Nyan Koi!

Nyan Koi!
230px Nyan Koi! manga volume 1 cover.
にゃんこい!
Genre	Harem, Supernatural
Manga
Written by	Sato Fujiwara
Published by	Flex Comix (2007-2012) Comic Meteor (2012-present)
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	FlexComix Blood (2007-2012) Meteor Comics (2012-present)
Original run	August 10, 2007 – present
Volumes	6
Anime television series
Directed by	Keiichiro Kawaguchi
Produced by	Junichiro Tanaka Shinichi Nakamura Jiyū Ōgi Naoko Okada Tomohiro Fujita
Written by	Shinichi Inotsume
Music by	Shigenobu Ōkawa Manabu Miwa
Studio	AIC
Licensed by	NA Sentai Filmworks UK MVM Films
Network	TBS, MBS, CBC, BS-TBS
Original run	October 1, 2009 – December 17, 2009
Episodes	12

Nyan Koi! (にゃんこい!, lit. "Meow Love!") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Sato Fujiwara. It started serialization on Flex Comix's free web comic FlexComix Blood on August 10, 2007. An anime adaptation premiered on October 1, 2009 in Japan. The series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks and released in North America with English subtitles on December 14, 2010, and dubbed in English on December 31, 2013 by Seraphim Digital.

Plot

Jyunpei Kousaka is a second-year high school student who is allergic to cats, and because of this he hates the sight of them. As luck would have it, his high school crush, Kaede Mizuno, absolutely adores cats. One day, while walking home from school, Jyunpei kicks an empty can and unfortunately breaks the local neko-jizō-sama (guardian deity of cats). He finds he can now understand what cats are saying, including his family's own ill-tempered cat, Nyamsus. However, if he does not grant 100 wishes to cats, he will turn into a cat himself and die from his own allergy.

Characters

Human characters

Jyunpei Kousaka (高坂 潤平, Kōsaka Junpei)

Voiced by: Shintarō Asanuma (Japanese), Connor Leach (English)

Jyunpei is the main protagonist of Nyan Koi! who has a chronic allergy and, thereby, resentment of cats. Ironically, everyone around him seems to love cats, including his mother and sister (which does not help his predicament). To complicate matters, he accidentally destroys the statue of a cat deity, and to atone for it, he must make use of his new-found ability of communicating with cats to fulfill the requests of one hundred cats. If he does not atone properly, he will be transformed into a cat, and die due to his allergy. Furthermore, should anyone find out about the curse, not only will the curse get stronger and enact faster, but the person who found out will become more unlucky and accident prone, such seen when Akari told Jyunpei that she knew he was cursed and almost fell down the temple stair. His love interest is Kaede Mizuno, but is starting to become aware of the feelings of the other girls around him.

Kaede Mizuno (水野 楓, Mizuno Kaede)

Voiced by: Yuka Iguchi (Japanese), Lesley Pedersen (English)

Kaede is Jyunpei Kousaka's classmate and crush who is initially oblivious of his feelings for her. She is described as athletic, smart and cute. Despite loving cats, her family owns four dogs, and cats tend to avoid her as she not only carries their smell, but gets overenthusiastic in handling them. This is mainly due to her only having experience with the big dogs her family owns and not realizing that cats are much different creatures. She tends to be airheaded, react to things naively and misunderstand people. Kaede meets Jyunpei when she falls on him from a tree trying to rescue a kitten that later climbs down itself. As a member of the track and field team, Kaede can run faster and longer than the average person, especially Jyunpei.

Kanako Sumiyoshi (住吉 加奈子, Sumiyoshi Kanako)

Voiced by: Ryōko Shiraishi (Japanese), Maggie Flecknoe (English)

Kanako is Jyunpei Kousaka's classmate and childhood friend who has a fondness for cats and Jyunpei.^[ch. 3] She is introduced in the series wearing manba make-up, which is a result of Kanako misunderstanding Jyunpei's intention of showing her Nyamsus doll to a girl.^{[ch. 4, 26]} During Tokiwa High School's cultural festival, her makeup is washed off. Later, Jyunpei passes on the caba cat Kumaneko's thanks for taking care of him and Kanako reconciles with Jyunpei when he reveals that he still has Kanako's doll. Kanako stops wearing her make-up and she becomes popular with Tokiwa's male students.^[ch. 4] She has a well-endowed body, and is not afraid to flaunt it, but often gets unwanted attention and is groped by Nagi Ichinose.^[ch. 6] Kanako is very forceful and often gets Jyunpei to purchase her food and merchandise at his own expense. She still harbors feelings for him. Kanako has a younger brother named Toru, who is dating Jyunpei's younger sister.

