Stories about man's best friend have been around forever, and they always manage to resonate with mainstream audiences, especially pet owners. I mean, how can you not fall in love with stories about dogs? But there are just as many stories about people and man's best friend going through hardships, especially ones where the dog in question winds up dying in some capacity. Not many people like those stories for that reason, which is fine, but unlike most people who want to avoid stories like that, I deliberately seek them out. Because I'm a sap like that. Hell, one of my favorite series of all time is Dog of Flanders, which is pretty infamous for being extremely sad. This short manga, Hoshi Mamoru Inu, or Star Protector Dog, is one such story. The premise at first is pretty simple: A family adopts a dog that they name Happy, but soon the family falls apart, and Happy winds up bonding with the lonely patriarch of the family. When circumstances leave the man homeless, he takes Happy for a drive down south...but then the man winds up penniless and dies, with Happy following suit later on. The sequel manga follows up on this and tries to answer some lingering questions, along with showing other characters and their bonds with their canine friends as well.
As far as the art is concerned, it's pretty good. The backgrounds are all detailed, with a bit of rough sketchiness that makes it feel like a real lived-in world. I mean, just look at the covers for the manga. They pretty much speak for themselves. The characters don't necessarily get the same treatment, but I appreciate that Takashi Murakami still managed to make them look distinct and didn't try to go for the typical anime style. All the characters have their own designs that are a good mix of both cartoony and realistic, and yes, this includes the dogs. You won't find gigantic sparkly shoujo eyes here. The people here look like people you'd see on the street, and I commend Murakami for sticking to a more realistic, if rough and sketchy style.
The characters is where things start to get tricky. At first, we only learn about the man and his family. We never find out the patriarch's name, and the only person in said family that gets a name is the daughter, Miku, and she disappears not long after her introduction. The only character we follow is the old man, who does change across the course of the first volume. But he doesn't necessarily get fleshed out in any way, and the characters that appear in the second volume have only cursory connections to him at best, and not much else. The dogs get plenty of characterization through their thoughts, actions, and body language, but even they can't really carry the stories. The side characters get more focus in the sequel manga, but they're also not very interesting to follow, and even take away from what's supposed to be the main plot of that particular volume. Also, I find it utterly unbelievable that a pet shop would be totally okay with allowing a homeless boy to outright steal a dog right from under their noses. That would never happen in real life no matter how compassionate the pet store employees are.
But I think Star Protector Dog's biggest issue is that it doesn't try to answer a lot of its biggest lingering questions. The first volume is a pretty solid story on its own, albeit very sad and not for the faint of heart, but I think the sequel volume bogged it down by focusing on characters that really didn't add anything to the plot. I mean, I don't mind leaving some questions unanswered, especially since real life doesn't always give you neat and easy answers, but what's the point of establishing a mystery and advertising it as the plot to a sequel manga when you're not even going to do anything with it after a while? Eh, in the end, Star Protector Dog doesn't have much to offer other than feels and realistic but cartoony artwork. It's a shame because stuff like this is usually right up my alley. But hey, if other people get something out of it, then that's fine with me.
