Considering that it’s very likely one of my favorite manga of all-time, Otoyomegatari can certainly be frustrating.  In theory we should get about 8 chapters per year but it never seems to work out that way.  There were about six months between the releases of 104 and 105 in fact (in English, anyway).  Compounding that is that Mori-sensei has so many plates spinning in this story that it can many chapters between appearances for any given characters, including the main protagonists.  And while she can certainly do heavy plot, most of the time these chapters are small (if intensive) slices of life.

Take, for example, Henry Smith and his bride-to-be Talas.  I last wrote about them in November 2020 for crying out loud.  30 months ago, though it’s only been 10 chapters.  It makes one acutely and uncomfortably aware of the passage of time, and it’s only because Otoyomegatari is so immersive that one can slip back into these moments without it being incredibly jarring.

As we rejoin them, Smith and Talas (and Chubar the horse) are in Bombay, searching for passage back to England.  Henry finds a ship that will take a horse, but there are no female-only cabins, meaning the two of them have to share.  Worse still, they’re given a cabin with one (tiny) bed.  Henry being the English gentlemen he is that’s not going to work, engaged or no.  So he opts to sleep on the deck, leaving Talas the cabin to herself.

That’s really the only bit of plot in the chapter, apart from the titular feline.  There’s a cat on board ship (as there always was).  This one, the crew says, considers itself the ship’s master.  So when Talas brings a pensive Chubar on deck for some air, the cat takes it on itself to look after the horse.  This is the sort of thing few mangaka apart from Mori would even attempt to draw, and that’s probably not a bad thing.  In lesser hands it’d be a trifle.  In hers, well – it still is, but a delicious one.  I think maybe Mori draws animals (especially cats and horses, her clear favorites) even better than people.  It’s a good thing too, because that will have to tide us over till what, maybe Christmas?