Nagi Ichinose (一ノ瀬 凪, Ichinose Nagi)

Voiced by: Yū Kobayashi (Japanese), Kara Greenberg (English)

Nagi is Kaede Ichinose's senior on the track team and heir of a powerful yakuza family from Kyoto. Like Kaede, she can run far and fast easily without getting winded. Despite being a girl, she started assuming a more masculine behavior after she was rejected by her first love, who mistakenly assumed she was a guy because of her boyish appearance and personality. Even Jyunpei thought she was a boy at first when she confronted him for approaching Kaede (who she feels needs protecting.) However, after Jyunpei comforts her, she falls for him and resorts to extreme actions, such as attempting to transfer into his class despite being a year older, just to be at his side. She suffers from a fear of lightning, the fear stemming from the fact that she witnessed her grandfather being struck by lightning on several occasions. She punctuates her sudden appearances by sexually harassing Kanako (often involving groping her breasts). She has a rare condition where she gets drunk from drinking soft drinks, which seems to give her romantic-like, lesbian-like, affectionate feelings towards other girls including Kaede and Kanako. She is called "Ichinose-senpai" by Kaede. She has a male longhair cat named Josephine, who speaks in Kansai-ben accent and wears a small cape. Her cat is "married" to her older brother's female cat.

Kotone Kirishima (桐島 琴音, Kirishima Kotone)

Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu (Japanese), Emily Neves (English)

Kotone is the elder of the Kirishima twins. She, along with her sister, are the daughters of the Buddhist monk in the temple behind the cat statue Jyunpei that broke. Despite her gentle and sweet outward demeanor, she is interested in Jyunpei mainly because of his misfortunes and can be considered sadistic, delusional, and an obsessive stalker. In the anime, she is shown to have had this sort of behavior towards a teacher, even at a young age. She exhibits yandere tendencies as she becomes jealous if another girl gets too close to Jyunpei. She is aware of Kaede's feelings for Jyunpei. Like her sister, she is aware of Jyunpei's curse and tries to find ways to help or encourage him to help more cats. She tends to bring the family's female black cat, Noir, who has a bit of a prima-donna attitude, wherever she goes. Some of this attitude is due to how Kotone's father practically ignored her and gave her common cat food while lavishing attention and gourmet cat food on Tama.

Akari Kirishima (桐島 朱莉, Kirishima Akari)

Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu (Japanese), Cynthia Martinez (English)

Akari is Kotone's younger twin sister. She, along with her sister, know that Jyunpei is cursed. They do not become cursed themselves as they have innate anti-magic abilities, but only for self-protection. She is a tsundere, and has the ability to sense the supernatural. She is extremely possessive of Kotone. In the anime, Akari is revealed to have been asocial as a child, thus causing her present awkwardness in dealing with people. The reason for this is because of her strong spiritual affinity, and she subconsciously avoided the other children. Despite her difficulties dealing with strangers, she seems to have no problem interacting with Jyunpei (though mostly due to her mistaken perception that he's becoming too close to Kotone). In contrast to her sister, she is aware of Kanako's feelings towards Jyunpei. Slowly, she too begins to harbor feelings for Jyunpei but tries to conceal them.

Keizo Kirishima (桐島 啓造, Kirishima Keizō)

Voiced by: Jūrōta Kosugi (Japanese), Andrew Love (English)

Keizo is a Buddhist monk at the temple in which the cat deity dwells. He is the father of Kotone and Akari. Despite being a monk, he often dons disguises to visit cabaret clubs. Keizo found Tama shivering outside in the cold and took him in, but began to spoil him once he discovered that Tama was an extremely rare male calico cat; this angered Noir, the family's other pet cat.

