Neko Kamisama to Nanatsuboshi -Imouto no Ane- (ネコ神さまと、ななつぼし -妹の姉-) Review

Another day like any other. My little sister comes to wake me up, same as always.

“Big sis, breakfast is ready. Time to get up.”

I’m a guy, but my sister has always called me “big sis.”

“Hey, is it really okay to keep calling you that?”

Just as my sister leaves, a figure slips out from beside me — a girl with black hair, asking me that.

Actually, this “girl” is a cat. And not just a cat — a cat god. A cat god who also happens to be my savior.

It all started two weeks ago.

1.

That day I went out shopping with my sister, and on the mountain road we ran into a black cat. A pretty cute black cat, and one that took a real liking to my sister right away.

“Ahh, what a cute kitty!”

Girls have zero resistance to cute things. One look at that cat and my sister couldn’t move another step.

“Brother, let’s take it home!”

“No! We’ve got enough mouths to feed at home already. Where would we even put a cat?”

“Brother~”

“I said no!”

I held firm, so my sister had no choice but to let the cat go. The cat seemed to understand our conversation too — it just sat there watching us walk away with a look of genuine disappointment.

Back home, my sister was moping around. I knew she was still thinking about that cat. Then the wind picked up outside, and it started to rain.

“Brother… that kitty… do you think it’s getting rained on…?”

My sister made her request one more time…

“Fine… grab an umbrella, let’s go.”

I couldn’t stand seeing her miserable, so I gave in.

When we got back to where we’d seen the black cat, it was gone.

“Brother, maybe it’s up ahead!”

My sister pointed at a set of stairs in front of us. At the top there seemed to be a tiny shrine — the cat was probably sheltering there from the rain.

Just as I hurried up the stairs, I suddenly lost my balance. My foot slipped and I went over backward… head-first, and hit the ground hard.

Then everything went black.

I could vaguely hear my sister calling my name while I was unconscious, but unfortunately, I closed my eyes anyway.

When I came to again, I wasn’t in heaven — I was at home.

In front of me was a black-haired girl, and she claimed to be that cat.

“Hey, you nearly died. I saved you.”

The self-proclaimed cat said this to me all haughty-like.

“I’m the cat god of this land. You should have died that day, but I planted three divine fragments from my body into yours, so you survived. Be grateful, kid.”

So I really was supposed to die that day, and that cat saved me.

“But don’t get any ideas. Those three fragments inside you still belong to me. Once you’ve recovered, I’m taking them back.”

“So if you’re a cat god, you can do anything, right?”

I made my own request.

“Of course. I am a god, after all.”

So I asked the cat god to rewrite my sister’s memories — to make her call me “big sis” instead of “brother.”

“You’re a weird one.” The cat god looked genuinely baffled. “These days, don’t all guys want their little sisters to call them ‘brother’?”

“Can you do it or not?”

“Of course.”

From that day on, my sister called me “big sis.” And the cat god who saved my life naturally wormed her way into our home and became part of the family. She even posed as a transfer student and came to our school, and gave herself a name: “Fuuko.”

“So you already had a name? Why that one?” I asked Fuuko.

“Uh… well, it’s not actually my name. It’s the name of someone I know…”

2.

There’s a deeper reason I had my sister start calling me “big sis.” It’s just not something I like to talk about with outsiders.

My sister and I aren’t really full siblings — we’re half-siblings on our mother’s side. Not long after our mother married our father, she had an affair. She found some foreigner abroad, had a fling with him, and gave birth to my sister.

The foreigner our mother had the affair with turned out to be a good-for-nothing with no money, and he clung to her, refusing to let go. Eventually it all came out and blew up in my father’s face.

When my father learned my sister wasn’t his own, he was furious at first. Then, he chose to forgive our mother.

He sent the foreigner packing and chose to shoulder everything himself. After that, since my father was busy with work, our mother took care of both me and my sister.

But because our mother hated that foreigner, she started abusing my sister — because this girl had that bastard’s blood in her.

Eventually my father found out about the abuse, and this time he didn’t hold back. He divorced our mother outright.

After that, my father was still often away because of work, so he hired a maid to look after the two of us. Because the maid felt sorry for my sister, she gave her a little more attention — and young and stupid as I was, I actually got jealous.

I still remember how our mother used to torment my sister. And I used that exact same playbook on her.

My sister loved to draw, so I’d make her draw this and that, and nitpick everything she drew. The truth is my sister had real talent for drawing, but I kept humiliating her work.

“What the hell is this supposed to be? Garbage!”

My sister just cried and said she’d do better next time, and I kept right on abusing her like I had every right to. Until eventually we started going to school together…

At school, my sister started getting talked about because of her background, and more people started trying to bully her.

