is a Japanese
manga
Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...
series created by
Makoto Kobayashi. In 1984, it began its serialization in the ''
Weekly Morning
is a weekly Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Kodansha. It debuted in 1982 as . The digital edition of the magazine is titled .
In 2006 a spin-off magazine called was launched (formerly bimonthly), featuring stories like ''Saint '' ...
'' magazine. The manga shows Michael, an orange
American Shorthair
The American Shorthair (ASH) is a breed of domestic cat believed to be descended from European cats brought to North America by early settlers to protect valuable cargo from mice and rats. According to the Cat Fanciers' Association, in 2020, it ...
tabby cat
A tabby is any domestic cat (''Felis catus'') with a distinctive 'M'-shaped marking on its forehead; stripes by its eyes and across its cheeks, along its back, and around its legs and tail; and (differing by tabby type), characteristic striped, d ...
, his feline friends, and other domesticated pets in a series of humorous episodes. Michael is not a specific cat, but rather a feline version of the
everyman
The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them.
Origin
The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...
as he appeared in drastically different settings across chapters: he's a normal cat in some chapters (with different owners in different chapters), an anthropomorphic cat in others, and he even dies in some chapters.
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops known ...
released the series in the US as eleven volumes between 1997 and 2006, and in 2020 released the first volume of a "Fatcat Collection", which spanned the first six volumes.
The manga was presented in the standard left to right American reading format.
In 1986, ''What's Michael?'' received the
Kodansha Manga Award
is an annual award for serialized manga published in the previous year, the event is sponsored by the publisher Kodansha. It is currently awarded in three categories: '' shōnen'', '' shōjo'', and general. The awards began in 1977, initially w ...
for general manga.
The manga was adapted into two
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
OVA
, abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...
films in 1985 and 1988, and a 45-episode TV series in 1988–1989.
Story
Most episodes of the series fall into one of two kinds of stories. The first portrays the cats in a realistic way, living out normal lives with their owners. It finds humor in how humans observe their pets' naturally quirky behavior. The second type of story is complete fantasy in which all the animals are given
anthropomorphic characteristics such as walking on two legs, wearing clothes, and being able to talk to each other; these episodes place the animals in a
cliché
A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...
d storyline and mixes up their human personae with normal animal behavior.
Chapters
See also
*
*
*
References
External links
*
"Translated Manga Pick of the Month"J-pop.com
Ex.org
1984 manga
1985 anime OVAs
1988 anime OVAs
1988 anime television series debuts
Animated television series about cats
Comics about cats
Dark Horse Comics titles
Kodansha manga
Seinen manga
TV Tokyo original programming
Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (General)
{{manga-stub