Rena and Yuna, the protagonists of Milk Morinaga’s My Cute Little Kitten, were flatmates during their student days, and continued living together as they started their adult lives. Now, years and multiple leases later, Yuna rescues a kitten despite their flat’s strict “no pets” policy, and the two women have to choose where their priorities lie.
Yes: oh my god, they were roommates.
To start with: the art is Milk Morinaga’s usual style, so everyone is spindly and adorable, and all of the characters are recognisable despite the regular hair and costume changes. Most importantly: the kitten is really cute. To be honest, I’m mostly familiar with Milk Morinaga from school-girl romance Girl Friends, so the frank level of horniness and sexuality on show here was a bit of a surprise! Not a drawback or flaw with the manga, just me learning more about Milk Morinaga’s range—the combo of comedic and sensual on the same page really works, and her art style is perfect for it.
And what starts as a fairly straightforward “will they/won’t they” narrative starts getting deeper layers as the characters start revealing more of themselves. Yuna especially—her feelings about Rena are simultaneously easy acceptance that Rena loves her, and the anxiety-fueled conviction that she needs to earn any of the affection she’s shown, or make up for any inconvenience she causes. And Rena, who never intended to reveal that she’s been in love with Yuna at all, fully expecting Yuna to choose living alone with a kitten over living with her is sad. The anxiety especially is handled really well; the chapter where Yuna runs herself ragged trying to help Rena is heartbreaking. Even in scenes where things are going well, it’s easy to see how Yuna is misinterpreting casual comments in ways that are going to bring everything down later. Some of the miscommunications might be frustrating to some readers, but I think there’s enough set-up in the characters to explain why they don’t just talk about problems. I’m genuinely looking forward to finding out where Yuna’s anxiety comes from and how it affects their relationship.
I feel like we’ve got all of the set up for Drama. Anxiety! Jealousy! A kitten full of crimes! This first volume is a good mix of things being resolved and things being made worse.
Caution warnings: off-screen animal death, anxiety
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