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Neko no Otera no Chion-san feels like a entirely natural progression from the author's previous work, Fujiyama-san wa Shishunki, with the similar type of dynamic between a student and his childhood friend (who in this case, is actually a distant relative). Going immediately from finishing Fujiyama to starting this manga felt like a fantastically smooth transition, which is why I'm perhaps a bit generous with the rating. I usually enjoy slice-of-life manga that doesn't need feel the need to force in melodrama, but Chion-san is quite interesting in the way that it doesn't seem to have a desire to actively puruse drama at all.

The plot ... really sticks to the "slice-of-life" mode with a valiant type of stubbornness: there's no major story arcs to speak of besides the everyday life of the protagonist and his gradual adjustment to life in the countryside, but there does seem to be some foreshadowing in these latest chapters toward a few late-in-the-game developments. The mood of the story reminds me a bit of a cross between GTO and Yotsuba but Chion-san moves at much slower pace than the former. Expressions and poses are what the author seems to focus on rather than the development of characters, but that's not a dealbreaker for a work that doesn't need a deeply intricate cast to succeed in being beautiful. At the very least, the minor characters in the protagonist's friend group feel slightly less generic than in Fujiyama, but they still don't have any major bearing on the direction of the work itself, which appears content to laze about like a housecat taking a nap in the afternoon sun.

Made entirely by one person, Takashi Kimura, Utsu Musume Sayuri is a short animation that feels like a Pee Wee's Playhouse short that never made it off the drawing board. There's no real satisfaction in watching this, besides the fact that I'm wasting my life by watching + reviewing this