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Cat-Eyed Boy: The Perfect Edition #1
Cat-Eyed Boy: The Perfect Edition, Vol. 1
A deluxe hardcover edition of Kazuo Umezz's Eisner Award-nominated classic collection of horror stories featuring a strange cat-eyed boy, shunned by humans and demons alike.
Hated by humans and demons alike, Cat-Eyed Boy dwells in the shadows of the human world. Wherever he goes, disturbing tales of both men and monsters begin to unfurl.
From the mind of Kazuo Umezz, undisputed master of Japanese horror manga and creator of The Drifting Classroom and Orochi, comes Cat-Eyed Boy! This deluxe edition contains five classic horror stories featuring a mysterious and dangerous cat-eyed boy who lives among humans, comes from the world of demons, and is despised by both. In four morbid tales, he interacts with humans and monsters to often-devastating ends. Then, in a final story, Cat-Eyed Boy must decide where his true loyalties lie—or if he has any loyalties at all.
Hated by humans and demons alike, Cat-Eyed Boy dwells in the shadows of the human world. Wherever he goes, disturbing tales of both men and monsters begin to unfurl.
From the mind of Kazuo Umezz, undisputed master of Japanese horror manga and creator of The Drifting Classroom and Orochi, comes Cat-Eyed Boy! This deluxe edition contains five classic horror stories featuring a mysterious and dangerous cat-eyed boy who lives among humans, comes from the world of demons, and is despised by both. In four morbid tales, he interacts with humans and monsters to often-devastating ends. Then, in a final story, Cat-Eyed Boy must decide where his true loyalties lie—or if he has any loyalties at all.
544 pages, Hardcover
Published August 22, 2023
23 people are currently reading
3008 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
August 3, 2023
While not entirely true, the easiest way to think of Cat-Eyed Boy is as a shounen version of Umezz's Orochi. Like that character, Cat-Eyed Boy lives on the outskirts of human society, but unlike Orochi, he's much more concerned with the affairs of monsters than men. He's clearly been inspired by Shigeru Mizuki's Kitaro (and in fact Kitaro is name-dropped in one story), which predates him by seven years, and at times the book feels like a combination of a Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro knockoff and a work inspired by EC's horror comics stateside. It works, honestly, because Umezz is so good at what he does, but it lacks the impact and bittersweetness of Orochi.
Comparisons aside, these stories largely deal with the disconnect between outer and inner beauty. The worst monsters start out looking the most human, and by the time the fifth story, "The Band of One Hundred Monsters," arrives, the monsters are acting vicious because of how others have treated them. Cat-Eyed Boy himself is very aware of his status as an outsider in all societies, and there's a clear link to the works of Edogawa Ranpo (also name dropped) and the way Cat-Eyed Boy slithers around on the outskirts of society. It's very gross in a lot of places, and it doesn't always work, but it's still hard to put down. Junji Ito fans should definitely check it out, because there's a clear progression from Mizuki to Umezz to Ito.
CW: animal abuse
Comparisons aside, these stories largely deal with the disconnect between outer and inner beauty. The worst monsters start out looking the most human, and by the time the fifth story, "The Band of One Hundred Monsters," arrives, the monsters are acting vicious because of how others have treated them. Cat-Eyed Boy himself is very aware of his status as an outsider in all societies, and there's a clear link to the works of Edogawa Ranpo (also name dropped) and the way Cat-Eyed Boy slithers around on the outskirts of society. It's very gross in a lot of places, and it doesn't always work, but it's still hard to put down. Junji Ito fans should definitely check it out, because there's a clear progression from Mizuki to Umezz to Ito.
CW: animal abuse
March 11, 2024
"I’m so scared. I can’t stay in this house anymore. That moaning frightens the devil out of me…"
Every time Cat-Eyed Boy is around strange and unusual things start to happen. Shadows come out to play and Monsters come to haunt your waking life.
I loved this horror manga. It was creepy and graphic, just what I love. The art was disturbing and the story was just the same. I can't wait to read more.
Every time Cat-Eyed Boy is around strange and unusual things start to happen. Shadows come out to play and Monsters come to haunt your waking life.
I loved this horror manga. It was creepy and graphic, just what I love. The art was disturbing and the story was just the same. I can't wait to read more.
August 23, 2023
CW: Child abuse, Animal Abuse, Animal death, Murder, People with deformities being mistreated.
This story was a bit of a rough start for me. It had a lot of upsetting imagery, especially involving mistreatment of animals. However, the lessons learned from this comic were important. I really loved the art style and by the end of it I wanted to read more. I will be picking up the next volume.
This story was a bit of a rough start for me. It had a lot of upsetting imagery, especially involving mistreatment of animals. However, the lessons learned from this comic were important. I really loved the art style and by the end of it I wanted to read more. I will be picking up the next volume.
September 18, 2024
Silly and gross and filled with so many freaky monsters! Like Goosebumps but with yokai, can't wait to read the second volume.
January 10, 2024
This volume was so good! I loved every minute of this volume! There was several pages in this first volume that were so detailed and amazingly drawn that I just had to stop and stare at these pages! I will definitely be buying and reading the next volume ASAP! This volume ends on a cliffhanger and I need to know what happens!
June 7, 2024
Really wasn't sure what to expect out of this horror collection written in the late 1960s, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I won't say these are revolutionary stories by any means, and I am probably being a bit forgiving given the original publication date, but I did enjoy this collection. some of the stories were a bit dated, but others were not. There were lots of fun characters and the cat-eyed boy is the best of them.
I was charmed. I liked the art quite well, it's certainly of the era, but some of the setting panels were quite beautiful. I will pick up the second volume as this one left off on a cliffhanger.
