Manga / Chainsmoker Cat

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Chainsmoker Cat (ヤニねこ, Yanineko/"Tar cat") is a short-form Slice of Life Black Comedy about the titular Cat Girl, Yaniko, and her struggles with smoking. The manga is written and drawn by "NyanNyanFactory"^note Reportedly the shared pen name of four rotating artists: Arai Azuki, Osatou, Mikirou, and Kurumizawa Taro. for Kodansha's Weekly Young Magazine since February 2023. Seven Seas Entertainment acquired the license to produce an official English version of the manga. An animated adaptation by Bibury Animation Studio began airing in July 2026.

Set in a version of modern-day Japan where humans and cat-people live together, Yaniko spends most of her days living in a small apartment by herself, doing various part-time jobs to afford her cigarette addiction. Despite the effect it has on her body, her mind, and her environment, Yaniko spends nearly all the money she gets on extra packs of smokes. Even a lack of money won't stop her from reusing partially-spent cigarette butts, or picking up loose smokes off the ground. Even her sister's interventions and landlord's scolding to make her quit don't last long before she's back at it.

As the series goes on, more catgirls with their own problems are introduced, several of whom live in the same building as Yaniko.

WARNING! Ingesting this manga may lead to such Tropes as:

• Ancient Astronauts: Some background gags throughout the manga imply that the cat-people living on Earth are descended from an ancient alien species. This theory gains even more credence when Chief Rani responds to an insult from Yaniko by whipping out an incredibly powerful raygun out of nowhere.
• Animal Species Accent: Yaniko very often says "nya", to the point of Verbal Tic. This is a plot point, since it identifies her as more "feral" than the other Beastmen we see, and her sister Imouko is ashamed of her because she tries her hardest to be accepted in human society and to suppress her more animalistic qualities.
• Anvil on Head:
  • In Chapter 8mg, Yaniko drops increasingly disgusting objects on her Landlord's head from her apartment's balcony, eventually ending with dropping an entire microwave on his head. He goes back to normal the next chapter.
  • Chapter 23mg has Yaniko lazily taking out her trash by just throwing out the whole bag from the balcony. Her bag lands on the Landlord's head, and he soon dies from the stench, shown as a spirit floating towards heaven in the last panel.
• Art Shift:
  • The manga is a collaborative project between separate artists who swap off as the volumes progress, hence why the characters can shift anywhere between Ms. Fanservice with cute designs surrounded by mostly simpler background characters, to everyone looking streamlined and simplified for the sake of just looking funny in general.
  • The anime's second episode has Yaniko's hallucination featuring dancing cigarettes that appears to have been made in claymation. There's also the CG of the Street Fighter 6 knockoff Hameko is seen playing.
• Bigger on the Inside: Chapter 54mg has the girls dig through Aruko's massive hairdo and finding multiple items from a PSP, to vials containing an unknown substance, to Yaniko's still-burning cigarette. Combined with Aruko being an alcoholic, this leads to an unfortunate result.
• Black Comedy: It's a series about a bunch of cat girls with different addictions and social defects, going day to day with unbridled chaos expected to pop up from any one of them suddenly getting way out of hand. Almost once per chapter, someone is gonna have a bad day or be cringing at the minimum.
• Bland-Name Product: A lot of products have cat puns in the name in this universe:
  • A popular messaging app in this universe is called "Nyax (formerly Nyatter)".
  • Writer Cat often has complaints about the type of fiction she sees on Naruruo (the Japanese writing site Naruo).
  • In 145mg, the Landlord buys a Nyantondo Swiitch after getting a birthday gift of the game Nyanchster Hunter.
• Boomerang Bigot: In 179mg, when Hameko tries to enter the US for the "EBO" fighting game tournament, a dark-skinned catgirl border agent refuses her entry, seeing her responses as "a threat to the homeland," and has her sent back to Japan in a crate with other pet animals.
• Bungled Hypnotism: In 119mg, Yaku tests out a hypnosis app on Yaniko to make her stop smoking. It works too well, as Yaniko then goes around town spitting on every smoker and depiction of smoking she can find, to the point that the police begin looking for her. As with most plotlines, this gets dropped in the following chapter.
