I love reading manga, not only because it is a fun medium for storytelling, but because it provides a much-needed break from the text-intensive novels I generally pick up. Yona of the Dawn is a manga I have been reading since maybe 2024, but I have long since passed the stage where I can get several volumes out at once and binge-read them. Wataru Nadatani’s Cat Gamer caught my eye (can you tell what about them caught my eye), and I requested eight volumes, unfortunately unable to get the eighth to binge-read them all. I love it.

Riko, a twenty-nine-year-old office worker with an obsession for video games, finds her quiet life upended when she takes in a stray cat! Her coworkers can’t quite figure her out—she never talks about her personal life, she never works overtime, and she never joins them for happy hour. Is she antisocial? Nope, she’s rushing home to play video games! One day, a stray cat is found in the office parking lot, and before Riko knows it, the cat has moved in with her! Having no experience with pets, Riko uses lessons drawn from video games to guide her in cat care, while her cute companion tries to understand her behaviour through a cat’s worldview.

For those of you who don’t know, my family got a kitten almost two years ago, so I immediately could relate to Riko’s sudden responsibility as a cat owner. While I am not as avid a gamer as she is, I could tell what the games were (there are fake names in the manga), and I couldn’t help but laugh because if I am anything, it is an avid Dragon Quest player. These key parts of the story made it so easy to understand the interactions, relationships, and personalities of the manga characters. Riko is such a funny character, and I was smiling with every conversation and interaction she had with humans due to her way of speaking. She really is a bit of a dork, and I love that about her.

It is manga like Cat Gamer that makes me want to get more, and I just know 2026 is going to be the year I read a lot of manga. It is cute, funny, the storyline is good, the vibe is lighthearted and bright, and my overall mood once I finished these seven volumes was so much better than it had been in recent weeks. I felt rejuvenated, and honestly, I might make it a monthly rule that I have to binge-read a portion of a manga series as a palate cleanser between my large number of reads.

This is a manga that so many will love, and I cannot wait for more volumes to be released. Cat Gamer will be a returning series in my monthly reading summaries as I get my hands on the new volumes when they are available, and maybe I will have a mid-year manga review if I read so many series by then. I also have multiple volumes of the manga A Man and His Cat by Umi Sakurai on my shelf, thanks to the absolute joy I experienced reading this manga. Who knows how many more manga I will pick up in 2026? We’ll just have to wait and see!