I was charmed. I liked the art quite well, it's certainly of the era, but some of the setting panels were quite beautiful. I will pick up the second volume as this one left off on a cliffhanger.
January 6, 2025
I began last year with Umezu’s (excellent) Orochi and I’m beginning this year with this. It’s an interesting counterpart: the stories are much shaggier and sillier, and their fascinations arise less from their thematic preoccupations or atmosphere (as in Orochi) and more simply from their dreamlike accumulation of surreal incidents. The drawings are all gorgeous and engrossing, of course. And I really, really love our impish protagonist
August 25, 2023
Fantastic volume by Umezz... I've been a fan since The Drifting Classroom and I would say, this is on par with that series. I can't wait for the second volume.
January 5, 2024
My two favorite stories in this were "The Ugly Demon" and "The Tsunami Summoners"
October 16, 2024
I like to think of lil Junji Ito reading Umezz, kicking his feet and going HEE HEE HEE like a yokai in a story.
May 20, 2024
The “Cat-Eyed Boy” is the son of a nekomata cat monster who for reasons unknown but probably involving infidelity, was born far more humanoid in appearance than his parents. His mother died in childbirth and his putative father abandoned him some months later at a human shrine. Never given a real name, Cat-Eyed Boy is too monstrous in appearance to fit in human society but too human to be accepted by the youkai. He wanders from town to town, living in people’s attics, but wherever he goes, strange things happen.
This horror manga ran from 1967-69, with a brief revival in 1976, by the same creator as Orochi, which I’ve reviewed previously. This is one of two collected volumes.
“The Immortal Man” starts us off with Cat-Eyed Boy introducing himself. It’s been ten days since he started living in the attic of this mansion. Unfortunately, it appears that strange things are about to happen, not related to our mysterious lurker.
Wealthy kid Takeo is being chauffeured to school when the car hits an ugly man. When they get out of the car to check, the man has vanished. After school, Takeo is trying to get home in the rain when the ugly man offers to walk with him using an umbrella. Takeo isn’t willing to walk with him, but accepts a package from the man to give to his father. This package turns out to contain a severed forearm and hand. Not the ugly man’s, presumably as he had two hands.
The father recognizes the hand, and warns Takeo against further contact with the ugly man. Takeo’s not going to be able to keep that promise. The stranger is the “immortal man” of the title who can regenerate from wounds or missing body parts. And he claims to be Takeo’s real father.
Interestingly, it’s never made clear that the immortal man is the bad guy here per se. His behavior is certainly creepy, and one of his severed limbs regenerates on its own to become a monster, but we’re not given any proof that he’s lying and Takeo’s father is telling the truth. Nor do we learn any details of their shared past beyond that it might be blackmail material.
“The Ugly Demon” has a title character who’s born hideously deformed, shunned and reviled by everyone except his father. He responds to this abuse by becoming cruel, torturing and killing animals. No plastic surgeon could help. When he was twelve, he developed a crush on a pretty girl named Yuko. The “demon” stalked her and eventually wrote a letter asking her to be his friend. That ended exactly the way you’d expect. After that, she had a bodyguard who beat the demon if caught anywhere near Yuko.
Shortly thereafter, his father and he left town and seemingly disappeared.
Cat-Eyed Boy comes into the story ten years later, looking for a new place to live. A dying man warns him of a “beast.” Shortly thereafter, near an abandoned factory, Cat-Eyed Boy runs across a man going on all fours, with a handsome face marred by a head scar. The man is feasting on a corpse, and snarls like a cat.
The feral man attacks, knocking the wind out of our protagonist. Before the fight can go further, a strange man appears and cracks a whip to control the beast man. As Cat-Eyed Boy faints, the man introduces himself as Professor Yokai.
Cat-Eyed Boy is taken captive, and learns that Professor Yokai is a mad scientist. He’s into brain transplants, and has already tested it on the feral man, exchanging his brain with that of a leopard. Shockingly, the man volunteered for this. It’s the Ugly Demon’s father, who hoped that Professor Yokai would be able to fix his son.
Ugly Demon rejects Cat-Eyed Boy as a possible transplant donor, as the youkai is also monstrous in appearance. He wants a handsome, strong body that will allow him to be admired by society. But he’s going to use it to make “normal looking” people suffer.
As it happens, there’s a handsome young man who has been in a car accident and suffered terminal brain damage without marring his face or physique. Time for that brain transplant! But after what he’s suffered at the hands of Ugly Demon, Cat-Eyed Boy isn’t going to let the newly handsome monster have his own way.
It’s pretty clear that Umezz saw The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).
“The Tsunami Summoners” is Cat-Eyed Boy’s origin story. After being left at the Nio (fierce protective spirit) shrine, the infant was cared for by Mimi, a spinster who wanted a child so much that she prayed to the Nio statue, and was willing to overlook the baby’s uncanny appearance. As he grew older, the Cat-Eyed Boy became mischievous, stealing whenever he was hungry, but Mimi tried to instill basic morality in him.
Eventually, the village priestess starts getting omens of doom approaching the community. It’s so overwhelming that she can’t get a reading on why the doom is coming, but the villagers decide it must somehow be the fault of Cat-Eyed Boy. It’s actually the Tsunami Summoners, youkai that disguise themselves as rocks and possess humans to take them to as high a place as possible, then summon a tsunami. They’ve been barred from the area for a long time by the Nio, but the Tsunami Summoners have a plan to get around that.
Cat-Eyed Boy tries to warn the villagers of the real threat, but even when he saves a baby from the ensuing flood, the villagers just assume that he was trying to eat the infant and is somehow responsible for the Tsunami Summoners being there. (“Cat-Eyed Boy: Threat or Menace?”)
