- Characters: the gamer and the beast
The manga begins with Riko, a young office worker who is appreciated at work for her diligence. However, she never works overtime and never hangs out with her co-workers. Indeed, she hides a secret: she simply can't imagine spending her free time on anything else than games, especially games akin to Monster Hunter or Dragon Quest, as well as MMORPG and gacha mobile games. Her brain is 100% wired with games.
Then enters our second character, a young cat that Riko, despite herself, takes in and names Omusubi (from a Japanese dish). The woman then has to adapt her daily life, while maintaining her passion for games and her tendency to link everything to games, including her cat's behaviour. Quickly, she discovers the wonders only known to cat owners and gets addicted. So much so that, following the advice of the “sage”, a pet store employee she befriends, she adopts another cat, our third main character, named Soboro (still from a Japanese dish).
While being, in my opinion, a gag-driven manga, Riko is a character that evolves through the story. From someone who is obsessed with games, works only to finance her passion, and is completely clueless about cats, she becomes proficient in cat ownership skill, and lives as much for her games as for her cats.
- Narrative: a straightforward gag-driven manga
The structure of the manga is pretty basic. Each chapter is more or less independent and revolves around one gag in the daily life of Riko, Omusubi and Soboro. Most often, Riko will be confronted with some behaviour she can't explain at first, until she finds a solution from games, from cheat skills to hunt parties. Some other times, she discovers the “duties” of a cat owner, such as taking them to the veterinarian, the pet groomer or bathing them. At last, she finds herself expanding her social life discussing about cats, with the “sage” at first, but also with her co-workers and on social media. Many chapters end with the retelling of the events from the cats' point of view, offering some explanation to the mysteries of cat behaviour.
As stated in the beginning, this manga certainly won't be as compelling for people having no knowledge of how games work, or at least RPG, and people with no interest in cats. For the others, this might be a nice, funny and relaxing read in eight volumes.
