The Very Next Day
Night of the Living Cat, volume 1
By Hawkman & Mecha-Roots
11 Feb, 2026
Translation
2021’s Night of the Living Cat, Volume 1 is the first tankōbon for Hawkman and Mecha-Roots’ feline-apocalypse comedy-horror manga series.
A virulent pandemic has struck down almost everyone in Japan and perhaps across the world as well1. Only a few lucky survivors, such as Kunagi and his friend Kaoru, remain. Hope is dead, for who can expect to elude the relentless doom that is—
THE COMMON HOUSE CAT!
Perhaps some exposition is in order.
~oOo~
Amnesiac Kanagi appeared soon after a mysterious explosion in a cat-food factory. Kaoru and her brother Gaku took him in, employing him in their struggling cat café2. While Kanagi has no memory of his own past, he does have a comprehensive knowledge of cats. If only he had social skills as well, he might be an exemplary staff member. As it is, his utility is marginal.
Kanagi’s hair-trigger reactions cease to be an issue as soon as the pandemic breaks out. The novel disease is carried by cats. To touch a cat is to be transformed into a cat. No human, to matter how tough or ruggedly handsome, is immune.
Discovering, while in a cat café surrounded by cats, that cats now carry a horrific plague is something short of ideal. Poor Gaku survives only long enough to leave Kaoru in Kanagi’s charge before succumbing. Kaoru and Kanagi escape… but for how long?
Kanagi is exceptionally athletic. His knowledge of cats is exemplary. Determined to keep Kaoru and himself alive, there is no weapon he will not unleash on the cats — jingle toys, catnip, even squirt bottles!
But Kanagi adores cats so very much. Can even the most resolute action hero resist their adorable allure?
~oOo~
Nothing bad happens to any cat.
Readers may wonder how a full sized human turns into a cat-sized cat. This is not a manga that worries much about questions like that3.
The Japanese excel at multimedia development. No surprise that there is an anime adaptation. Or that there is a trailer.
Readers may also wonder if the authorities ever tried barricades. They did. However, it turned out that barricades with cat-sized gaps are largely ineffective against cats. Well, probably the Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest cats had to hop over the barriers but otherwise the cats just strolled through. Nobody could have foreseen this.
This is a one-joke manga, that joke being that the juxtaposition between the terror and alarm the humans feel as they are picked off one by one and the nature of the existential threats against which humanity cannot hope to prevail, which is to say adorable cats.
Still, one has to admire the determination with which the creators commit themselves to the joke. Every horror movie trope is deployed. Dialogue is overwrought. Poses are dramatic. Every cat is adorable4. For the characters, the crisis is very serious business, despite the manifest absurdity.
This does not seem like the sort of manga that can support an extended run. Still, if you enjoy skillfully drawn manga, if you like zombie apocalypses but are a bit tired of zombies, and if you really like cats, this is very likely the manga for you.
Night of the Living Cat, Volume 1 is available here (Seven Seas), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Bookshop US), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).
1: USA delenda est.
2: It’s not entirely clear if they pay him wages.
3: Reading ahead, the question of how all these new cats will feed themselves, lacking pet food factories and humans with can openers, is answered. It’s not horrific! But also not especially plausible. The important thing is the cats aren’t going to starve.
4: It is just as well Junji Ito did not illustrate this manga.