Watching all that, I felt this intense disgust and anger well up inside me.

And in that moment I understood — deep down, I still cared about this sister of mine.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, and I went off on the people trying to bully her. Beat them badly, too. Serious consequences.

After that, nobody bullied my sister again. Everyone looked at me with fear. I became “that delinquent who loves to fight.”

And the way my sister looked at me got a little complicated too.

She never said it, but I know she remembers how I abused her in the past, and how our mother abused her. It’s a wound that will never fully heal.

I wanted her to forget all that. But I’m just an ordinary person. I can’t do something like that.

If there were a god, surely a god could do it. Even if that god is a cat.

So I asked the cat god to rewrite my sister’s memories. Make her forget she ever had a brother, and remember only that she has a sister. It’s only making her hallucinate that I’m “big sis” when she looks at me, but all those unhappy memories are gone. She’s happier now too — why not?

The only side effect is that a pair of cat ears showed up on my sister’s head. But under the cat god’s power, everyone around us just accepts it as normal. Not really a big deal.

If I had to name the biggest inconvenience, it’d be this cat god Fuuko freeloading at our place.

3.

Fuuko may be my savior, but she’s nothing like some “benevolent deity.” She’s always teasing me. At school she plays the prim and proper lady, but the moment no one’s looking, the claws come out.

“Hey, remember to give me back those three fragments inside you!”

Fuuko says that to me a lot, and she even gave me an ultimatum:

“Those three fragments inside you — if you don’t cough them up within a month, you’ll die.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re a god’s fragments. Leave them in a mortal’s body too long and you’ll slowly poison yourself to death. You’re not a god, after all.”

“So how do I cough them up?”

“Hmm… let me see.”

Fuuko pressed her forehead against mine. A flash of light, and I felt a wave of nausea — I coughed up a little silver beetle.

Fuuko didn’t even flinch. She picked it up, wiped it off, and ate it.

“That’s a fragment? Why is it a bug?”

“Yep. But there are still two left inside you.”

“Why not take them all at once?”

“Because those two have to come out some other way!”

“What way?”

“Uh… generally speaking, when a person gets a huge shock, the remaining fragments come out.”

“A huge shock?”

“Yep. So, is there anything you’re afraid of? Let me shock you~”

Fuuko grinned wickedly.

And I just sat there lost. Was there anything I was afraid of? Doesn’t seem like it…

After that, Fuuko started doing her thing. She kept scheming up ways to “shock” me — suddenly serving me awful food, suddenly showing me a suicidal shut-in who wanted to jump off a cliff, suddenly making me fall down a hillside, and so on and so on…

But nothing managed to “shock me into coughing up the fragments.”

Maybe someone who’s already died once really has nothing to fear. But saying I truly had no fears at all would be going too far, and Fuuko noticed that too.

The summer festival came, and my sister and I went together. The bustling stalls made my sister really happy.

Then, in the brief moment I went to the bathroom, my sister disappeared…

When I found her… she was being harassed by a thug… He was about to drag her away when I got there in time and saved her…

In the instant she was saved, she burst into tears and cried out to me:

“Brother!”

Wait. Brother?

The shackles on my sister had been broken after all.

4.

I carried my sister home on my back, and she collapsed onto the bed unconscious.

I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or truly unconscious, or maybe just exhausted.

I looked at the tears still at the corners of her eyes. If I’d been a little later, she’d have been hurt again.

I wiped the tears from her face and started to get up and leave.

“Don’t go.” My sister opened her eyes and pleaded with her gaze.

I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. Apologize to her? Say sorry? Sorry for my carelessness getting her hurt again — or maybe I wanted to confirm whether she was still going to call me “big sis.”

Before I could open my mouth, my lips felt a warm wetness.

It was my sister’s kiss. Her lips pressed against mine.

Was this really my sister? Or a hallucination of her? What did this kiss even mean?

I once swore to protect my sister. I’d also once had thoughts about crossing that line with her, but along with my childhood guilt, I buried those thoughts deep down and never touched them again.

We’re siblings. Can siblings kiss? Even if they kiss, siblings can’t be together, right?

Sister, what are you thinking? We’re siblings. We can’t do this.

And yet, somewhere in my heart there was still some joy — but along with it came even more heartache.

Sweet and heartbreaking at once — is this your humor or your gentleness? A flash of fireworks, or just not wanting to be lonely? The first time you held me tight. A gentle little kiss, eyes squeezed shut. Is it you or not you? Maybe, not sure yet. A kiss as light as a dream. I don’t dare breathe too hard. Don’t dare be too greedy, too trusting. My luck — one hundred percent you.