“The One-Legged Monster of Oudai” has Cat-Eyed Boy crossing the title mountain when he sees a nail in a tree. He reaches towards it out of curiosity and it pops out of the tree, burying itself in his flesh. This is the work of the One-Legged Monster, and no matter what Cat-Eyed Boy does, he cannot remove the nail as it gets larger.
Meanwhile in nearby N City, a boy named Natsuo is an avid insect collector. He’s often been to Oudai to look for rare and unusual specimens. He does enjoy the local fame he’s getting for his collection, but his real joy is in stabbing the bugs to death with pins to mount them.
It turns out that the One-Legged Monster is angry at Natsuo for his unnecessary cruelty towards insects, and is using the Cat-Eyed Boy as a mobility aid to get its revenge. Our protagonist is not at all pleased at being used, but realizes that Natsuo was not an innocent.
“The Band of One Hundred Monsters” moves us into major plotline territory and only the first half is in this volume. Cat-Eyed Boy moves into the attic of a boarding house, one of the tenants being manga artist Taro Amadera. As it happens, Amadera-sensei specializes in horror manga featuring scary monsters, Umezz-sensei poking a bit of fun at himself.
Amadera is targeted by The Band of One Hundred Monsters (there are not actually one hundred members) a terrorist organization. As their leader Kodomo (“Child”) explains, despite their monstrous appearances and strange powers, the members of the gang are not in fact youkai but humans born that way, what Marvel Comics fans would call “mutants.” They resent being outcasts for their looks and have a hit list of particularly obnoxious “normal” humans that they plan to mutilate and humiliate.
The manga artist is their target because of his mean depictions of monsters. The band invites Cat-Eyed Boy to join them, but as he’s a “genuine” monster, he feels no kinship with “humans”, no matter how monstrous they look.
After the manga artist, the band targets a corrupt politician, and then a wealthy family that is rejoicing at the death of the miserly patriarch, but all intending to get rid of the others for the money.
Can the Cat-Eyed Boy protect the humans from the Band of One Hundred Monsters? Does he even want to?
There’s a certain amount of overlap between the themes of Cat-Eyed Boy and Orochi, they’re both drifters who become involved with weird events they stumble across. But while Orochi appears human enough to blend in, and is often the only overtly supernatural thing in her stories, Cat-Eyed Boy will never be able to pass as a normal or even slightly odd human, and battles other genuinely unnatural threats. His appearance tells against him, and it’s always assumed by the humans that he’s somehow to blame for the bad things happening. And honestly, he’s kind of a jerk, who’s more likely to fight the baddie of the story because they’ve personally offended him than that it’s the right thing to do.
Indeed, the main thing separating Cat-Eyed Boy from some of the villains of these stories is that he hasn’t allowed his hardships to turn him into someone who is deliberately cruel to others. He may have a low opinion of humans, but won’t usually go out of his way to do more than prank them. And every so often, he’ll do something genuinely nice. Not that this ever helps him gain acceptance.
Oh, and every so often, he’ll talk directly to the reader. “I know…I’ll stay at your house.” pointing his finger directly out of the panel.
There’s some cool monster designs and power usage, particularly in the One Hundred Monsters storyline. But other monster designs are just gross, and may put off the casual reader.
Content note: Violence, often fatal. Lots of body horror. Child abuse and cruelty to animals. Prejudice against people who don’t look sufficiently “human.”
This is old-fashioned horror for teenage boys, less cerebral than Orochi (which wasn’t all that deep itself.) Some of the endings are more open than others, with the menace not so much over as just gone. It was popular enough to spawn an anime (which is mostly still images with special effects) and a 2006 live action movie (not currently available in English.) Recommended to horror fans, but you may want to order it from the library.
This horror manga ran from 1967-69, with a brief revival in 1976, by the same creator as Orochi, which I’ve reviewed previously. This is one of two collected volumes.
“The Immortal Man” starts us off with Cat-Eyed Boy introducing himself. It’s been ten days since he started living in the attic of this mansion. Unfortunately, it appears that strange things are about to happen, not related to our mysterious lurker.
Wealthy kid Takeo is being chauffeured to school when the car hits an ugly man. When they get out of the car to check, the man has vanished. After school, Takeo is trying to get home in the rain when the ugly man offers to walk with him using an umbrella. Takeo isn’t willing to walk with him, but accepts a package from the man to give to his father. This package turns out to contain a severed forearm and hand. Not the ugly man’s, presumably as he had two hands.
The father recognizes the hand, and warns Takeo against further contact with the ugly man. Takeo’s not going to be able to keep that promise. The stranger is the “immortal man” of the title who can regenerate from wounds or missing body parts. And he claims to be Takeo’s real father.
Interestingly, it’s never made clear that the immortal man is the bad guy here per se. His behavior is certainly creepy, and one of his severed limbs regenerates on its own to become a monster, but we’re not given any proof that he’s lying and Takeo’s father is telling the truth. Nor do we learn any details of their shared past beyond that it might be blackmail material.
“The Ugly Demon” has a title character who’s born hideously deformed, shunned and reviled by everyone except his father. He responds to this abuse by becoming cruel, torturing and killing animals. No plastic surgeon could help. When he was twelve, he developed a crush on a pretty girl named Yuko. The “demon” stalked her and eventually wrote a letter asking her to be his friend. That ended exactly the way you’d expect. After that, she had a bodyguard who beat the demon if caught anywhere near Yuko.
Shortly thereafter, his father and he left town and seemingly disappeared.
Cat-Eyed Boy comes into the story ten years later, looking for a new place to live. A dying man warns him of a “beast.” Shortly thereafter, near an abandoned factory, Cat-Eyed Boy runs across a man going on all fours, with a handsome face marred by a head scar. The man is feasting on a corpse, and snarls like a cat.
