User:G S Palmer/Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu

Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu (伊藤潤二の猫日記　よん＆むー) is a single-volume Japanese semi-autobiographical comedy manga by horror author Junji Ito.

Plot
The story follows J-kun (J君) (based on Junji Ito) and his fiancée/wife A-ko (Ａ子) (based on Ito’s wife, Ayako Ishiguro) as they adopt first the friendly, long-haired Norwegian Forest cat Mu (むー) and then Yon (よん), a cat with an ominous skull marking on its back. Over time, J-kun, who considers himself a dog person, starts to warm up to the two cats.

Chapters

 * "Mu Appears" (むー登場)
 * "Yon Attacks" (よん襲来)
 * "Battle of the Cat Wand!!" (激闘!! 猫じゃらし)
 * "The Events of One Late Night" (ある夜の出来事)
 * "Yon is a Weird Cat" (よんはやっぱり変な猫)
 * "Yon's Great Escape" (よん大脱走)
 * "King Yon" (王者よん)
 * "Mu's Castration" (むー去勢)
 * "Unidentified Creature" (未確認生物)
 * "Tread not on Poop, Snot, or Cat" (ウンコ踏まず 鼻水踏まず 猫踏まず)

Background and conception
The series was written during an eight-year break Ito took from writing horror manga; his last published horror work was Shin Yami no Koe Kaidan in 2006, and his next would be Fragments of Horror in 2014. Ito has described the period as an "empty" time where he worked on "illustrations and manga about cats or about society".

Publication
Ito serialized the manga in Kodansha's now-defunct seinen manga magazine Monthly Magazine Z between the January 2008 and February 2009 issues. Kodansha published the chapters as a single volume on 13 March 2009 (ISBN 978-4-06-337664-7).

Kodansha Comics USA announced their license to the manga at their Anime Boston panel on 4 April 2015, and published it on 27 October 2015 (ISBN 978-1-63236-197-4).

Reception
The book reached fourth place on the New York Times Manga Best Sellers list.


 * Anime News Network
 * Comics & Cola
 * Otaku USA
 * Dread Central