• The Cameo: The in-universe editor of Kodansha magazine is saved from a fatal gunshot wound thanks to a thick manga magazine with a special insert announcing a new Land of the Lustrous season in the middle.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: As if Kansai didn't have enough problems landing her jokes, in 213mg, a being named Tokineko actually freezes time around her, claiming her reaction to Yaniko's story is about to bomb so hard that she should take as much time as possible crafting a better one. Kansai spends about 10 years in a bubble of frozen time trying to create the ultimate tsukkomi, only for Yaniko to barely react to the bit when normal time resumes.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Multiple chapters show the Landlord indulging himself in what appears to be an anthropomorphic dog-girl doll when one of his tenants gets a peek:
  • 12mg has Yani demanding to know why a bare spot hidden in her room's wallpaper has curse-sealing ofuda as the Landlord refuses to answer and slams the door shut. The last panel pulling back to reveal his sex doll and related accessories.
  • In 35mg, Hame tries to do a livestream about the people around her apartment, and gets her channel struck down after pointing her camera through the landlord's window while he's busy with the doll.
  • Inverted in 77mg, the Landlord is trapped outside of his own unit while the doll is stuck on him, with him and the manga artist taking drastic actions to avoid him being spotted until he can get back in.
• Comically Small Bribe: Yaniko can be talked into doing anything for the promise of more smokes.
• Delicate and Sickly: The effects of constant nicotine and substance abuse actually do exhibit themselves in the girls, mainly Yaniko for how prominent her cigarette addiction gets. Her mother, Shizue, isn't any better; both of them can't even run for a minute without completely wearing out their oxygen due to how bad their lungs are. Yaniko even points out that she'll be dead in five years from her addiction, because chainsmoking will utterly destroy you from the inside out if you can't stop doing it day in and day out.
• Didn't See That Coming: 7mg has Yaniko unable to pay for a meal at local eatery, causing the boss and an employee to request Sex for Services. Yaniko being Yaniko, she takes "suck it all down" as asking her to suck all of her cigarettes down like some crazy dare. She does it, and lights all of them up at once much to the horror of the pair as the immense plume of second-hand smoke is implied to have hospitalized them while Yaniko simply walks out of there unphased.
• Dirty Old Monk: Zig-zagged in 92mg: Hame visits a monk to exorcise an evil spirit, but his actions seem to be taking advantage of her issue to sexually assault her, but before anything happens, he actually does exorcise evil spirits from Hame's body. The following day, the same monk is arrested for sexual assault anyway.
• Don't Try This at Home: Some of the more extreme stunts are especially carrying this disclaimer. Like the time Yaniko covers her body (and even her cigarette) with nicotine patches to all go off at the same time as she smokes, massively overstimulating herself into a stupor.
• Drunk Driver: Played for laughs in 194mg, where Aruko struggles at taking a driving test until she drinks from a glass jar of sake, right in front of the exam proctor, and then has the Liquid Courage in her to complete the rest of the course. Unsurprisingly, she does not pass the test.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Even though everyone just calls him Landlord, the Landlord's last name is revealed in 138mg to be Otani.
• Fantastic Drug: Nyacotine, a stronger variant of nicotine that beastfolk can take but is fatal to humans. Yaniko once stuck a pair of Nyacotine patches onto the back of Landlord's head for humor, only to read the packaging's warning and notice Landlord's head turning purple from the patches to her shock. Thankfully, she manages to remove the patches and save him after knocking him out with a fart.
• Fantastic Racism: One chapter has the cat-girls playing a Showa-era version of Game of Life, laughing that the board reflects a time where Beastmen were considered second-class citizens and only allowed to work part-time or service jobs, implying that it wasn't until relatively recently that they became equal to humans. There are also some minor characters who show a prejudice against Beastmen but still visit a brothel or use an image of them for their own self-gratification.
• Freud Was Right:
  • Lampshaded by Yaniko in 57mg as Chief Rani of the Alpha Village is trying to explain the story behind her tribal tattoos.
    Yaniko: That's a pussy, nya. I see a pussy and a dick, nya.
  • In 58mg, Yaniko narrates in a text block: "Last Chapter's Summary: They got mad at me because I said that a pussy was a pussy, nya."
  • Continuity Nod in 203mg, when Yaniko and her friends return to the village. Yaniko sees stone reliefs modeled after "the central pillar, and the sun it points towards," and can't help but stick the former through the latter in front of Chief Rani.
• Furry Confusion:
  • Normal cats and dogs appear in the world that has hominid Beastmen, though there is no explanation as to which came first, or if they're considered totally separate species in this world.
