The Spring 2020 Manga Guide

Yuzu the Pet Vet

What's It About? 

When Yuzu's mother is hospitalized with a lung ailment, the eleven-year-old goes to live with her uncle Akihito at the veterinary hospital he runs. Yuzu is hurting from her mom's illness and is afraid of animals, but as she spends more and more time at the Bow Meow clinic, she begins to understand that animals all have their own personalities and situations just like people – and that maybe they're all more alike than she ever imagined.

Yuzu the Pet Vet is based on a video game. It's written and illustrated by Mingo Itō and was released both in print and digitally ($10.99 each) by Kodansha Comics in March.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

If you are the kind of person who has to check doesthedogdie.com before watching a movie or was scarred by Where the Red Fern Grows as a child, you may want to give Yuzu the Pet Vet a miss. I sobbed my way through this volume, which on the one hand is a testament to how well it captures some of the heartbreaks of sharing your life with an animal, but on the other hand is in no way what I want out of my reading experience. This goes double if you're considering the book for an animal-loving child; it may have been serialized in Nakayoshi and have an intended audience of elementary school students, but it largely deals with the sadder aspects of having a pet or being a vet, and that won't work for all younger readers. Of the four stories in this volume, we handle a dog dying of old age, a dog nearly given up because of her incurable (but treatable) disease, a girl who feels guilty loving a new cat after her previous one died, and an elderly dog with dementia. All of this makes Yuzu the Pet Vet one of the heaviest children's titles I've read recently, adorable art notwithstanding.

That these are all issues that arise in real life is no doubt part of the reason they're included here. Having pets is one of the ways kids learn about death and grief, and the horrible truth of the matter is that people like the eleven-year-old idol's manager who want to get rid of an animal when it's no longer “cute” or “pretty” do exist. That story is one of the more heartwarming ones, because Yuzu is able to talk to Riri and make her realize that not only is it not POPO's fault that she got Cushing's Disease, but also that the love she feels for her pup isn't based on how aesthetically pleasing she is. Likewise the girl with the dog who has dementia vows to take care of him no matter how difficult it gets because she loves him even if he's not exactly who he used to be. They're tough lessons and worth learning, but definitely not for all readers.

One of the stronger aspects of the book is the way that each animal story is linked to an issue Yuzu is facing with the people in her life, drawing a very nice parallel between humans and animals. Yuzu being able to see these correlations helps her to be less leery of pets, and readers can see that the relationships people have with their animals are just as meaningful as those they have with other humans. Mostly Yuzu sees her relationship with her sick mother in the stories about elderly pets, and I honestly wouldn't put money on her mother making it to the end of the series, but it does offer a way for Yuzu to cope with her issues that she didn't have before.

As far as the “sad animal genre” of children's fiction goes, this is a good one, and it certainly does send the message that being a vet isn't all cuddles. But it's also not going to be for everyone in a very specific way. You know who you are.

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Faye Hopper

Rating:

Yuzu the Pet Vet is a first serialization in all the best ways. It has the enthusiasm and infectious passion of an author who is eternally grateful that they can draw comics as a career, and the strong, beating heart of someone who loves manga and all that it can communicate. This is reflected not just in the extremely charming author asides (where mangaka Mingo Itō goes from talking about which of the cute pets are the most popular to detailing the misadventures of the most difficult dog in the hospital) but also in how much the series loves its cute animals, and how those cute animals love their owners.

But the remarkable thing about Yuzu the Pet Vet is its emotional intelligence. The series opens with our protagonist Yuzu's mother in the hospital, and proceeds to tell parallel stories of how two characters, the mother and an aging dog, affect a strong poise and lie about their ailing health to protect those they look after. To cushion their feelings, to make it so they don't worry. Though I assume this is a manga for children, this is rich, authentic emotional territory. And the conclusion it comes to about this situation is equally mature; where one must become strong on their own, too, and acknowledge the pain of one's guardian and be there to help them before they are gone forever. It is smart storytelling accessible to everyone, and despite the heart-on-sleeve presentation, it is emotionally raw and extremely affecting.

Yuzu the Pet Vet has one of my favorite aspects of great media about animals: an understanding of the psychology of animals themselves. Too often media can frame animals as craven creatures driven entirely by instinct, or benevolent, perpetually loving affection machines who will do anything for their owners. The reality, of course, is that animals are like humans in that they have feelings, and these feelings drive them. Animals can be cruel and impulsive, like the worst of the human animal, but they can also love and foster connections. They do wait for their owner by the Gingko tree. They do manifest their catty affection through rambunctiousness. And they die. And the holes they leave in our hearts when they go can be as large and painful as if they were our blood. Yuzu the Pet Vet takes this pain, the pain of losing someone close to you, and tempers it with adorable illustrations, a charming protagonist and the reasons for why we love our pets in the first place. Because, as with people, there is not just the fact that they are gone. There is also the fact that they were here, with us, for as lovely and beautiful a time as they were.