Cat Companions Maruru and Hachi is a deceptively cute portrayal of the life and death struggles that street cats endure. Maruru is a purebred house cat who runs out of his house to chase sparrows and can’t find his way back home. Life as a stray cat is full of dangers that he did not expect, from the near impossibility of getting food and clean drinking water to trying to keep from freezing to death in the winter. He runs across an experienced street cat, Hachi, who at first attacks him and refuses to help him. Maruru is then able to save Hachi’s life by freeing him after Hachi’s head gets stuck in a watering can. Hachi then takes Maruru under his wing and shows him how to survive.
The horrors of how grim and dangerous life is for stray cats is really brought home here. There are lots of sweet moments and the cats are very cute, and then the artist will show you something like a cat getting trapped down a drain or getting too sick and old to groom itself properly. The cuteness of the art works very well as a contrast with these serious moments. The cats question their existence and what meaning their lives have on the street, and their fight to survive is very moving. Each of them has a distinct personality and I enjoyed the relationship between the more naive and optimistic Maruru in contrast with the skeptical but secret heart of gold Hachi. There’s also a human who scares all the cats, Yasuo, but he is actually a volunteer trying to help them. Their viewpoint on his attempts to help them is humorous because it seems to them like he’s kidnapping them and doing who knows what, so they spend a lot of time trying to avoid him and sabotaging his efforts. The plot progresses at a good pace between the two volumes, as Maruru gets more used to his new life and his relationship deepens with Hachi.
I really enjoyed this and look forward to future volumes!