By Yuji Iwahara
Yen Press, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Yuji Iwahara can write a good story. He proved it with King of Thorn. His latest offering, brought over by Yen Press, is titled Cat Paradise. And it is a huge let down.

The main character, Yumi, has just transferred to a special school where students are allowed to bring one cat. Somehow, the school is semi-popular and a whole bunch of students decided to enroll. Neither Yumi nor Kansuke (Yumi’s cat) gets a normal school experience, however, as they are destined for other things.

Cat Paradise presents a laughable backstory that fuels the plot. An ancient cat god, Kaen, got really mad for some unknown reason and rampaged through an entire city before being sealed away by a princess and her cat. This only managed to weaken Kaen, until a guy named Sandou sealed his powers completely. Kaen promised he would return in a hundred years and unleash his vengeance. With this knowledge, Sandou then did the logical thing and built a school on top of where he sealed a demon god. You know, because that’s totally safe.

There aren’t too many bright spots. When one of Kaen’s servants (a demon fox that likes collecting human hair) attacks the school, Kansuke the cat gets beat up. He talks some cat talk about having power and wanting to protect his owner and then—ta-da!—a ghost and her cat show up to give him and Yumi special powers. She gets a magic ball of yarn that does… something. The properties are never really explained. This is pure conjecture, but the yarn seems to take the shape of whatever she thinks about. When she thinks of an outfit a human might wear, for instance, it wraps around Kansuke and he becomes a bi-pedal were-cat creature. Another time, she forms the yarn into a shield and then can’t figure out how to unravel it. Kansuke makes some comment about how there might not be enough yarn left and suddenly it streams behind him acting as a leash—despite the fact that this did not happen in any earlier instances.

The school’s student council is populated by other cat owners with powers. Even though all it seems to take is a wish for power and possession of a cat, not everyone on campus has special abilities. There’s a prophecy, a group of teens and their talking cats, and a whole lot of uncompelling story developments. The evil cat god—SPOILER ALERT—breaks free by the end of the volume and takes the form of a crow. I can’t give a reason why. It makes no sense.

And now for the wrap-up pun you’ve been waiting for: Cat Paradise belongs in a litter box.

Volume one of Cat Paradise is available now.