Wata no Kuni Hoshi

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I am surprised that this lovely manga has no reviews but there is a first for everything

Wata no Kuni Hoshi or The Star of Cottonland, despite being the manga credited for the popularization of catgirls, is criminally underrated and definitely deserves a read if you enjoy catgirls, pretty art, and/or philosophical slice-of-life manga.

To start, the art. Yumiko Ooshima is a mangaka associated with the iconic Year 24 group and this is for good reason. Her linework is incredibly delicate and her page composition is incredibly unique and eyecatching but still easy to follow. She uses space and light and shadow to set a whimsical ... and at times melancholic tone as Chibineko goes through each day. And, her choice of depicting all cats rather than just her protagonist as catpeople is incredibly unique and lends an air of comedy as one sees beautiful long-limbed people doing silly things like lounging on a fence or attempting to steal from fish vendors.

Since I mentioned Chibineko, let us move onto the characters. Chibineko is a perfect protagonist to show coming-of-age as she is not quite cat and not quite human and it shows in her design as being a girl with animal features like cat ears and a tail along with fangs. She navigates life in this limbo, experiencing love, yearning, loss, and death and interacting with many other colorful characters as she goes. The Suwano family which took her in are incredibly interesting, even just with their day-to-day lives such as Fumiko's activities as a housewife and her husband's eccentric character as a writer. The son Tokio is also an aloof and eccentric character that works well with Chibineko.

Overall, this is a lovely manga that shows the journey of a girl in the innocence of youth and the various lessons she learns and people she meets as she goes throughout life and learns about the world outside of her small family and home and it is a read you will not regret.