  • There are some scenes where Yaniko briefly morphs into a normal cat, though it's unknown if she's actually able to transform through some in-universe trait, or if the artist is just using an Art Shift for a gag.
  • In one chapter Imouko sees a stray cat that appears similar to Yaniko, lazing around and shitting on the street, until the actual Yaniko appears behind her a moment later. The end of the chapter leaves it ambiguous whether Imouko thought the cat was actually Yaniko or it just bore enough resemblance for the gag.
• Gender Bender:
  • An omake at the end of Volume 4 of the manga re-imagines the main cast of Yani Neko as human men living in the same apartment building, with some depressingly realistic outcomes.
  • Done again in 334mg, where everyone (including the landlord) are imagined as the opposite sex, but this time keeping their good look (or in the landlord's case, getting an above-average look) and the slice of life tone.
• Going Cold Turkey: Sometimes Yaniko attempts to quit smoking with this method, but it doesn't last long:
  • Yaniko attempts to do this in Chapter 3mg after getting a job that forbids smoking while working. Yaniko's reactions are displayed next to panels that go into some detail what happens to a smoking-addict after certain periods of time without a smoke. Yaniko quits before her first shift is over, just so she can smoke again.
  • In 55mg, an errant comment from the Landlord about Yaniko's breath convinces her to stop smoking and furiously brush her teeth for a few days. She falls off the wagon when the Landlord comments that her breath smells "floral" now.
  • In 62mg, Yaniko is forced to abstain from smoking for two weeks while her body fights off a massive sickness. She's later shown on the local news getting stuck in the gutter after diving headfirst in to grab loose cigarettes.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: In 109-111mg, the Landlord finds himself trapped in a time loop where he pounds mochi for New Year's tradition, but one of the catgirls dies during the process. This loop goes on for over 112 times until he tries a unique strategy of showing up half naked to the mochitsuki and using his "little Landlord" to knock the others away while pounding mochi.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Many of the beastfolk characters are this, but whether they were born to mixed-race parents or are purebred doesn't seem to affect their physical traits. Being of mixed ancestry, however, is required for a cat person to have a legal birth surname, which Hameko initially lacks because both of her parents are catfolk.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The chapters are named after Nicotine levels, while the anime's episode titles begin and end with "Nya", although the first "Nya" is rendered in katakana while the second "Nya" is in hiragana.
• Improbable Self-Maintenance: Despite being a chainsmoker for an untold number of years and having actual health problems, Perpetual Poverty, and having horrible personal hygiene while living in filthy squalor to the point that it would make a normal person like her younger sister puke upon smelling it, Yaniko still looks quite attractive and healthy on the outside, if a bit unkempt. Then again, this might be justified as she's a Cat Girl, whose biology works differently than a human woman.
  • Episode 3 of the anime confirms cat people's different biology, since the nicotine patches that Yaniko uses are specifically made for Beastmen, and the warning on their box explicitly states they can kill a regular human being.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: In Chapter 26mg, Yani gets herself stuck in the middle of a wall trying to reach a loose cigarette. Her friend tries to push her through it while yelling "why does this have such an erotic feeling!?"
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The setting of the manga has cat-people and humans living alongside each other with seemingly no issues. A few chapters show the landlord indulging himself in a large dog-girl doll, and the cat-people are collectively referred to as Beastmen, but no other anthropomorphic animal-people have yet been shown besides cats.
• Meaningful Name: Nearly all named characters refer to their usual vice: "Yani" for Tar (heavy smoking), "Yaku" for her drug use, "Aruko" for her alcoholism, "Hame" for her messy/awkward behavior, "Imou" for being Yaniko's little sister. "Kansai" also counts, since she's a wannabe comedian, and the Japanese region of Kansai (especially Osaka) is known for its big number of entertainers and comedians.
• Must Have Nicotine: Pretty much Yaniko's raison d'etre, which is both Played for Drama and very dark laughs:
  • Whenever Yaniko runs out of cigarettes (which is pretty often) she frequently digs through her own trash to find cigarette butts to re-smoke.
  • At one point Yaniko smokes loose cigs that got stuck in an animal turd on the street.
  • In 16mg, Imouko confiscates Yaniko's cigarettes for her own safety, but in a moment of guilt plans to give her one back. She walks in on Yaniko spitting out a fresh pack that she hid in her own stomach to continue smoking unabated.
