What's Michael?

What's Michael? (ホワッツマイケル?, Howattsu Maikeru?) is a Japanese manga series created by Makoto Kobayashi. In 1984, it began its serialization in the Weekly Morning magazine. The manga shows Michael, an orange American Shorthair tabby cat, his feline friends, and other domesticated pets in a series of humorous episodes. Michael is not a specific cat, but rather a feline version of the everyman as he appeared in drastically different settings across chapters: he's a normal cat in some chapters (with different owners in different chapters), an anthropomorphic cat in others, and he even dies in some chapters.

What's Michael?
First tankōbon volume cover
ホワッツマイケル? (Howattsu Maikeru?)
Manga
Written by	Makoto Kobayashi
Published by	Kodansha
English publisher	US: Dark Horse Comics
Magazine	Weekly Morning
English magazine	US: Mangajin, Super Manga Blast
Demographic	Seinen
Original run	1984 – 1989
Volumes	9
Original video animation
Studio	Kitty Films
Released	25 November 1985 – 25 July 1988
Runtime	55 - 60 minutes
Episodes	2
Anime television series
Written by	Satoru Akahori
Music by	Kōji Makaino Michiaki Katō
Studio	Various[lower-alpha 1]
Original network	TV Tokyo
Original run	15 April 1988 – 28 March 1989
Episodes	45

Dark Horse Comics released the series in the US as eleven volumes between 1997 and 2006, and in 2020 released the first volume of a "Fatcat Collection", which spanned the first six volumes.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]} The manga was presented in the standard left to right American reading format, by Dark Horse, with the artwork flipped to change the reading style.

In 1986, What's Michael? received the Kodansha Manga Award for general manga.^[14]

The manga was adapted into two anime OVA films in 1985 and 1988, and a 45-episode TV series in 1988–1989.

Story

Most episodes of the series fall into one of two kinds of stories. The first portrays the cats in a realistic way, living out normal lives with their owners. It finds humor in how humans observe their pets' naturally quirky behavior. The second type of story is complete fantasy in which all the animals are given anthropomorphic characteristics such as walking on two legs, wearing clothes, and being able to talk to each other; these episodes place the animals in a storyline that mixes up their human personae with normal animal behavior.

Chapters

No.	Release date	ISBN
1	18 January 1985	4-06-176507-8
Chapter 01-21 Michael's Intro‼ (マイケル登場‼) Beauty and Kitty (美女と子猫) Terrorist (テロリスト) A Day in Michael's Life (マイケルの１日) Suspicious Niboshi Case (疑惑のニボシ) Michael VS. Rocky (マイケルＶＳ.ロッキー)

See also

• Japan portal
• Comics portal
• 1980s portal

Notes

1. No single studio is responsible for the work. Various were subcontracted for each episode, including but not limited to Daume and Shaft.

References

1. Kobayashi, Makoto (1997). What's Michael? - Michael's Album. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Smith, Toren. Dark Horse Comics (published 1 April 1997). ISBN 978-1-56971-247-4.
2. Kobayashi, Makoto (30 July 1997). What's Michael? - Living Together. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Smith, Toren. Dark Horse Comics. ISBN 978-1-56971-248-1.
3. Kobayashi, Makoto (1997). What's Michael? - Off the Deep End. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Sather, Jeanne; Smith, Toren. Dark Horse Comics (published 29 October 1997). ISBN 978-1-56971-249-8.
4. Kobayashi, Makoto (1997). What's Michael? - Michael's Mambo. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Sather, Jeanne; Smith, Toren. Dark Horse Comics (published 28 January 1998). ISBN 978-1-56971-250-4.
5. Kobayashi, Makoto (November 2001). What's Michael? - Michael's Favorite Spot. Translated by Kotobuki, Hisashi; Gleason, Alan; Lewis, Dana; Winkler, Erin; Smith, Toren; Hernandez, Lea. Dark Horse Comics (published 16 January 2002). ISBN 978-1-56971-557-4.
6. Kobayashi, Makoto (17 July 2002). What's Michael? - A Hard Day's Life. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Hernandez, Lea. Dark Horse Comics. ISBN 978-1-56971-744-8.
7. Kobayashi, Makoto (2003). What's Michael? - Fat Cat in the City. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Hernandez, Lea; Smith, Toren. Dark Horse Comics (published 19 February 2003). ISBN 978-1-56971-914-5.
8. Kobayashi, Makoto (2003). What's Michael? - Show Time. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Hernandez, Lea; Smith, Toren. Dark Horse Comics (published 17 September 2003). ISBN 978-1-56971-972-5.
9. Kobayashi, Makoto (2004). What's Michael? - The Ideal Cat. Dark Horse Comics (published 14 April 2004). ISBN 978-1-59307-120-2.
10. Kobayashi, Makoto (2005). What's Michael? - Sleepless Nights. Dark Horse Comics (published 22 June 2005). ISBN 978-1-59307-337-4.
11. Kobayashi, Makoto (2006). What's Michael? - Planet of the Cats. Dark Horse Comics (published 10 May 2006). ISBN 978-1-59307-525-5.
12. Kobayashi, Makoto (2020). What's Michael?: Fatcat Collection Volume 1. Translated by Lewis, Dana; Smith, Toren. Dark Horse Comics (published 12 February 2020). ISBN 978-1-5067-1414-1.
13. Dark Horse comics (12 February 2020). "What's Michael? Fatcat Collection Volume 1 TPB :: Profile :: Dark Horse Comics". Retrieved 5 July 2020.
14. Joel Hahn. "Kodansha Manga Awards". Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved 21 August 2007.

External links

• What's Michael? (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• "Translated Manga Pick of the Month"—J-pop.com
• What's Michael? vol. 1 review—Ex.org