Nekome Kozou

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Japanese: 猫目小僧

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Type: Manga

Volumes: 3

Chapters: 13

Status: Finished

Published: Dec 1967 to 1976

Genres: Adventure, Horror, Supernatural

Theme: Psychological

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: None

Authors: Umezu, Kazuo (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.01¹ (scored by 792 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #8940²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #6963

Members: 3,038

Favorites: 48

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7.01

Ranked #8940Popularity #6963Members 3,038

MangaUmezu, Kazuo (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /3

Chapters: /13

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Synopsis

Cat Eyed Boy is a half-human, half-monster child whose mostly human appearance bans him from the demon world. He lives hidden in the shadows of the human world, hated by humans and demons alike. Wherever he goes, awful events occur as the humans and demons interact. In stories of revenge and retribution full of disturbing images, Cat Eyed Boy acts as a trickster, saving the innocent and helping the wicked receive the punishment that fate metes out.

(Source: VIZ Media)

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Background

Nekome Kozou was published in English as Cat Eyed Boy by VIZ Media in 2 volumes under the VIZ Signature imprint on June 17, 2008.

A live-action film adaptation of the series was released in Japan on June 10, 2006.

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Cat Eyed Boy

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Reviews

Feb 19, 2025

tavarita

Recommended

An episodic horror-lover’s delight!

From the campy to the genuinely terrifying, Cat-Eyed Boy offers it all with gorgeous ink work, excellent page-turns, and genuinely surprising twists. While it may not be as well known as Kazuo’s other works, it is a must read for anyone who appreciates horror in general. Readers today may consider its panel direction and plots crude in comparison to its successors in the genre, but it is inarguably a progenitor of horror manga as we know it today and deserves to be known as such.

I found Cat-Eyed Boy himself to be adorable in his earnestness, and he serves as a great ...

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Mar 17, 2011

1up

Recommended

Preliminary (11/13 eps)

He's no man, he's no cat, he's Cat Eyed Boy! A young boy with feline features and supernatural dispositions, carrying his bindle across Japan, irresistibly drawn to places where mystery lingers and horrible tragedies are about to strike.

Viz published his adventures in two larges volumes in 2006. As observant readers may guess from the fine realistic graphic style, this work by horror manga master Kazuo Umezu is actually from a much earlier period. It was originally serialized in Shonen Gahosha, Shonen King and Shonen Sunday from 1967 to the year after, preceding well-known classics such as The Drifting Classroom and Orochi.

The eleven stories that make ... up the books are very uneven in length, some span only a few tens of pages, others one or two hundred. There's also a central story much longer than the others that connect the two volumes; it's the Band of One-Hundred Monsters, where Cat Eyed Boy tries to defeat the nasty three-eyed dwarf Kodomo and his hideous minions. In his first adventure, The Immortal Man, Cat Eyed Boy's role seems more that of a witness. But it is in truth misguiding as he takes an active part in all the following stories, often changing the course of events or solving the mystery himself.

In the tradition of Japanese horror, the basis for the story is often set in a - presumably fictitious - legend, be it monsters roaming deep forests or statues protecting villages. There's a strong cultural theme in several of the plots and this alone should rejoice fans of Asian horror. The way it is told, however, is not so satisfying. Some stories, especially the central one, seems to drag on needlessly. It's all about showing monsters and scary scenes and oftentimes the narrative seems to be used as a piece of canvas, stretched in loose ends to fit whatever Umezu wants to draw.

The writing is especially weak, although it is hard to tell who is to blame, Umezu or the translator. Viz usually provides good translations but that one seemed below their usual standard. Take the title for instance, where's the hyphen between "cat" and "eyed"? After the train wreck in The Meat Ball Monster, a sentence caught my attention, too, because it made no sense in the context and not much on its own, either: "And in the present day - the national railway frequently raised fares. And railway accidents occured frequently." There's a lot of tepid, uninspired dialogues, pointless exclamations and one-liners of bewildering blandness.

But Umezu is fore and foremost a graphic artist, and in that department he delivers with the ease of a true master. Each story abounds of ugly monsters and twisted human faces looking at them in utter horror. There's a good deal of blood, too, although some stories are more violent than others. But what remains afterwards is the intense imagery; many vignettes leave an imprint in the mind, fleeting nightmare visions of a black and white world. There's a few color panels in the second book, one page in full color with a dark haunting palette and others with monochromatic (green or red) tones that gives a really nice feel.

Cat Eyed Boy may be not an essential read, but it's definitely worth a look! Umezu's vivid creativity and his eye for horror make up for the various shortcomings of the writing. Not to mention the titular character, whose quaint style and good-hearted devilishness are the right traits for a companion on this macabre journey.

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Feb 27, 2019

MangoPamda

Mixed Feelings

I have to say that it was a struggle to complete this manga, but I did so just because it was so short. I'd say that it nails the horror element. This is an older manga and the visuals interested me as they are pretty grotesque and it does well in the element of shock value. The art style to me doesn't scream the typical "anime style", and in fact a lot of it reminds me of the western style, which isn't a bad thing, just something to note due to it's age.

The main character, the Cat Eyed Boy, is interesting, as he comes across ...

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Poll: Cat Eyed Boy Chapter 7 Discussion rubium - Mar 27, 2010	1 replies	by Maggot_Brain »» Oct 20, 2018 8:45 PM
Poll: Nekome Kozou Chapter 10 Discussion Maggot_Brain - Oct 20, 2018	0 replies	by Maggot_Brain »» Oct 20, 2018 8:38 PM
Poll: Cat Eyed Boy Chapter 5 Discussion rubium - Jan 11, 2010	0 replies	by rubium »» Jan 11, 2010 4:23 PM
Poll: Cat Eyed Boy Chapter 4 Discussion rubium - Jan 11, 2010	0 replies	by rubium »» Jan 11, 2010 11:01 AM
Poll: Cat Eyed Boy Chapter 3 Discussion rubium - Jan 8, 2010	0 replies	by rubium »» Jan 8, 2010 12:34 PM

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