3 out of 5

The chapters of this that are dedicated to the ongoing NotLC story / characters and its sidestories – amazing. Hawkman’s casual world-building and juggling of seriousness and stakes is so compelling, where you can hop from really tense what-happens-next moments, to heartstrings tugged, to laugh-out-loud goofiness within a few panels. Obviously this is helped along by the writer’s continued partnership with artist Mecha-Roots, who similarly balances all of these tones with a huge cast of instantly recognizable characters and cats.

…But… the last third of this tankobon goes to “side story” Cat Game, which is a pretty humdrum Squid Game knockoff. The art is a lot stiffer; the jokes are very wink wink clunky; and for something that takes place before the “Nyandemic,” it ends up hooking back into that pretty boringly. Which, like, I guess means this could end up connecting back to the ongoing storyline in some way, but if so, that would kind of weaken some of the other background strings which Hawkman has been threading, so I dunno. It looks like the side story will continue in some form, meaning I guess I’ll get a chance to find out, and maybe eat my words. At this point, though, this side story really tanks this volume – I sincerely wouldn’t be surprised if this was an earlier version of NotLC or earlier story or something that got redrawn / repurposed – especially when you compare it to how affecting the preceding “Another Case” side story is about a manga artist.

Volume 6 gives us the climactic chapters of the kitty assault on the compound, and fills in some drips and drops background on Grandma and Kunagi, though those drips and drops cause significant changes in the NotLC world.