No one knows exactly when and how they got there. Take the fact that cats exist in Japan at all. You leave what you can prove and enter that nebulous realm of “best guess.” The further back you peel the layers of time, the mistier things become. Studying folklore means following trails as far as you can go with the understanding that you’ll never reach your destination. But cats, well… I guess you could say they sunk their claws into me-and they haven’t let go yet. Normally, my work was one-and-done: As soon as I finished with one topic, I moved onto the next. I researched Japan’s catlore to incorporate in Ayane’s character. This meant I researched and wrote about things as varied as Japan’s police system, the fierce demons called oni, and the fires that ravaged Tokyo between 16. Ayane was built of cats who come together in a mystical merger to create a living cat avatar.Īs a Japan consultant, my job on Wayward was to create supplemental articles to complement the stories. One of our main characters was Ayane, a magical cat girl of the type known as a neko musume. It pitted Japan’s folkloric yokai against rising young powers that would supplant them. Written by Canadian Jim Zub with art by Japan-based American penciler Steve Cummings and American colorist Tamra Bonvillain, Wayward was a classic story of shifting societal beliefs that tackled the age-old question of whether man creates gods or gods create man. I began researching Japan’s catlore while working on the comic book Wayward from Image comics. Japan’s magic catlore is wide and deep-range from the fanciful, magical shapeshifters (bakeneko) to the horrendous demonic corpse-eaters (kasha).
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The country has a long, often terrifying history of folklore involving monstrous supernatural cats.
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While it is easy to see they are well-loved, Japan also fears cats. The popular tourist destination Gotokuji, a temple in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo that claims to be the original home of the ubiquitous Maneki Neko, the “Lucky Cat.” The famous cat shrine Nyan Nyan Ji in Kyoto that has an actual cat monk with several kitty acolytes.Ĭats are everywhere in Japan.
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Massively popular comics like What’s Michael? and A Man and His Cat. Wearable electronic cat ears that respond to your emotional state. A quick glance at anything related to Japanese pop culture will show you this: Hello Kitty.