Cats of the Louvre, as the tile suggest is the delightful and sometimes a story about stray cats that live in the attic of a popular museum in Paris. There are three main characters in the manga: A young white cat, SnowBebe; a tour guide, Cecile and an old security guard, Marcel who lost his sister in the Louvre 50 years ago. It’s not a very long story as the whole manga ends within 428 pages.
Cecile, the tour guide who works in the Louvre shows Mona Lisa to some tourist and tell them ‘it is…the best known painting in the world’. She spots a white cat in the museum but still not sure about it. Over the week, she has seen that kitten many times and she start to believe that it’s just a delusion as it is not very likely for cats to roam around in the gallery of such a famous museum. The life of security guard and his mentor Marcel soon intertwine with the story of cat and Cecile. Marcel has been working in the museum for decades. He has been taking care these cats in the attic and according to Marcel these cats have been living since the time this it was a palace and was not a museum. The management of the museum has no idea about them and if they get to know about this they will be thrown out. The first half of the manga is all about the lives of cat particularly SnowBebe. The white kitten is interested in the paintings of the gallery and has been seen multiple times that put the museum at risk as it can lead to some of the older members being furious.
The second arc is more interesting. We get know that the cat can jump inside the painting. Marcel thinks that that it is the same reason behind his sister’s disappearance. Cecile solved this mystery by exploring the voices that were coming out from paintings and SnowBebe getting disappeared after hearing them. The kitten stumbles across Marcel’s sister, Arrieta in a painting. He sees in her some similarities being always sick and appears to be smaller compared to her age. They both get close to each other in the world mortal world of painting. SnowBebe wishes to get outside of the museum and see its beauty. He tries to convince Arrieta to come along but she doesn’t want to. She is the same age as she went inside the painting. It’s like a heaven to her where she would never grow old, get sick or die. In the end SnowBebe get outside of the painting with a message of Arrieta that she sends for Marcel to end his sorrow. The kitten says his goodbye to the museum and goes out in the city outside the museum.
The Cats of the Louvre gives us the vibes of those science fiction, fantasy collection of shows that takes you on a ghostly voyage of museum art night. Things that we learned earlier are elaborated later. For instance we learn in the first arc that some voices are coming from the paintings but the details are explained later in the second arc. The part where cat is staring at Cecile is also eerie as the people with cats can understand how disturbing that look can be. It almost sounds terrifying that Arrieta who has been missing for 50 years is ‘trapped’ in the painting but later the truth is revealed. The plot develops slowly which makes it more interesting and the fans of such kind of stories should definitely give this manga a chance.
There is not too much action or emotion in the story and that can be reason you might not like it. There is no love story between cat and the human. The main story is about being stuck in the painting without any direction. The climax doesn’t give any psychological relief. It just occurs.
The concept of the story is quite captivating. The main story about cats living in a room of a museum and getting inside the painting seems very interesting. The side story of a man who mysteriously disappeared and ended up in a painting is also great. The idea of not getting stuck in the past and look ahead in the future is intriguing. But these three different stories has been mixed up in one that loses the charm of the tale. However, this manga is still recommended as the main concept of moving forward rather hold on to past is really good and. Moreover the manga is quite short and it won’t take long for you to finish it