Chizuru Mochizuki (望月 千鶴, Mochizuki Chizuru)

Voiced by: Rina Satō (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)

Chizuru is a third-year college student working as a mail carrier when she is not in class. She has a bad sense of direction and frequently ends up getting lost.^[ch. 15] She is somewhat perverse and enjoys teasing Jyunpei. She seems to take a liking to Jyunpei after he helped her deliver letters in a district she got lost in.^[ch. 15] Jyunpei eventually takes up a part-time job at the post office during the winter to help raise money to repair the cat statue and they deliver the mail together.

Feline characters

Nyamsus (ニャムサス, Nyamusasu)

Voiced by: Atsuko Tanaka (Japanese), Marcy Bannor (English)

A large, fat cat owned by Jyunpei's family, and the one who brings to him the requests of cats in need of his help. She is well known and most cats around Jyunpei's neighborhood see her as an older sister figure. She reveals (to herself) that she is very grateful for Jyunpei since her gave her a home by begging his mother to take her in despite his allergies. Nyamsus greatly cares for Jyunpei but shows this subtly like when she claims ownership of the living room so as to prevent Jyunpei from sleeping in it and so catching a cold. It is revealed that Nyamsus is the kitten that Kaede had left in a very nice comfortable box with a sign saying she needed a home due to not being able to keep a cat with all the dogs at her home.

Tama (タマ)

Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Jay Hickman (English)

A small cat owned by the Buddhist monk Keizo Kirishima, in charge of the temple whose statue was broken by Jyunpei, and an acquaintance of Nyamsus, who also brings requests to him. He goes about the neighborhood and tells the other cats around about Jyunpei, which is part of the reason why the local cats know so much about him. He is an extremely rare male calico cat.

Noir (ノワール, Nowāru)

Voiced by: Yukari Fukui (Japanese), Elizabeth Bunch (English)

A black cat owned by the Kirishima twins. She received less attention once Tama was adopted into the family, and became jealous of his near-royal treatment as a rare breed. Still, the two share a fondness for one another, but easily become argumentative. The reason for her conflict with Tama is suspected to be his adoration of Nyamsus, and is heavily hinted that she is jealous of Nyamsus.

