Nekogahara: Stray Cat Samurai, Vol. 4

I'm a huge fan of manga starring cats, and I'm a huge fan of Japanese history. What do you get when you combine the two? Samurai cats. Ninja cats. Nip-addicted cats. Pleasure house cats. Very gritty, very dark, but also with funny moments as well. I'm a huge fan of this series.

Volume 5 is largely comprised of a backstory-infused flashback into Norachiyo's past and how he got to where he is. His past isn't a happy one, much like you'd expect from the rest of the series. Turns out, someone he knew relatively well from his past is now fairly highly placed in Japanese society, and it looks like there's about to be some butting of heads! I loved getting a look into Norachiyo's past, and the opening few panels were hilarious.

A common mild complaint about this series is that I sometimes have trouble following the action when things are happening quickly, and this volume does have some of that as well. In-the-moment panels are sometimes hard to decipher, until you finally get a wider glimpse of what's happened later on. But in the scope of the story and how much I like this manga series, it's totally a mild complaint on my end.