The feral man attacks, knocking the wind out of our protagonist. Before the fight can go further, a strange man appears and cracks a whip to control the beast man. As Cat-Eyed Boy faints, the man introduces himself as Professor Yokai.
Cat-Eyed Boy is taken captive, and learns that Professor Yokai is a mad scientist. He’s into brain transplants, and has already tested it on the feral man, exchanging his brain with that of a leopard. Shockingly, the man volunteered for this. It’s the Ugly Demon’s father, who hoped that Professor Yokai would be able to fix his son.
Ugly Demon rejects Cat-Eyed Boy as a possible transplant donor, as the youkai is also monstrous in appearance. He wants a handsome, strong body that will allow him to be admired by society. But he’s going to use it to make “normal looking” people suffer.
As it happens, there’s a handsome young man who has been in a car accident and suffered terminal brain damage without marring his face or physique. Time for that brain transplant! But after what he’s suffered at the hands of Ugly Demon, Cat-Eyed Boy isn’t going to let the newly handsome monster have his own way.
It’s pretty clear that Umezz saw The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).
“The Tsunami Summoners” is Cat-Eyed Boy’s origin story. After being left at the Nio (fierce protective spirit) shrine, the infant was cared for by Mimi, a spinster who wanted a child so much that she prayed to the Nio statue, and was willing to overlook the baby’s uncanny appearance. As he grew older, the Cat-Eyed Boy became mischievous, stealing whenever he was hungry, but Mimi tried to instill basic morality in him.
Eventually, the village priestess starts getting omens of doom approaching the community. It’s so overwhelming that she can’t get a reading on why the doom is coming, but the villagers decide it must somehow be the fault of Cat-Eyed Boy. It’s actually the Tsunami Summoners, youkai that disguise themselves as rocks and possess humans to take them to as high a place as possible, then summon a tsunami. They’ve been barred from the area for a long time by the Nio, but the Tsunami Summoners have a plan to get around that.
Cat-Eyed Boy tries to warn the villagers of the real threat, but even when he saves a baby from the ensuing flood, the villagers just assume that he was trying to eat the infant and is somehow responsible for the Tsunami Summoners being there. (“Cat-Eyed Boy: Threat or Menace?”)
“The One-Legged Monster of Oudai” has Cat-Eyed Boy crossing the title mountain when he sees a nail in a tree. He reaches towards it out of curiosity and it pops out of the tree, burying itself in his flesh. This is the work of the One-Legged Monster, and no matter what Cat-Eyed Boy does, he cannot remove the nail as it gets larger.
Meanwhile in nearby N City, a boy named Natsuo is an avid insect collector. He’s often been to Oudai to look for rare and unusual specimens. He does enjoy the local fame he’s getting for his collection, but his real joy is in stabbing the bugs to death with pins to mount them.
It turns out that the One-Legged Monster is angry at Natsuo for his unnecessary cruelty towards insects, and is using the Cat-Eyed Boy as a mobility aid to get its revenge. Our protagonist is not at all pleased at being used, but realizes that Natsuo was not an innocent.
“The Band of One Hundred Monsters” moves us into major plotline territory and only the first half is in this volume. Cat-Eyed Boy moves into the attic of a boarding house, one of the tenants being manga artist Taro Amadera. As it happens, Amadera-sensei specializes in horror manga featuring scary monsters, Umezz-sensei poking a bit of fun at himself.
Amadera is targeted by The Band of One Hundred Monsters (there are not actually one hundred members) a terrorist organization. As their leader Kodomo (“Child”) explains, despite their monstrous appearances and strange powers, the members of the gang are not in fact youkai but humans born that way, what Marvel Comics fans would call “mutants.” They resent being outcasts for their looks and have a hit list of particularly obnoxious “normal” humans that they plan to mutilate and humiliate.
The manga artist is their target because of his mean depictions of monsters. The band invites Cat-Eyed Boy to join them, but as he’s a “genuine” monster, he feels no kinship with “humans”, no matter how monstrous they look.
After the manga artist, the band targets a corrupt politician, and then a wealthy family that is rejoicing at the death of the miserly patriarch, but all intending to get rid of the others for the money.
Can the Cat-Eyed Boy protect the humans from the Band of One Hundred Monsters? Does he even want to?
There’s a certain amount of overlap between the themes of Cat-Eyed Boy and Orochi, they’re both drifters who become involved with weird events they stumble across. But while Orochi appears human enough to blend in, and is often the only overtly supernatural thing in her stories, Cat-Eyed Boy will never be able to pass as a normal or even slightly odd human, and battles other genuinely unnatural threats. His appearance tells against him, and it’s always assumed by the humans that he’s somehow to blame for the bad things happening. And honestly, he’s kind of a jerk, who’s more likely to fight the baddie of the story because they’ve personally offended him than that it’s the right thing to do.
Indeed, the main thing separating Cat-Eyed Boy from some of the villains of these stories is that he hasn’t allowed his hardships to turn him into someone who is deliberately cruel to others. He may have a low opinion of humans, but won’t usually go out of his way to do more than prank them. And every so often, he’ll do something genuinely nice. Not that this ever helps him gain acceptance.
Oh, and every so often, he’ll talk directly to the reader. “I know…I’ll stay at your house.” pointing his finger directly out of the panel.
There’s some cool monster designs and power usage, particularly in the One Hundred Monsters storyline. But other monster designs are just gross, and may put off the casual reader.
Content note: Violence, often fatal. Lots of body horror. Child abuse and cruelty to animals. Prejudice against people who don’t look sufficiently “human.”
This is old-fashioned horror for teenage boys, less cerebral than Orochi (which wasn’t all that deep itself.) Some of the endings are more open than others, with the menace not so much over as just gone. It was popular enough to spawn an anime (which is mostly still images with special effects) and a 2006 live action movie (not currently available in English.) Recommended to horror fans, but you may want to order it from the library.