Episode list

No.	Title	Original air date
01	"The Scruffy Cat & the Cursed High Schooler" "Busaiku na Neko to Norowareshi Kōkōsei" (ブサイクな猫と呪われし高校生)	October 1, 2009
Teenager Jyunpei Kousaka attempts to avoid contact with cats due to his allergy of them. However, one day, he accidentally damages the statue of a cat deity. According to the Buddhist monk Keizo Kirishima, one would be cursed with the ability to talk to cats as a consequence, tasked of attending one hundred requests from them, with the risk of be transformed into a cat himself if he fails to do so. The first request he receives, from Nyamsus and Tama, is to help the stray cats in the local park who have been tormented by a stranger leaving them devastated. At the mall, he runs into his crush Kaede Mizuno, and while on the way home, the tormentor later turns out to be Kaede, who has an extreme fondness for cats to the point of smothering them.
02	"That Man Is a Manservant?" "Sono Otoko Geboku?" (その男　下僕？)	October 8, 2009
Jyunpei must help a caba cat to give his thanks to a girl who helped him. However, she is actually Kanako Sumiyoshi, a childhood acquaintance of his who wears manba makeup. During the annual high school cultural festival, she is determined to get him to do her bidding. He hesitates to give his thanks, since she has changed after the time she saw him give her cat doll to another girl when they were kids. However, a student inadvertently spills a bucket of water on Kanako, wiping off her makeup, and after she loses her temper and chases him, Kaede finds her to dry her off. After the cultural festival, Jyunpei gives his thanks to Kanako, and they reconcile. The caba cat later moves in with Jyunpei until he can find another home.
03	"Your name is..." "Kimi no Na wa" (キミの名は)	October 15, 2009
Jyunpei meets Chizuru Mochizuki, a postwoman who has no sense of direction, and decides to help her. While roaming the city with her, he also helps the cats with their various requests. However, hanging around with her ends up putting him on a series of misunderstandings with people he knows, much to his despair. Jyunpei reminisces to when he first met Kaede on the first day of school, remembering how she tried to rescue a cat up on a tree but accidentally slipped and landed on him. After she helped him up, he fell in love with her ever since then.
04	"Beautiful People" "Utsukushii Hito" (美しい人)	October 22, 2009
Jyunpei receives a letter from Nagi Ichinose, an upperclassman of his, who challenges him to a duel, but since he ignored this letter for three days, Nagi passes out due to stress. During a downpour, Jyunpei, Kaede, and Kanako take an unconscious Nagi to her house, which so happens to be a mansion of a yakuza. Jii, Nagi's grandfather, treats the three to his home. While there, Jyunpei is requested from Josephine, a cat owned by Nagi, to make Nagi fall in love. While Kaede and Kanako are taking a bath, Jyunpei is sent to Nagi's bedroom, where he is surprised to figure out that Nagi is a girl who is in love with Kaede and she also fears lightning due to her past encounter. She was also devastated when her first crush turned her down for her boyish appearance. After calming her down, he departs from the mansion, with Josephine satisfied by the fact that Nagi will now act more feminine.
05	"Times Square (Time for a Love Square)" "Taimuzu Sukuwea (Shikaku Kankei no Koku)" (四角関係の刻（タイムズ・スクウェア）)	October 29, 2009
Jyunpei is given a pair of tickets to an amusement park from Nagi, who wants to settle things with him. Kaede and Kanako end up coming along, much to Nagi's disappointment. While Kanako takes Jyunpei to a roller coaster ride, Nagi tells Kaede something that has been making her blush in front of Jyunpei. In a haunted house and then on the Ferris wheel, Jyunpei sees this as the perfect chance to get closer to Kaede. However, their brief moments are ruined when Nagi captures a picture of them and Kanako attacks Jyunpei out of jealousy. Soon enough, Kaede begins to develop feelings for Jyunpei, concerned of who he might have an interest in. After school as the sun is about to set, Kaede goes off to search for Jyunpei, but when she finds him, she secretly witnesses him at the Buddhist temple in front of a girl, who is aware of his curse.
06	"Milk and Bitters and Sugar and Spice" "Miruku ando Bitā ando Shugā ando Supaisu" (ミルク＆ビター＆シュガー＆スパイス)	November 5, 2009
The next day at the Buddhist temple, Jyunpei meets Kotone Kirishima and Akari Kirishima, twins with opposite personalities, both knowing about his curse due to their ability to sense the supernatural. They later decided to help on his ordeal. Tama and Noir, the cat owned by the twins, have been in rivalry with each other for a long time. This is because Tama used to be pampered and spoiled after being adopted into the temple because of his rare breed. As Jyunpei follows Tama and Noir around the neighborhood, he runs into Kaede, who is walking her pack of dogs. Although Tama and Noir argue, they eventually settle their differences. However, Jyunpei inadvertently causes Kaede the wrong impression when he could not hear her over the cats, making her cry and leave. He later apologizes to her for the misunderstanding.
07	"Wait Until Dark" "Kuraku Naru made Matte" (暗くなるまで待って)	November 12, 2009
