Cat Day, which is set on Feb 22 in Japan, has exploded in recent years, with companies embracing a growing market for felines, says Gearoid Reidy for Bloomberg Opinion.
Much of Asia was celebrating the Year of the Horse this week. In Japan, which does not mark Lunar New Year, attention turns to a different animal.
There is no cat in the Chinese zodiac – legend has it that the rat tricked it out of a place – but Japan has a day that more than makes up for it.
Sunday (Feb 22) is Neko no Hi, or Cat Day, with 2/22 able to be read in Japanese like a feline “meow”. Established in the late 1980s by the Japan Pet Food Association, it’s one of many commemorative days based on wordplay – such as Good Couple’s Day (Nov 22) or Mayonnaise Day (rapidly approaching on Mar 1; don’t forget the mayonnaise lover in your life).
In recent years, Cat Day has exploded, as companies embrace a growing market for felines. The ubiquitous convenience store chains compete to see who can sell the most themed desserts and merchandise, this year featuring paw-shaped puddings; while the likes of energy giant Eneos Holdings are looking to hook customers with a fully-electrified cardboard tower.
“NEKONOMICS”
The economic impact from the animals is very real. Kansai University Professor Emeritus Katsuhiro Miyamoto, who publishes an annual report on “Nekonomics” (Neko means cat in Japanese), estimates it at nearly 3 trillion yen (US$19.5 billion) annually.
I have always been a cat person, but when I arrived here nearly 25 years ago, Japan was firmly dog territory – home of the famed Hachiko, the loyal dog who waited in vain at Shibuya station for a decade hoping for his deceased master’s return. Pet stores devoted far more shelf space for dogs, and foreign-language coverage was fixated on “pampered pooches”, usually correlated with the country’s low birth rate. In reality, Japan was simply early. For example, American’s spending on their “fur babies” more than doubled from 2010 to 2023.
But when pet cats first outnumbered dogs in Japan in 2014 – a trend that has continued to accelerate – big business started to notice. The change is usually attributed to the shifting demographics: An ageing population and increased flow of people to cramped urban centres means less time and space to keep dogs that need to be walked.
A “PURR-FECT” HISTORY
It’s no surprise that Japan should become cat country. The relationship with them stretches back centuries, with the oldest written record said to date to Emperor Uda in 889. In his diary, the Kanpyo Gyoki, he raved about his pet’s lustrous fur and prowess in catching mice.
“When he curls up, he is as small as a grain of millet, but when he stretches out he is long, like a drawn bow,” he wrote, describing the creature moving silently “like a black dragon above the clouds”.
They were seemingly common in the Imperial Court. The first named cat was Myobu no Otodo, a title usually given to a lady of the Heian court, who belonged to Emperor Ichijo around the year 1000. The animal is detailed in Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book under the title “Adorable Things”, which relates the story of a time it ran to the Emperor’s lap for protection from a dog that was chasing it.
The creatures have been interlinked with the culture ever since, from ukiyo-e paintings to the famed manekineko beckoning cats of good fortune of Gotokuji Temple. One of the country’s most famous novels is Natsume Soseki’s I Am A Cat, published in 1906 and told from the perspective of a feline narrator.
And of course there is one of its top exports, Hello Kitty – though, let’s not get into the contentious argument over whether she is actually a feline or not.
Flash forward to the modern day and you have Maru, who once held a Guinness Record for the most viewed animal on YouTube and for whom no box was too small to squeeze into (Maru sadly passed away last year).
Tama, the country’s first cat stationmaster, is credited with saving the rural Kishigawa Line in Wakayama, which was facing the threat of closure before it became a tourist attraction. And the nation’s many cat islands, with their population of stray felines, are becoming popular with foreign visitors.
DECLINE OF THE CAT BOOM?
The next logical step is for a national cat – a counterpart of the Downing Street mouser Larry, to whom Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently bestowed a gift of toys and treats during the visit of UK leader Keir Starmer.
The current Emperor’s family has two rescue cats, Mimi and Seven, though the privacy afforded the Imperial household means the public rarely sees them.
Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/japan-cat-day-feb-22-pet-industry-5942546
