Customer Reviews

Chi's Sweet Home, volume 1

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This manga is a must have, for anyone that loves animals, and loves to have them as the main focus and characters in the story. I grew up with cats, so I may be a little biased here, but I thought little Chi was adorable! I think the translation job done on the comic was good, too. Nice to have the kitten talking like a little person. Personally, I think there should be more manga focused around animals, and available in English!

I think the United States is sorely deprived of critter-based comics. And good ones.

Beyond the art being cute and well done, and the accuracy of cat behavior and what they seem to be thinking, the story actually has a heart and a complexity that I think is appropriate for a book mostly for children. It really makes you think about what the cat must be going through when it's adopted, or found, and how important it is to treat the cat well. Also, you feel bad for Chi and also confused about your own feelings as you're reading. You're not sure what you want more: Chi to find her momma, or for her to stay with the family that obviously loves her, and is taking a big risk in keeping her in an apartment that doesn't allow animals.

Definitely looking forward to the next volume!

I bought this as a gift for my mother and she loved. She has been watching the 5 minute episodes and she was delighted to able to read it now to practice her english.

I was surprised at the quality of the manga when I picked it up at Borders today. All the pages are colored and printed on thick paper.
It really is a lovely series, I'd recommend it to everyone. ^_^

One day, a kitten is separated from her mother and siblings. She looks for them, but only gets more and more lost and encounters scary dogs and cars on the way (yikes!). The kitten finally plops down in a park where she meets Yohei Yamada and his mother. They take her home, but Mr. and Mrs. Yamada don't think they can keep her with their apartment's no pet policy. But they can't find anyone to take the kitten in. When they start calling the kitten Chi, it's apparent that she's become a part of the Yamada family.

This is a really cute series. The chapters are linear but pretty episodic. They follow Chi as she finds her new home and has all kinds of new experiences- using a litter box, playing with bouncy balls, and visiting the vet. It's all seen from Chi's perspective, but the manga avoids becoming cutesy. We read her thoughts, but they're very simple, kitty thoughts, the kind of things you would imagine your own cats thinking. She does turn Rs and Ls into Ws in her speech, which is heading into cutesy territory, but that's negated by the fact that she also sometimes turns S into Sh or Z (as in "Whazzat?). Chi has a lot of misunderstandings with the Yamadas, like what the purpose of the litterbox is, and this is all realistic and funny. The manga-ka is obviously a cat owner.

The artwork is simple, but cute and energetic. It's a bit like what you might see in a comic strip, though it's not written in four panel style. It is cartoonish, but the characters aren't drawn in the stereotypical manga style. The characters are very expressive. Chi's facial expressions are both adorable and funny. You can tell exactly what she's thinking, and you really sympathize with the little cat. Her physical expressions, like folding her ears back and bristling her tail, are also right on. The human characters show plenty of personality, too, and are easy to identify with. One really nice thing about this manga is that it's printed entirely in color. Everything is bright and cheerful. The paper and binding are well done. This manga is smaller than most, but it's fine like that. Manga fans may not like it that this translation is printed left to right, but this manga has a broader appeal than most. Printing it in this way makes sure that those who are unfamiliar to manga won't be confused and turned away (though I will never understand exactly why reading right to left confuses so many people).

"Chi's Sweet Home" is a really sweet manga. It's happy and funny, and appropriate for all ages. In fact, I think it's a great series to read with your children. The plot is simple enough that even the youngest children will understand it. Cat lovers should adore this series, and anyone who reads it will fall in love with Chi and her new family.

What a great little book! Having just adopted a kitten ourselves, I wanted a book for my young son to help him understand and empathize with her. This book is perfect! It's a sweet, touching story of a family that adopts a lost kitten. It's really as simple as that but the leisurely Japanese pacing along with the adorable pictures really make the story. I'm actually glad they flipped this volume to read left to right, since my son is a beginning reader, I have bought him some of the Pokemon comics and the right-to-left flow tends to confuse him a little. He took this book and read it straight through when I gave it to him, and even asked me to get the next volume! This is a great intro to manga/comics for any reader young or old!

Chi's Sweet Home tells of the wholesome adventures of a little cat named Chi, who becomes separated from her cat family one day and is adopted by a young couple with a toddler.

Chi's Sweet Home will likely not appeal to you if you dislike overly-cute stories. However, I find that the series is excellent, and even though it's seven volumes long, it doesn't fall into a trap of repetition. Chi's always finding new and interesting ways to get herself in trouble.