July 5, 2025
Unique style of Umezz that turns from old school manga, to anime style and then again to underground comic style. The adventures of the Cat Eyed Boy feel like watching a 80-90 cartoon. Has a mystery to it with each chapter ending with a cliffhanger, gives it an easy reading vibe that feels needed to follow through, which reminds me of the vibe Scooby Doo episodes gave me as a kid. Do not be fooled by it though, as this manga involves much more horror and violence than just the creepy mysterious adventures of the Scooby episodes. It all comes to a masterpiece collection of short stories that need to be read and studied by casual readers, artists and storytellers.
June 24, 2025
Deeply weird.
March 1, 2025
Pretty good collection of stories. I think the consistent antagonist was a cool way to structure the book and tie the stories together. I think I’m a bigger fan of these than the Drifting Classroom books I just finished.
February 6, 2025
I saw this book, and I did feel it calling out to me.
Even then, didn’t expect to like it as much as I did.
Some stories are defo weaker than others, but over all I fucking loved this book.
Even then, didn’t expect to like it as much as I did.
Some stories are defo weaker than others, but over all I fucking loved this book.
April 20, 2025
IM SO SAD WHY IS EVERYONE SO MEAN TO HIM 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
April 23, 2025
no notes absolutely perfect 5/5 cat-eyed boys in your attic
April 27, 2025
Absolute madness, the children's book tone and the horrific child violence really elevate this one. an uncanny dissonance of vibes that is effectively shocking even for adult readers.
May 27, 2025
Fun read, with some fantastic art, disturbing imagery, and some wildly creative, weird-as-hell stories. Some chapters are better than others, but as a whole, I definitely enjoyed this.
Read
July 25, 2025Ngaahhhhh !!! How dare u try 2 hurt me… Evry1 on every side is about equally stupid and still thinks scary looks = freaky bad guy when i knowwww i know that the biggest blackest darkness is inside your souls and whenever u speak it seeps out a little like a green cloud of bad breath, u arent a monster because monsters exist but youre something just as bad, youre a stinky disgusting HUMAN!!! Dont believe me if u want it makes no difference 2 me, i can only try 2 help as much as i am wanted to! Humans have a peculiar knack for shooting themselves in the foot and making everything worse and who am i 2 prevent them from engaging in their most favouritest pastime??? Fun and cute in the way it operates entirely on kid-logic, like every chapter the titular Boy comes up with a new power he has that can help him get away from monsters, like pretend play… I think the spookiest horror operates on an entirely different plane of reality so u cant really get a handle on what is going 2 happen and why. This edition ENDS in the middle of a story! What a crock… Ur gonna make me wait for more Cat Eyed Boy? The Cat Eyed Boy is very cute and lovable even though he keeps spitting and peeing on people. Harbours complete contempt 4 normal society and upright people… Leave the cat eyed boy alone what did he do 2 u? Look FREAKY?!?!? Lots of gr8 and freaky monster designs in this… Feels sort of like Spirit Halloween. If they sold Cat Eyed Boy merch at Spirit Halloween i would buy so much of it. Sort of felt like the panelling AT TIMES was a little hard 2 follow… But maybe im just a big dummy who cant read. Thats probably it, that makes the most sense… In the process of reading i have been doing my own RESEARCH on Cat Eyed Boy adaptations and i am very interested in the paper cutout tv show and the live action film where the Cat Eyed Boy is wearing a CGI-d kigurumi mask the whole time! Scary stories for kidz are underrated in the sense that they are never less scary than “#REALHORROR” u just cant put yourself in those shoes. I think monsters and ghouls and goblins are still very scary to be honest… I really liked the design of the leader of the band of 100 monsters, and i also like that none of them are monsters at all! I would luv 2 read more stuff with this atmosphere, something like Hakaba Kitaro… That looks really interesting id love 2 check that out… I hate saying check that out but i dont know another way 2 say it. One time i saw a youtube video where the person making it referred to “Consuming” “Media” as “smoking it”. Like i smoked that book the other day. Yeah i smoked a new movie and i really liked it. I honestly really couldnt get behind it it was very grating and i had to turn off the video. So i guess that ones crossed off the list… I think people should start inventing new words again, like consciously inventing them… Like how Shakespeare used to do. I think we could all benefit from some new words that we can use. Im going to make one now…. Hmmm… Well…… Maybe i need some time to think about it first…..
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 5, 2024
3.5stars
This book contains 5 stories which I will be tell about each at a time in this review. They are separate from each other and it felt like it got more creepy the more you read. There's many yokai (monsters) in this stories, but unlike our cat-eyed boy, they are creepy and cuz a lot of fuss to the human world. The stories vary in length and the last one is actually decided between this and the second book, which I need to buy soon (praying here for spending money to appear in my account asap).
This horror manga ran from 1967-69, with a brief revival in 1976! It's oldie and the drawing are suffer than the usual newer styles. However I did like the art.
This book was anything but what I was expecting. I must confess to buy anything that has "cat" on the title and this was no different. For an horror manga, this wasn't exactly scary as it was uncomfortable. The images of yokai are creepy or rather disgusting? But for me, horror has to be a lot more than this - actually there's not many books that are considered horror that didn't pair with my standards, so it's probably a "me" thing.
As for the stories...
The Immortal Man is about a secret that has to come out. something is not right with our main characters family, a secret, that was just revealed and brings consequences.
The Ugly Demon is about a deformed kid being bothered by many people and turns ugly inside. A ugly being going ugly things.
The Tsunami Summoners is a Cat-Eyed Boy origin story! It's also about yokai bringing on a tsunami to the village.
