James Nicoll Reviews

Yuki Urushibara’s When a Cat Faces West (Japanese: 猫が西向きゃ, Hepburn: Neko ga Nishi Mukya) is a Japanese urban fantasy manga series. It was serialized in Kodansha’s seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon from April 2018 to December 2020. Volume One appeared in 2019. The English translation appeared in 2022.

Flow is a mysterious phenomenon that from time to time transforms the world in peculiar, often disturbing, and sometimes (but rarely) dangerous ways. If the people of Japan are to pursue their mundane goals, someone must deal with Flow. Hirota is a Flow Disposal expert.

One might think mitigating reality-warps would require advanced technology or perhaps magic. As Hirota’s brand new assistant Chima Kondo discovers, more often than not it involves Hirota’s cat, Shacho.

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Mushishi, Volume One collects the first five issues of Yuki Urushibara’s manga of the same title. 

Ginko’s Japan hosts all the familiar life Kingdoms: plants, animals, and fungi. Alongside these familiar lifeforms there exists a much older, more primitive biota that human senses are ill suited to detect. These lifeforms are collectively known as the mushi. Ginko is one of the few people who can detect mushi. He has used this to become an expert in their ways, a mushi-shi. 

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