Between joy and pain, my sister and I finally crossed the forbidden line that night.

5.

After that night, I no longer had a sister — I had a lover.

We went shopping like lovers. We went on dates. We went to the movies.

We did all the things lovers do, including tasting the forbidden fruit.

And Fuuko, as if taking the hint, disappeared.

My sister and I… no, my lover and I, lived something like a honeymoon. But calm days are usually just the prelude to a storm. The dark day came in the end.

One night, watching my sister sleep beside me, I looked out at the night sky and thought Fuuko hadn’t shown up in a long time.

I washed my face and looked in the mirror, and saw… I’d grown cat ears!

And behind me in the mirror, I saw Fuuko. And the Fuuko who reappeared wore a strange smile.

“How’s married life? Remember how you’re supposed to die in a month?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… don’t you think things between you and your sister moved a little fast?”

“Moved fast?”

“As her brother, you had some feelings for her, sure, but you could only bury them. So why couldn’t you bury them this time? Haven’t you wondered about that?”

“You’re saying…”

“Yep. I manipulated your sister’s brain to make her come onto you, and I messed with you a bit too. You couldn’t hold back, so you pushed your little sister down.”

“…!”

I suddenly realized what that strange feeling was when I kissed my sister. It wasn’t my sister’s real feelings. She was a puppet being controlled…

Maybe my sister never liked me. Maybe she never even forgave me. And I went and did something unforgivable to her…

Compounding one mistake with another!

Suddenly nausea hit me, and with a dry heave I coughed up a new beetle. I knew it — this was one of the “divine fragments” Fuuko had talked about.

“Ohoho, that shock did the trick. Another fragment in the bag.”

Fuuko muttered to herself, and then waved her hand. My knees went weak and I dropped to the ground instantly. Fuuko looked down at me and went on:

“You didn’t actually think I was some kind of god, did you?”

“You’re not a god? Then those powers you have…”

“You didn’t actually think gods are the only ones in this world with powers, did you? Haha?”

“!!”

“Alright, everything’s going smoothly. Off to sleep with you.”

Fuuko waved her hand, and I blacked out again.

6.

When I woke up again it was morning. I was in my own room, in my own bed, like I’d just had a nightmare.

“Brother, breakfast is ready. Time to get up.”

My sister came to wake me up as usual, like nothing had ever happened.

My memory’s fuzzy. I only remember that something terrible seemed to happen, but I can’t remember what, and everything around me looks so normal.

Maybe I’m overthinking it. I got up and started a new day.

The day passed peacefully enough, but I kept feeling like I’d forgotten something important. Like something was missing from the house.

Thinking it over, I was walking along the road and somehow ended up in front of those stairs, in front of that little shrine. Suddenly it was like lightning struck my head, and I finally remembered the important thing I’d been forgetting.

“Fuuko!”

The one who started all this, Fuuko, was gone!

I ran back as fast as I could, back home to warn my sister to be careful of Fuuko. I didn’t know what kind of deity she really was, but at the very least she wasn’t a good person.

When I got home, my sister was gone. I searched everywhere, but it was like she’d vanished into thin air.

“Hehe, can’t find your sister? Getting anxious~?”

That familiar voice — Fuuko’s figure.

“Where did you take my sister?”

“Not convenient here. Let’s talk somewhere else.”

In the end, Fuuko led me to the observation deck on the mountain behind the house, gazing into the distance, her back to me.

“Tell me. Where’s my sister?”

“Right over there, lying on the ground.”

I saw a figure lying on the ground not far behind her. I was about to rush over when Fuuko pulled out a knife and blocked my way.

“Want to save your sister? Not so fast.”

“What do you want?”

“I want my last fragment back.”

“What are you, really?”

“Hmm… might as well tell you. You’re about to die anyway. I’m not a god. I’m something like a Volvox, and I’ve got some special powers.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I survive by parasitizing others. Right now I’m parasitizing a cat, so naturally I become a cat. If I parasitize a dog, I become a dog. If I parasitize a human…” Fuuko

“You become human?”

“Exactly. I have three fragments inside you, so see, I can manifest a human form.”

“Then why do you want to take the fragments back?”

“Because I’m a Volvox organism. All the fragments together give me maximum power. Splitting three of them off into your body is cramping my style.”

“Then why did you save me in the first place?”

“Hehe~” Fuuko smirked. “You didn’t actually think I was your savior, did you?”

“!!!!”

I suddenly remembered what Fuuko had said earlier. Thinking about it, there were a lot of suspicious things about my death that day. Could it be…

“Don’t tell me… back then you were trying… to kill me, then parasitize me and control me?”