Jyunpei sets for a school trip to Kyoto with his classmates, but he barely has time to enjoy the trip when word about him spread among the local cats who flood him with requests. As Jyunpei, Kaede, and Kanako later spend the day together, they soon stumble upon the fact that Nagi, whose family is situated in Kyoto, is there to attend an annual meeting. This meeting is in fact an arrangement to have Nagi choose a husband, a decision which she would always decline.
08	"The Passionate Private Running Coach" "Honō no Kojin Kyōju Rannā" (炎の個人教授ランナー)	November 19, 2009
Jyunpei is tasked to help a cat named Michi to get in shape in order to be able to catch sparrows to win the favor of his beloved. However, he is interrupted by Nagi, who wants him to join her track and field club with Kaede. When Jyunpei starts to neglect his promise with Michi, the latter decides to enact revenge by putting him in a very embarrassing situation. Jyunpei was keeping hold of Kaede's handkerchief to return it to her the following day, but instead he pulls out from his bag her underwear that had been missing from her locker the day before. After Michi apologizes for his actions, Jyunpei trains him to become much stronger than ever, being able to be with his beloved. Jyunpei tells Kaede about the mix-up and returns the handkerchief back to her.
09	"Girls in the Water" "Gāruzu in za Wōtā" (ガールズ・イン・ザ・ウォーター)	November 26, 2009
The gang sets for a leisure time at the swimming pool before final exams. Jyunpei get a nosebleed after trying to catch Kaede in the pool when she was knocked over by Kanako and Nagi fighting. He later asks Kanako to help him get a cat to climb over the wall outside before returning back to the pool. The next day, Jyunpei catches cold and misses class, so Kanako visits to give him the study guide handouts and take care of him. To make matters more complicated, Jyunpei meets Chatora, an overweight cat in need of a diet, but he is upset by the fact that this cat rejects such advice at first, making him feel lightheaded. As Kanako puts Jyunpei to rest, she struggles with her true feelings for him, abruptly leaving before he wakes up. The final exam takes place the following day.
10	"As it Happened One Night" "Aru Yoru no Dekigoto" (ある夜の出来事)	December 3, 2009
Everyone except Kanako passed their exam, so she needs to do a report on local history to pass as well. Jyunpei has Kotone and Akari to show his friends around the neighborhood to gather such information. However, his friends joke around with a maneki-neko figurine, which urges Kotone and Akari to stop them, due to a superstition of being cursed, and purify the figurine through a chant. At night, Kotone and Akari end up counting on Jyunpei's unexpected help to deal with the spirit of the maneki-neko figurine who threatens to kill them. With their combined and struggling effort, they eventually manage to destroy the spirit.
11	"Friends" "Furenzu" (フレンズ)	December 10, 2009
As the second semester comes to a close, everyone prepares as Christmas approaches. Kanako stumbles upon Jyunpei, who is taking a part-time job as a postman, inviting him to go with her to the movie theater. Before going there, they spent some quality time together in the mall. Kanako enjoys her time with him, recalling how great her friendship with him was in the past. The next day, Kanako, who worked part-time at a concession stand, gives Kaede a present. When she goes to the park, she overhears Jyunpei talking about a curse while he rescues a kitten from a tree to bring down for a cat.
12	"Does Heaven Await Me?" "Tengoku wa Matte Kureru?" (天国は待ってくれる？)	December 17, 2009
Jyunpei suddenly begins to turn into a cat, having Kotone and Akari help sneak him out of the post office unnoticed. He feels that Kaede is suspicious of his secret, so he must find a way to dissuade her before being stricken with the full force of his curse. He comes up with a plan to fake being cursed by the maneki-neko figurine, having Kotone and Akari purifying it afterwards. However, Nagi accidentally takes off his hat which reveals his cat ears, causing him to run away to the park. At this point he fully transforms in a cat, and Kaede then finds him there, not knowing it is him. As the local cats in the area gather around her, Kaede realizes how Jyunpei cared for the cats, believing he was never cursed. This reverses the curse, returning Jyunpei back to a human. Jyunpei relives his normal life as the new year begins.

Theme Songs

Opening Theme:

"Nyanderful! (にゃんだふる！)" by Yui Sakakibara

Ending Theme:

"Strawberry ~Amaku Setsunai Namida~ (Strawberry～甘く切ない涙～)" by Asami Imai

Reception

Theron Martin from Anime News Network gave the English sub of the anime a C+ rating. In his review he says that the anime doesn't stand out compared to other series where harem is a genre. He goes on to say though that it tries to go with "some unusual twists". Chris Beveridge from The Fandom Post gave the anime a B rating. He calls the humor "cute", and that the ending builds up to something nice despite the ongoing manga.

References

Manga

Nyan Koi! manga volumes by Sato Fujiwara. Original Japanese version published by Flex Comix (2007-2012) and Comic Meteor (2012–present).

1. Vol. 1 (ch. 1–5): にゃんこい! 1. February 2012 ISBN 978-4-59-385586-5 (in Japanese)

External links

• Nyan Koi! Official Blog from Flex Comix (Japanese)
• Flex Comic's Website for Nyan Koi! (Japanese)
• Anime official website (Japanese)
• Nyan Koi! (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Nyan Koi! at IMDb
• Nyan Koi! at TV.com