The One-Legged Monster of Oudai was just ok, it's about what the title says really and if not for how much I love the art in this manga, this would have been a skip.
The Band of One Hundred Monsters - Part One, is about a group of monsters trying to recruit our Cat-Eyed Boy to terrorise humans.
Overall I think the standout is definitely the weirdness, how it's unconventional for the main monster to be so comprehensive and sensitive and the amazing art. I'm definitely picking up the last book, after all this did end in a cliffhanger!
CW: Child and animal abuse, Death of loved ones (including animals) and murder, and People with deformities being mistreated.
This book contains 5 stories which I will be tell about each at a time in this review. They are separate from each other and it felt like it got more creepy the more you read. There's many yokai (monsters) in this stories, but unlike our cat-eyed boy, they are creepy and cuz a lot of fuss to the human world. The stories vary in length and the last one is actually decided between this and the second book, which I need to buy soon (praying here for spending money to appear in my account asap).
This horror manga ran from 1967-69, with a brief revival in 1976! It's oldie and the drawing are suffer than the usual newer styles. However I did like the art.
This book was anything but what I was expecting. I must confess to buy anything that has "cat" on the title and this was no different. For an horror manga, this wasn't exactly scary as it was uncomfortable. The images of yokai are creepy or rather disgusting? But for me, horror has to be a lot more than this - actually there's not many books that are considered horror that didn't pair with my standards, so it's probably a "me" thing.
As for the stories...
The Immortal Man is about a secret that has to come out. something is not right with our main characters family, a secret, that was just revealed and brings consequences.
The Ugly Demon is about a deformed kid being bothered by many people and turns ugly inside. A ugly being going ugly things.
The Tsunami Summoners is a Cat-Eyed Boy origin story! It's also about yokai bringing on a tsunami to the village.
The One-Legged Monster of Oudai was just ok, it's about what the title says really and if not for how much I love the art in this manga, this would have been a skip.
The Band of One Hundred Monsters - Part One, is about a group of monsters trying to recruit our Cat-Eyed Boy to terrorise humans.
Overall I think the standout is definitely the weirdness, how it's unconventional for the main monster to be so comprehensive and sensitive and the amazing art. I'm definitely picking up the last book, after all this did end in a cliffhanger!
CW: Child and animal abuse, Death of loved ones (including animals) and murder, and People with deformities being mistreated.
August 27, 2023
Cat-Eyed Boy is a series of short horror stories about a discarded orphan child with cat eyes who hides in attics and spies on the residents of a house. His voyeurism reveals some pretty horrific events that unfold to each house he visits, suggesting that the Cat-Eyed Boy may really be the agent of horror here. However, the boy does his best to help the humans out with their paranormal challenges, though his freakish appearance disturbs the people he tries to help leaving him as a further outcast. The initial stories in this volume are quite similar in set up to Umezz's Orochi series, with the main character being mostly a bystander in the narrative, though the Cat-Eyed Boy does insert himself more readily into the action than Orochi does. However, where the stories in Orochi tend to be more surreal horror, Cat-Eyed Boy is firmly supernatural. As an earlier work, there is a bit more rawness to these stories though they're still pretty good. Overall though, I can't say I liked these to the same extent as Orochi or The Drifting Classroom.
This volume includes five stories, "The Immortal Man", "The Ugly Demon", "The Tsunami Summoners", "The One-Legged Monster of Oudai", and the first half of "The Band of One Hundred Monsters". While most of these stories are standalone adventures, little bits of the Cat-Eyed Boy's past is discerned with each installment. "The Tsunami Summoners" is effectly the origin story to the Cat-Eyed Boy, and it hammers home the main theme of inner beauty being concealed by a terrifying exterior. This is further cemented in "The Band of One Hundred Monsters", which features a group of monsters unleashing themselves on humanity for the way they have been treated in the past.
Umezz's cartooning is great throughout, and since he's drawing more monsters in this than some of his other collected manga, there is a lot of creativity on display. Though most of the stories in this didn't quite connect with me, I derived sufficient enjoyment from the artwork from this horror manga master.
This volume includes five stories, "The Immortal Man", "The Ugly Demon", "The Tsunami Summoners", "The One-Legged Monster of Oudai", and the first half of "The Band of One Hundred Monsters". While most of these stories are standalone adventures, little bits of the Cat-Eyed Boy's past is discerned with each installment. "The Tsunami Summoners" is effectly the origin story to the Cat-Eyed Boy, and it hammers home the main theme of inner beauty being concealed by a terrifying exterior. This is further cemented in "The Band of One Hundred Monsters", which features a group of monsters unleashing themselves on humanity for the way they have been treated in the past.
Umezz's cartooning is great throughout, and since he's drawing more monsters in this than some of his other collected manga, there is a lot of creativity on display. Though most of the stories in this didn't quite connect with me, I derived sufficient enjoyment from the artwork from this horror manga master.
February 25, 2024
Monsters spook people while the Cat-Eyed Boy watches on. That pretty much sums up every story in Kazuo Umezz’s Cat-Eyed Boy, Volume 1, the least compelling manga of his I’ve read to date.
This edition is made up of five stories of varying lengths, none of which were any good. Like another of Umezz’s books Orochi, the titular character is a framing device for the ensuing story, though the Cat-Eyed Boy stories are more yokai(Japanese for “monster”)-focused, and the character occasionally plays a bigger role in the stories than simply the audience stand-in/observer.
The Immortal Man is about a deformed man who bothers the kid of a rich family - with a secret. The Ugly Demon is about a physically ugly kid who grows up to be an ugly person on the inside who does ugly things. The Tsunami Summoners is a Cat-Eyed Boy origin story as well as being about some yokai wanting to bring a tsunami to destroy the nearby village for some reason.
