Art Spiegelman once said that it is easier to read Ernie Bushmiller's comic strip Nancy than to not read it. Chi's Sweet Home is like that as well, with an undemanding storyline and a super-cute protagonist, a cat named Chi.
There was some dramatic tension back in the early volumes of this series, when stray cat Chi was first adopted by a family who lived in a building that didn't allow pets. Naturally, they had to conceal her existence from their neighbors. They moved a couple of volumes ago, though, so that's gone as a plot point.
Instead, in volume 6, we have the family trying to prevent Chi from eating the houseplants or walking across the floor with muddy feet, and Chi having encounters with various other animals. Some of these could become precarious except that Chi never notices or acknowledges the possibility of a fight. When she goes to the park, for instance, she chances upon a bigger cat who doesn't like Chi on his turf. No matter. Chi trots around after him and regards the whole thing as a game, and the bloody fight that you would expect never ensues. Instead, they have a great time and then Chi goes home and falls asleep.
The family is actually the greatest source of inflict in the whole book; perpetually grinning and flustered, they seem to be stumped by simple things. Chi's desire to explore a hot iron, for instance, is a major logistical problem for them, and when they get a new video camera and Chi discovers the eternal feline truth that it is fun to play in a box—all the more so when it is filled with cellophane—it's clearly the biggest thing that has happened to them all week, maybe all year.
Yeah, the family is a bit much.
But it seems churlish to dwell on that. Chi is super cute, and the manga is illustrated with delightful watercolor paintings, mostly in pale tints. I particularly enjoyed a nighttime sequence toward the end, as the cats and objects silhouetted against the deep black sky or sitting in pools of light made for an intriguing visual interplay. This had the promise of something sinister at last—Chi comes upon the other cats sitting in a circle under a streetlight, and I thought maybe they had formed a cult. But no, they were just sitting.
Chi's Sweet Home is what it is, a quiet, fun book that will elicit chuckles but not belly laughs, and won't keep you up nights sweating from the dramatic tension. And that's perfectly OK. Sometimes we all need a little quiet time.
Related Posts:
Manga Review: Cage of Eden, Vol. 1
Manga On The Small Screen: Yen, Gen, And Neon Genesis Evangelion
--
Discuss this story in our Comics forums! Follow @MTVGeek on Twitter and be sure to "like" us on Facebook for the best geek news about comics, toys, gaming and more!