“Bingo!” Fuuko laughed. “I was trying to make you fall to your death so I could slip into your body and take over. But you didn’t die — just got badly hurt. And there was that meddling woman next to you. Only three fragments got into you, and because of my ability, parasitizing you also healed you. So I went with it and played the part of your savior, the great cat god.”

“Then why take them out now?”

“That’s not something you need to know.”

The moment the words left her mouth, the knife in Fuuko’s hand shot toward me.

And then, unexpectedly… someone darted in front of me… It was my sister. My sister, awake at some point. The knife sank into her stomach. She let out a groan, and blood poured out.

“Don’t… hurt… my… most beloved… brother.”

With that last breath, my sister collapsed again.

Before I could even grieve, Fuuko just looked annoyed.

“Oh dear, I really didn’t mean to hurt her… But no time to waste. I’ve got to finish the job.”

Fuuko took a step forward, and I immediately pulled the knife out of my sister’s stomach and started stabbing myself like a madman…

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Fuuko panicked a little.

“Stay back!” I shouted. “I know what you want now. You want to stab me to death and then parasitize my body completely, right?”

“Hehe…” Fuuko said nothing, just squinted at me.

“You’re not a cat god at all. You were just temporarily parasitizing a dead cat’s corpse, puppeting it back to life. Then you took a liking to my body, decided to parasitize me, and lured me into falling to my death — but it failed, and only three fragments got in. You lied and said you were a god. You said if the fragments weren’t out within a month I’d die — but really, within a month the cat corpse you’re parasitizing will rot, right? Since the parasitization failed, you want to pull the fragments back out and find someone else to parasitize. Right?”

“So you’re not stupid after all.”

“You went to all this trouble to get the fragments out. That business with the thug harassing my sister a while back — that was you too, wasn’t it? Time was running out, so you wanted to wrap things up fast, right? I’m telling you, the knife’s with me now. If you try anything funny, I’ll shred my own body beyond recognition so you can’t parasitize it.”

“Are you an idiot?” Fuuko said coldly. “I can just find someone else besides you.”

“Heh. Today’s the last day of the month. I don’t believe you have time to find someone on the verge of death to parasitize. Your cat corpse is about to rot. Someone who can only survive by parasitizing is about to have nowhere left to go, aren’t you?”

Fuuko said nothing. After a long silence, she spoke.

“What do you want?”

“Parasitize me and my sister. Heal both our wounds.”

“Easier said than done…”

“You don’t have a choice. Worst case, we all go down together…”

…

After a long, long silence, Fuuko nodded.

“Fine… I accept your terms. I’ll temporarily parasitize you and your sister, five fragments each, to save both your lives first. But… you two can’t be more than 500 meters apart. The fragments will fail, and you’ll both go right back to being mangled messes.”

“Deal!”

“And I won’t be parasitizing you two forever. Once I find a new target, I’m leaving!”

“I’d hope so.”

Fuuko smiled bitterly and shook her head, then turned into a beam of light and entered my body, and my sister’s…

And all that was left where Fuuko had been standing was a battered, dead cat…

…………………………………………………………………………………………

7.

It’s been a while since my sister and I went on a hike together. First time this year.

Walking hand in hand with my sister up the mountain road, chatting and laughing — maybe the best time of my life.

“Brother, do you think Fuuko’s doing okay in heaven?”

I told my sister that Fuuko was probably the name of that black cat that got parasitized. As for the Volvox that called itself a cat god, neither of us knows its real name.

“Fuuko’s been set free. She’ll definitely be happy in heaven.”

My sister and I will never be apart again — at least, never more than 500 meters apart. Not for that Volvox freak’s sake, but more for our own.

“Ahh, so beautiful~”

Watching the glow of the setting sun, my sister sighed.

“Ahh, so beautiful~”

I looked at my sister and said the same thing.

Life has its ups and downs, but in the end it settles back into peace. My sister and I went through life and death together, and yet we wound up inseparable and happy.

You have a kind of magic that makes even the night shine. Hifumi opens her eyes, and a beautiful life dances in the moonlight. We’ve forgotten the map; all we have is the warmth in our palms. We slowly walk down a path fragrant with flowers and grass.

The rainbow after the storm is all the more beautiful—just like our lives.

A beautiful life, never to be parted.

(The End)

Snark:

1. The setup is extremely reminiscent of “Painted Skin” and similar tales from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi).
2. Slapping a supernatural horror story onto a moe art style is one wild move.
3. The producer, Maruyama Takeshi—look him up. The man is a “landmine specialist” in every sense. See his name and you should be prepared.
4. The story itself is passable, just a bit eerie. Not quite a landmine—it’ll only scare the kids who got drawn in by the art.