The One-Legged Monster of Oudai is the least memorable story here and is basically about a monster showing up to say boo to a bunch of people. Which is essentially the outline for the final and longest story, The Band of One Hundred Monsters, Part One, where a number of monsters frighten people, among them a manga artist and a politician.
It’s an odd collection. The writing is very childish (the Band of One Hundred Monsters have a yokai handbook and business cards, with the stated aim “to bring fear and shock upon this world”!) and yet the art and general content clearly isn’t intended for kids. Childish adults then, perhaps? Which I am, but I needed more sophisticated storytelling than what there is on offer in this book.
Cat-Eyed Boy, Volume 1 is full of clunky, hammy pseudo-horror manga that hasn’t aged well since it first appeared decades ago. I was bored and unimpressed throughout and won’t be checking out further books in the series. Kazuo Umezz is a decent mangaka though I would recommend his better series, The Drifting Classroom, over Cat-Eyed Boy if you’re interested in this creator.
This edition is made up of five stories of varying lengths, none of which were any good. Like another of Umezz’s books Orochi, the titular character is a framing device for the ensuing story, though the Cat-Eyed Boy stories are more yokai(Japanese for “monster”)-focused, and the character occasionally plays a bigger role in the stories than simply the audience stand-in/observer.
The Immortal Man is about a deformed man who bothers the kid of a rich family - with a secret. The Ugly Demon is about a physically ugly kid who grows up to be an ugly person on the inside who does ugly things. The Tsunami Summoners is a Cat-Eyed Boy origin story as well as being about some yokai wanting to bring a tsunami to destroy the nearby village for some reason.
The One-Legged Monster of Oudai is the least memorable story here and is basically about a monster showing up to say boo to a bunch of people. Which is essentially the outline for the final and longest story, The Band of One Hundred Monsters, Part One, where a number of monsters frighten people, among them a manga artist and a politician.
It’s an odd collection. The writing is very childish (the Band of One Hundred Monsters have a yokai handbook and business cards, with the stated aim “to bring fear and shock upon this world”!) and yet the art and general content clearly isn’t intended for kids. Childish adults then, perhaps? Which I am, but I needed more sophisticated storytelling than what there is on offer in this book.
Cat-Eyed Boy, Volume 1 is full of clunky, hammy pseudo-horror manga that hasn’t aged well since it first appeared decades ago. I was bored and unimpressed throughout and won’t be checking out further books in the series. Kazuo Umezz is a decent mangaka though I would recommend his better series, The Drifting Classroom, over Cat-Eyed Boy if you’re interested in this creator.
May 3, 2024
this one took a little bit for me to settle into, but once I did I found myself really enjoying it! I think the idea that this is a shounen version of Umezz's other work, Orochi, is pretty accurate. there's a lot of similarities (the main one being a title character that isn't necessarily the main character of the story but rather an outsider looking into the lives of others) with a big difference being Cat-Eyed Boy deals almost exclusively with yokai while Orochi grapples with more modern ills. I'd honestly say Cat-Eyed Boy has a better head on his shoulders than Orochi does, but that really isn't saying much considering the kinds of things Orochi gets herself into. the last couple stories are very much creature features and they had a very fun B-movie quality to them.
unfortunately this also carries similar issues as Orochi (and Umezz's other works in general), namely drawing horror from disfigured people. these stories tend to have at least a slightly more nuanced take, in that the way disfigured people are treated by society is shown to be a bad thing (the awful hearts and thoughts that reside in beautiful people is a common theme) but disfigured people are still made out to be antagonists and often completely morally bankrupt (there is a LOT of animal torture and death in one of the stories, all done by a disfigured antagonist). while it's meant to show that society made these people that way by mistreating them, it still has a lot of ableism attached and could get tiresome after a while.
still a very enjoyable read, and by the last several chapters I was really into the overarching story as well as seeing all the interesting yokai and monster designs. don't go into this expecting Serious Literature or Extreme Scares and you'll have fun
unfortunately this also carries similar issues as Orochi (and Umezz's other works in general), namely drawing horror from disfigured people. these stories tend to have at least a slightly more nuanced take, in that the way disfigured people are treated by society is shown to be a bad thing (the awful hearts and thoughts that reside in beautiful people is a common theme) but disfigured people are still made out to be antagonists and often completely morally bankrupt (there is a LOT of animal torture and death in one of the stories, all done by a disfigured antagonist). while it's meant to show that society made these people that way by mistreating them, it still has a lot of ableism attached and could get tiresome after a while.
still a very enjoyable read, and by the last several chapters I was really into the overarching story as well as seeing all the interesting yokai and monster designs. don't go into this expecting Serious Literature or Extreme Scares and you'll have fun
February 3, 2024
I prefer creepy and weird horror over bloody or gory horror so this manga was right in my wheelhouse. The stories collected here are connected by the titular character The Cat-Eyed Boy but get can be read as stand alone stories if you choose.
The Immortal Man - I found this to be one of the weaker stories contained here. - 3 stars
The Ugly Demon - This story starts to lay down the overarching theme of how people are largely judged by looks. The art has more creepy panels then the previous story. - 4 stars
The Tsunami Summoners - This is my favorite story contained here. It gives the origins of The Cat-Eyed Boy and continues the theme of ugly vs beautiful. The art is a big step up in quality with a lot of really creepy imagery and a fantastic spread page of the yokai. - 5 stars
The One-Legged Monster of Oudai - This story has my favorite art, Both the bug yokai and the woman yokai are really creepy. The story is very good but I though the ending was a bit weak. 3.5 stars
The Band of One Hundred Monsters - This is the first part of this tale so i will reserve comment to I read the next part.
