Sadly, a lot of Denpa's releases for this year got caught up in Covid-related delays. Thankfully, we did eventually get this charming little one-shot from a shojo manga legend, showing us a very different side of her works just in time for Christmas.
LIL' LEO (Leo-kun), by Moto Hagio. First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2021.
PLOT:
Leo is an adventurous little tabby cat. He'll go to school, work at a job, and even try to become a movie star in order to pursue his curiosity (and maybe get a treat out it).
STORY:
It's easy for a lot of American manga readers to forget we've only seen a small fraction of Moto Hagio's library of works in English. That fraction is mostly focused on early notable works of hers from the 1970s, save for a handful of short stories and Otherworld Barbara. Thus, to most readers Moto Hagio is a name that calls up images of old-school shojo melodrama: beautiful, complex, tragic, but one far removed from the world of manga today. That's why I appreciate that the fine folks over at Denpa Books went out of their way to show us not just a more recent side of Moto Hagio, but a more fanciful one as well.
Lil' Leo is basically a gag manga, albeit a rather low-key one. It's based around an idea that every cat owner has had at some point - "that cat thinks he's people." Hagio simply takes this idea to its extreme and lets the results speak for themselves. Thus, she creates a world where cats can walk and talk without comment from the humans around them but otherwise behave and think like house cats. It's simple but effective.
As we learn from the photo-diary afterword, Leo is based on one of Hagio's many pet cats. As a fellow cat owner, I can feel both the affection and frustration she feels for him. He's curious and kind, but also easily distracted, simple-minded (even when compared to other cats) and driven mostly by his appetite, and this is usually what gets him into very silly sorts of trouble.
Reading through this, I get the feeling that Hagio incorporated a lot of ideas from her own life into this manga. Why else would Leo try his hand at being a shojo mangaka's assistant or star in a movie based on a manga by fellow Magnificent 49er and cat fanatic Yumiko Ooshima? Other chapters are clearly drawn on some of the more everyday struggles of cat ownership, such as the one where Leo struggles to learn how to use a litterbox during a rainy day. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the reoccurring human characters are based on people she knows as well. It gives this manga a sort of cozy, lived-in quality that a lot of similar gag manga about cats don't possess.
ART:
The art here is not quite as delicate and elaborate as her hey-day in the 1970s but it is not without its charms. The humans are well in line with those in her more modern works, with broader faces and a lot more body diversity than one typically sees in manga. The setting is also fairly mundane; only Leo's dreams does she let herself indulge in more delicate, dreamlike imagery. Where it shines the most is with Leo and the other cats.
Hagio manages to strike this very delicate balance between anthropomorphizing Leo and having him move like an actual cat. He can stand and walk, but it's in an awkward fashion because his feet aren't built for bipedalism. He can emote, but it's only a mildly exaggerated take on a cat's natural expressions. Meanwhile, the other cats move quite naturally but also in a way that subtly communicates their individual personalities. It's all clearly borne from years of observation and sketching and it's one of the many testaments to Hagio's skill as an artist.
RATING:
This book is published by Denpa Books. It is currently in print.
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