Dog & Scissors Review: He Died Wanting to Finish One Last Book, So He Came Back as His Favorite Author's Dog

When I was a kid with no friends, books were the thing I'd carry around so I had something to do during lunch. So I understood Kazuhito Harumi faster than I expected to. He's a boy who loves books more than almost anything — and the joke of this whole manga is that his love of books is so stubborn it literally drags him back from death. He doesn't come back as a hero. He comes back as a small dog. I laughed, and then I felt a little seen, which is an embarrassing combination.

I want to be honest up front: this is a short, silly comedy, four volumes long, and it is not deep. But it commits to its dumb premise so completely that I kept reading.

Quick Take

• A bookworm dies and is reincarnated as a dachshund because he can't stand the idea of dying before reading his favorite author's final book — and then gets adopted by that exact author
• The comedy runs on two engines: Kazuhito's helpless dog-thoughts that only his owner can hear, and his owner's frankly alarming relationship with a pair of scissors
• Rated T (Teen) — the violence is cartoon-level, but the humor leans on comedic S&M and comedic animal mistreatment, so know that going in

Story Overview

Kazuhito Harumi is a high schooler who reads obsessively. His favorite author writes under the pen name Shinobu Akiyama, and Kazuhito is desperate to read Akiyama's not-yet-finished last book.

The turning point is brutal and fast: Kazuhito is in a café when a robber pulls a gun on a woman. He steps in front of her. He's shot, and he dies. But his regret — that he'll never finish that last book — and his sheer will to keep living pull him back into the world as a long-haired dachshund.

Then the gag locks into place. The woman he died saving adopts the stray dog she feels guilty about. Her name is Kirihime Natsuno, and she is Shinobu Akiyama. Kazuhito's idol is now his owner, she can hear his internal voice when no one else can, and she expresses affection mostly by threatening him with scissors. The rest of the series is episodic comedy and light mystery built around that relationship, ending after four volumes without overstaying its welcome.

Characters

Kazuhito Harumi — The bookworm-turned-dachshund. His arc is small but real: he goes from a kid whose love of fiction is a private escape to a dog who has to actually live alongside the author he idolized, scissors and all. His running internal monologue is the heart of the comedy.

Kirihime Natsuno — The bestselling novelist behind the pen name Shinobu Akiyama, and Kazuhito's owner. She's genuinely talented, genuinely sadistic, and wields a pair of scissors she treats like a weapon. She develops real feelings for Kazuhito even as she torments him, and that tension between cruelty and care is the series' actual engine.

Madoka Harumi — Kazuhito's younger sister, who believes her brother is trapped in the dog. She's an aspiring cook whose food is borderline lethal, and she's constantly trying to feed Kazuhito her deadly curry.

Suzuna Hiiragi — Kirihime's editor, a hyperactive masochist who genuinely enjoys being tormented by her boss. She's the mirror image of Kazuhito's suffering — she signs up for it.

What I Love About It

The thing I keep coming back to is the reason Kazuhito comes back at all. It's not love, it's not revenge, it's not some grand destiny. He refuses to die because there's a book he hasn't finished. As somebody who used to hide inside stories, that detail hit me harder than the premise probably deserves. The manga treats it as a punchline — and it is one — but underneath the joke there's a real statement about how a story can be the thing that keeps you tethered to the world.

What makes it work as comedy rather than just a cute idea is that the manga never lets Kazuhito enjoy it. He gets exactly what he wanted — proximity to his favorite author, access to her bookshelves — and it's miserable, because she's terrifying and he's a dog who can't hold a book. That gap between "I got my wish" and "this is awful" is where almost every gag lives, and the manga mines it patiently across all four volumes. Kirihime cutting his fur, throwing scissors at him, hearing his panicked thoughts and choosing to torment him anyway — it's the same joke remixed, but the remix keeps landing because the relationship underneath it slowly grows warmer.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The scene that defines the whole series is the moment of his death and the reveal stacked right behind it. In the café, the robber turns the gun on Kirihime, and Kazuhito — a kid, not a fighter — puts his own body between them and takes the shot. He dies for a stranger. Then he wakes up as a dachshund, dragged back by a desire as petty and as human as "I never got to finish that book."

And the gut-punch payoff is that the stranger he died for turns out to be Shinobu Akiyama — the author of that exact unfinished book. The person he gave his human life to save is the one person whose work he couldn't bear to leave unread. The series plays it for laughs, but the shape of it — dying for the thing you love without knowing that's what you were doing — stuck with me long after the jokes faded.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• A genuinely funny premise that the series fully commits to for all four volumes
• Kazuhito's bookworm heart gives the comedy an emotional anchor
• Kirihime and Kazuhito's relationship grows warmer underneath the cruelty
• Short and complete — it doesn't overstay its welcome

Cons

• It's light; this is comedy first, with mystery elements kept shallow
• The scissors and S&M-flavored humor is repetitive by design
• The comedic animal mistreatment won't sit right with every reader — that's either a harmless gag or a dealbreaker depending entirely on you

Is Dog & Scissors Worth Reading?

If you want a short, absurd, four-volume comedy with a surprisingly bookish soul, yes. It's not deep and it's not trying to be — it's a dumb premise executed with full conviction, anchored by a protagonist whose love of stories I found genuinely touching. If comedic animal mistreatment or repetitive S&M humor bothers you, skip it; that's the whole texture of the joke.

Where to Buy

Read the first volume. If it doesn't hook you, put it down. It'll hook you.

Start with Volume 1 →

---

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.