In summary I really liked Kazuo Umezz art, especially in the later stories but felt that the storytelling was a bit weak in some of the stories. If you like horror that is more on the moody and automorphic side then the bloody or gory side and like really creepy art I highly recommend this.
The Immortal Man - I found this to be one of the weaker stories contained here. - 3 stars
The Ugly Demon - This story starts to lay down the overarching theme of how people are largely judged by looks. The art has more creepy panels then the previous story. - 4 stars
The Tsunami Summoners - This is my favorite story contained here. It gives the origins of The Cat-Eyed Boy and continues the theme of ugly vs beautiful. The art is a big step up in quality with a lot of really creepy imagery and a fantastic spread page of the yokai. - 5 stars
The One-Legged Monster of Oudai - This story has my favorite art, Both the bug yokai and the woman yokai are really creepy. The story is very good but I though the ending was a bit weak. 3.5 stars
The Band of One Hundred Monsters - This is the first part of this tale so i will reserve comment to I read the next part.
In summary I really liked Kazuo Umezz art, especially in the later stories but felt that the storytelling was a bit weak in some of the stories. If you like horror that is more on the moody and automorphic side then the bloody or gory side and like really creepy art I highly recommend this.
June 23, 2024
TLDR - great manga, cat/kid is pretty cool, cliffhanger at the end to get you to go into Vol. 2
Loved this manga, I am definitely venturing into Kazuo’s work and this one didn’t disappoint, unlike the people on Reddit - I did understand the fact that this is a couple of years old and some of the art itself won’t match Kazuo’s newest mangas.
Definitely felt identified with the cat-eyed boy stories, could be that I had a difficult childhood, could be his cat aspect, could be the cats and how they were included on the story/plot, could be my newly found obsession with Kazuo’s work, or all of the above. This is definitely a must read if what you are looking for is a diet version of Junji Ito’s work.
4 out of 5 - would read again, I wish the last couple of pages would have been cut earlier and gone into the next volume or maybe finished this last plot/story line before moving into the next volume but it also makes sense on the editorial/writer side..
Can’t wait to start vol 2.
LR
Loved this manga, I am definitely venturing into Kazuo’s work and this one didn’t disappoint, unlike the people on Reddit - I did understand the fact that this is a couple of years old and some of the art itself won’t match Kazuo’s newest mangas.
Definitely felt identified with the cat-eyed boy stories, could be that I had a difficult childhood, could be his cat aspect, could be the cats and how they were included on the story/plot, could be my newly found obsession with Kazuo’s work, or all of the above. This is definitely a must read if what you are looking for is a diet version of Junji Ito’s work.
4 out of 5 - would read again, I wish the last couple of pages would have been cut earlier and gone into the next volume or maybe finished this last plot/story line before moving into the next volume but it also makes sense on the editorial/writer side..
Can’t wait to start vol 2.
LR
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 28, 2025
A weird, unnamed cat-eyed boy lurks in the shadows of people's attics and observes strange goings-on involving various yokai. In the first few episodes, it's unclear exactly what role the Cat-Eyed Boy has in the story- he basically just observes weird supernatural horror stories and goes "damn that's crazy." As it goes in he becomes more integrated into longer story arcs, but he maintains this aloof posture, alienated by the world of humans and Yokai alike, often indifferent to the suffering of children, motivated by curiosity moreso than any sense of justice. In many ways this bares a striking resemblance to Shigeru Mizuki's Gegege no Kitaro, (with a cop even wondering if the Cat-Eyed Boy might be Kitaro, "from the anime") but Kazuo Umezz instills this with a darker cynicism that gives these stories their own flavor.
November 4, 2023
Thank you so much NetGalley and Viz Media for this arc!
5/5 stars
This is my favourite horror manga I've read so far! Originally serialized in the late 60s and 70s. Cat-Eyed Boy delivers some macabre and creepy stories without being overly gory or gross. I really liked Cat Eyed Boys sense of humour, and how he would break the fourth wall, but in a funny or endearing way instead of feeling silly or overdone. The art style can easily place it in the 60s/70s timeframe as well. The only thing is that most of the secondary characters look very similar or even identical from one story to the next, which can be quite confusing. That said, I still really liked this, and am eagerly awaiting the next collection!
5/5 stars
This is my favourite horror manga I've read so far! Originally serialized in the late 60s and 70s. Cat-Eyed Boy delivers some macabre and creepy stories without being overly gory or gross. I really liked Cat Eyed Boys sense of humour, and how he would break the fourth wall, but in a funny or endearing way instead of feeling silly or overdone. The art style can easily place it in the 60s/70s timeframe as well. The only thing is that most of the secondary characters look very similar or even identical from one story to the next, which can be quite confusing. That said, I still really liked this, and am eagerly awaiting the next collection!
July 30, 2024
This is certainly an odd one. My lack of engagement with it has definitely slowed my enthusiasm for Manga for a little while and yet ... it's not a bad horror anthology at all. Umezu is certainly being experimental in the way he weaves his narrator in and out of the horror tales and I ultimately liked and loathed the Cat-Eyed Boy's intrusion into the story. Likewise the pacing of these tales is just strange with delicious horror elements being thrown into the mix and then quickly disappearing altogether, stories seguing into other stories and never really resolving satisfactorily. I doubt this will ever be called a masterpiece but you can certainly see the emergence of a style of horror writing here, especially in the chilling grotesqueries, that will surely peak later on.
December 16, 2023
This was an interesting and weird collection of five horror manga stories, with the eponymous Cat-Eyed boy as the framing narrative. I really liked the first and the last stories (and will therefore definitely pick up the second volume as 'The Band of 100 Monsters' is continued there) but the middle three were a little bit lackluster for me. I thought the artwork was gorgeous throughout though!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.
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