Now, for volume one...I'm very pleased with the job Vertical did with this series. They preserved the beautiful colored artwork and did an excellent job adapting it to the US audience. Some people are mad that it was flipped and all Japanese removed and translated, but I personally think that flipping and translating everything was actually a wise move, because I think that it allows a wider audience, previously not used to reading manga, to pick up the series. It's also a good read for manga fanatics like myself. In most cases, I don't think that flipping a comic is a good idea, but in this case, I can see that Vertical did a great job handling it.

A lot of people have complained about Chi's speech impediment- in the series, she is given a very childish way of speaking that seems to irritate some readers. I think that some people mistakenly believe that it's something that the translators decided to attach to her- but in truth, she talks with a speech impediment in the Japanese version, too. At times, the translation can be a little bit awkward, so I hope in future volumes Verical can work on improving this, but it's not bad- it's kind of hard to translate some of what she says while making it sound natural, without sacrificing the author's original intentions.

The only thing that upset me was the absence of the signature "Chi Craft" that was present on the back dust cover flap in the original Japanese version. It's understandable why it's gone, but it kind of makes me sad because I always looked forward to that feature when a new volume came out. But it doesn't detract from my rating of the book.

Other than the last part, I found this version by Vertical to be a high-quality job of which I have no real complaints. If you like cats, give this series a try. If you can't stand lots of cuteness, I think you'd better avoid it, because it's got no shortage of that!

Reason for Reading: This is a Cybils '10 nominee and required reading for me as a graphic novels panelist.

I've had pet cats in the past but I'm not what you could call one of those "cat people" so it's hard to believe, but I was completely charmed with this book. An easy book to read with many wordless panels and sparse simple text that can be read by any 2nd grader. The illustrations virtually tell the story by themselves they are so expressive. This is the story of a little kitten, a few months old, that gets lost and is found by a toddler and rescued by his parents even though their apartment does not allow pets. They intend to find a home for the kitten but as they try and fail to find anyone willing to take her, the kitten, eventually named Chi, becomes part of the family and they keep her secretly. This book really gets into the mind of a kitten and is hilarious at interpreting the world as seen through the eyes of a cat. I burst out laughing several times, it was so funnily true. At times I wondered though who the book was really written for, children or those grown-ups who love cats. There is a specially poignant story line where the kitten, after being taken to the vet by the Daddy, won't let him near her and the Dad tries several ways to get back into her good graces with not much success. A scene of him stroking her while she sleeps is strikingly sad. But don't worry Chi finds out Dad is fun again all on her own. For any children's library with a popular manga section this series is going to be a must have. I just loved it!!

PS - Several days after reading the book, I found myself on the phone with my 21 yo son, a cat person, and ended up telling him the story of this book almost verbatim and had him laughing. Needless to say, I've promised he can read it when he's down for Christmas!

I was introduced to Chi via [...] and I had to get the book! Chi is certainly one of the cutest characters ever! Also who would've thought of a tiny kitten named after pee? The first book brings you back to the beginning and shows you how he got his home. It is a bit sad because Chi misses her momma cat a lot (complete with many little illustrations of her mom with her siblings) but she'll eventually get used to her new home.

The translations from Japanese are pretty good and the book is easy to read for an English reader since you read from front to back and left to right unlike some Japanese translated books. Purists might not like that but for the rest of us it will make the experience more enjoyable!

My 16 year old daughter says that,Chi is adorable and you get to meet her family. She likes this series.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....that's all I have to say.If you are in the mood for something light yet heartwarming Chi's Sweet Home is for you.

"Chi's Sweet Home" is a Japanese comic series created by Konami Kanata. As of today, seven volumes of the on-going series have been published in Japan. Also, the manga was adapted for TV animation in 2008.

The story is simple. While strolling with her mother and siblings, a kitten "Chi" gets lost on the street. Soon the exhausted kitten is saved by the Yamadas, a (human) family living in a small apartment home. Initially the cute cat wants to go home and see her mother, but she also find it pretty comfortable living with the kindly Yamadas - except when going to the vet. The Yamada family (living in the "no pet zone"), while trying to find a keeper for Chi, begins to think their new life with the gray-and-white kitten is not bad.

I wasn't much impressed with the comic's artwork in general, but the cat Chi is something different. Chi, drawn in an expressive style, is not just charming; it captures the always curious nature of a real cat. The character of Chi alone proves that the manga creator really loves cats and knows how they behave.

The English version published by Vertical Inc, reads from left to right, so those who are not accustomed to reading Japanese-style books (right-to-left) will find it easy to follow the story. All pages are printed in color, the same as the Japanese edition.

Sadly Volume One doesn't have one major character - Big Black Cat - so you have to wait for the second volume. Keep reading the series, of which title speaks for itself - "Chi's Sweet Home," a sweet and amusing comedy for all ages.