  • In 30mg, she prioritizes finishing a smoke while a human child is about to drown nearby. Thankfully she gets to them in time...and asks for another cigarette as thanks.
• Negative Continuity: Multiple chapters end with major characters injured, arrested by the police, or even dead, only for everything to go back to normal (for the manga's setting, at least) by the next one.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: In 78mg, the Writer Cat goes on a rant about the state of fantasy fiction on "Naruruo" to Yaniko, while the latter is only focused on trying to pick up a piece of sushi that landed on top of her head.
• Not So Above It All: The Landlord of Yaniko's apartment sometimes attempts to correct Yaniko's behavior, but largely seems to tolerate the antics of his Cat Girl tenants because of his fetish, even after they cause him physical harm, ruin his garden, or nearly burn down his apartment.
• Product Placement: The Mevius brand of cigarettes Yaniko is smoking is an actual one, formerly known as Mild Seven. You would think that an anime that shows smoking in a decidedly unglamorous way would use a fictional brand, but this is not the case...
• Raging Stiffie: The Landlord whenever he sees an attractive Cat Girl (or even a human wearing animal ears) often shown portrayed in this fashion. The back half of one chapter even has the speech bubble pointing at this when he thinks he's getting a Valentine's Day gift from Yaniko.
• Rainbow Puke: The anime represents vomit in this way. For example, in the first episode it happens to Yaniko, then it happens to Imouko when she enters Yaniko's room with a hazmat suit to help her sister clean her filthy room, but she accidentally loses the suit's helmet. The stench of the room is too much for her, who has to run to the toilet so she can vomit.
• Reference Overdosed: Every single scene in the anime's opening, no matter how short, is lifted from Western and Asian live action movies and series of every day and age. Even the numbers' fonts have been taken from famous film posters!
• Sex for Services: Two human men at a local eatery in 7mg, a balding boss and his employee, are quick to spring upon the opportunity for a Cat Girl to do this for them when she can't pay for the meal she just had there. Unfortunately for the both of them, they tried to spring this on Yaniko. It doesn't end well for them.
• Shout-Out: In Episode 3, Kansai mentions Twin Peaks by name, even briefly using the image of Laura Palmer's head, as part of a gag.
• Slapstick: The manga will mix up serious moments with gags where Yaniko slaps nicotine patches on her landlord's head, create a fart cloud so vicious it knocks someone out, drop a microwave on her landlord's head, and more, but everything goes back to normal the following chapter.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: For as comedic as her Must Have Nicotine tendencies can get, Yaniko’s addiction is often portrayed negatively.
• Take That!: Writer Cat's complaints about "Naruruo" stories and the state of modern fantasy fiction are clearly potshots at Shousetsuka ni Narou, a self-publishing site for Web Serial Novels that are frequently picked up to be published professionally as Light Novels and are later adapted to manga and anime. Her complaints echo many criticisms of "Narou" stories in real life, namely that they tend to follow the same fantasy tropes and are rather derivative of each other.
• Toilet Humor: Quite a bit throughout the manga. Several characters taking a dump where they shouldn't, Yaniko picking loose cigarettes out of a fresh animal turd after she mishandles a freshly-opened pack, and more. Hame-chan herself has some chapters where, when traveling with her friends, she can't hold in her bladder. In 58mg, this becomes a local legend among the Alpha Tribe when she creates a rainbow while being forced to jump off a cliff.
• Too Dumb to Live: It's a recurring gag that the cat girls often care so little about their well beings that they screw around or even have little contests between each other for their addictions and issues. This isn't even getting into the situations they'll throw themselves at without much thought til they're in too deep, though the Negative Continuity and the strange habits of luck keep the worst away from them.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
  • In 71mg, Yaniko summons a Nicotine Demon after accidentally knocking over an ashtray while sleeping. The demon is immediately so disgusted by the state of Yaniko's apartment that he goes back home.
  • A more meta example in 79mg, where a "Beastman Fetishist" classmate, Ouji Ruko, tries to find a way to get closer to Imouko. After getting some vague hints from other classmates about Imouko, Ruko decides the best move is to give her a stool sample as a gift. Despite the large amount of Toilet Humor in the series, the manga puts a tiny Hame-chan holding a sign that reads "I WILL NOT SHOW THIS" in front of the opened sample.