspects is by showing readers lots of ways being outside can turn out badly for cats - being injured by cars, people, or other cats, the possibility of starvation, and more. There was very little, if any, focus on the damage feral cats can do to the environment - the author knew readers were likely cat lovers who'd be most likely to listen to messages focused on preventing cats from getting hurt.
Although I hated the amount of time I had to spend feeling anxious about Nanao and Machi (I flipped to the end, at one point, in an effort to find out whether they both survived), I was interested in their story and its intersection with Yoshino's. The flashback to the accident that killed Yoshino's husband was heartbreaking on multiple levels (and also frustrating, because he could have waited just a bit longer and it probably would've been fine).
The cat politics-focused bits engaged in more anthropomorphization than I'd have liked. Machi was the son of Ten, the cat who was the "Ao" (leader) before the current one. Because he'd inherited his father's blue eyes, it seemed likely that Machi would be a future Ao, but other feral cats in the area used his father's history against him, forcing him to prove himself in a way that they'd rigged to fail. All of this gave Machi almost as harrowing a story as Nanao's, but overall I preferred Nanao and Yoshino's story.
It's an anxiety-inducing read, but don't worry, it does end well, eventually. I got a kick out of the fact that Yoshino does not end up with Horimiya, the TNR supporter guy, even though it would've been easy for the author to make that part of her "healing after the death of her husband" journey. She was still single, but happy as she was, living with her cats and running her husband's family's bathhouse.
This was an impulse purchase, a result of browsing through available manga omnibus editions looking for something I might enjoy. All in all, I enjoyed it despite its upsetting moments. The artwork was lovely, and the story felt like it was just the right length.
Extras:
Three full-color illustrations, a few pages of concept artwork and notes from the author, and a couple pages about TNR and related topics. There's also a short bonus manga that I suspect was originally released at the end of volume 1 but which was included at the very end of this omnibus volume. The manga features Nanao and Machi transforming into human boys.
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