More cute cat manga! Continuing the story of Plum and the bothersome kitten Snowball that joined her household. Snowball is still biting the older cat. The family sends her to spend a few days with a neighbor that has another kitten, hoping that some rough-and-tumble play will teach her to be more gentle. It doesn’t last long, as the kittens wreck the neighbor’s house. The teenage son’s friend visits and tries to alter Snowball’s behavior, but his interference (with what sounds like a good understanding of how cats think) only heightens the situation. The cats alternately snuggle together and fight, hog toys from each other, and mess with display items or gifts set out for holidays. Usual cat mischief. And adorableness- I don’t think I ever saw a comic or manga before that had so many lovely drawings of cats in relaxed, curled-up poses (the artist author is really good at these!) At one point in the story, Snowball goes wandering outside trying to follow Plum, and ends up in a dog park. In another episode, Snowball gets sick and it’s Plum who alerts the clueless humans, as they misinterpret the kitten’s behavior. For a while after being ill, Snowball licks Plum instead of biting, but then she goes back to her old antics. A tiny black-and-white stray kitten breaks into the house after the cats’ food, and Snowball is jealous of the momentary attention the mother gives it. Snowball is introduced to the dance students, which goes a little better than how it did with Plum. At the end, Snowball is trying to do some nice things for Plum, but her attempts get misconstrued and the older cat is scolded for things she hadn’t done. Amusing.
This volume has more of the little cat-viewpoint stories interspersed, each just two or three pages, wherein you can read the cats’ thoughts. Oddly, they’re spread over the chapter breaks- so you’ll have one page of the short, then the next chapter heading and double-page spread illustration, then the other page or two of the short, before the new chapter continues. Strange, I don’t know why the formatting was done like that. It’s very clear to the reader now that Plum understands human speech, though the people themselves still puzzle about that- does she really know what we’re saying? or are her actions just coincidence. They finally conclude that she really does grasp language, and is a super intelligent cat. Strangely though, when the cats meow and mew, they can’t understand each other (which you gather from the shorts). So there’s friction between the cats because Plum can’t tell what Snowball says in “kitten talk” and vice versa. That doesn’t really make sense to me, but oh well. I like these cute kitty mangas regardless.
Borrowed from the public library. Next in the series.
