I haven’t been warning of or trying to avoid spoilers much in writing about this series, because well, I don’t expect any of you will actually read them like I did. This one was almost as boring as the last, but it had one strange moment and a lot of hinted at revelations in what cats shouted at each other in the middle of their fights. In the opening pages, Mocchi the housecat is the only who evaded being locked in the warehouse. He confronts the duo that orchestrated that trap- Madara the brindle and this other tuxedo cat. Protests the cruelty and senselessness of their actions. Madara casually opens the bay door again to find all the cat gang members injured and collapsed on the floor. Ryuusei is barely alive but he rouses himself to fight Madara, stopping him from killing Mocchi. The entire rest of the book is one long fight between Madara and Ryuusei. With some interspersed pages of backstory (again) as Madara explains why Ryuusei has been searching for Gekka, the tom calico. It still didn’t make much sense, but I’m guessing that will be cleared up in the final volume. The weirdest thing about this one, is the scene where Madara reveals his trick to overcome Ryuusei (who is the unbeaten fighter after all). It’s an array of moving cat toys laid out across the floor- so they battle in the middle of that, which distracts Ryuusei, and every time he looks at a toy, that’s when Madara strikes. Really odd. I suppose this was intended to be the funny part, but I just found it baffling. So Ryuusei has to corral his instincts and take control in order to beat his opponent, which is difficult. More very strange cat poses as they leap around during the fight. I did find myself admiring how the artist drew the action, all the lines for blurred motion, I haven’t seen a style like that before. The back pages have some character sketches of the three “exotic” characters (the longhair catnip dude, Bengal fighter and the hairless sphinx).
Borrowed from the public library.