is a Japanese

manga 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 history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series created by

Makoto Kobayashi is a Japanese physicist known for his work on CP-violation who was awarded one-fourth of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quar ...

. 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 and was rebranded as Morning in 1991 while still maintaining its weekly publication tradition. The digital edition of the magazine is titled . It is the sis ...

'' 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 (CFA), it w ...

tabby cat A tabby cat, or simply tabby, is any domestic cat (''Felis catus'') with a Cat_coat_genetics#Tabbies , coat pattern distinguished by an M-shaped marking on its forehead, stripes by its eyes and across its cheeks, along its back, around its leg ...

, 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 and history The term ''everyman'' was used ...

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.

Eclipse Comics Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book store, comic book specialty stor ...

with

Studio Proteus Studio Proteus is a Japanese manga import, translation and lettering company, founded in 1986 by Toren Smith and based in San Francisco. Other staff included translators Dana Lewis, Alan Gleason, and Frederik Schodt, letterer Tom Orzechowski ...

originally released a two volume collection in 1990 in both softcover and hardcover versions for the American market. After

filed for Bankruptcy,

transferred the publishing rights over to

Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, manga and Artist's book, art book publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon, by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, O ...

, who released the series in America as eleven volumes between 1997 and 2006.

then released two omnibus volumes under the "Fatcat Collection" between 2020 and 2021. "Fatcat Collection" volume one covers the original volumes 1-6 while "Fatcat Collection" volume two covers the original volumes 7-11. All the American releases of the manga by

and

are presented in the standard left to right American reading format, with the artwork flipped to change the reading style. In 1986, ''What's Michael?'' received the

Kodansha Manga Award is one of Japan's major manga awards. The event is sponsored by publisher Kodansha. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga in its third iteration since 1977. Categories The award was originally called the until 1968. In 1970, it was ...

for general manga. The manga was adapted into two

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

OVA , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and special episodes of a series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the ...

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 storyline that mixes up their human personae with normal animal behavior.

Notes

References

External links

*
"Translated Manga Pick of the Month"
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��Ex.org 1984 manga 1985 anime OVAs 1988 anime OVAs 1988 anime television series debuts Animated television series about cats Comics about anthropomorphic cats Comics about talking animals Children's television series about talking animals Dark Horse Comics titles Kodansha manga Seinen manga TV Tokyo original programming Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (General) {{manga-stub

Story

See also

Notes

References

External links