Nick Bradley, author of The Cat and The City and translator of Natsume Sōseki’s I Am a Cat, explains why cats are so beloved in Japan.
Cats in Modern Japanese Literature
I’m often asked why there are so many cats in Japanese literature. Many readers will already be familiar with the cats that leap from the pages of Murakami’s novels like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore, and I’m sure even more are familiar with the spate of titles that have recently crept onto the bookshelves here in the UK. I recently produced a modern translation of a Japanese classic novel, which could be argued to be the godfather of all modern Japanese cat novels: I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki. Without a doubt, this modern trend of cats in novels was started by Sōseki, and we can see obvious influences in other works, for example one of his disciples, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s A Cat, a Man, and Two Women. But also more recently, the first line of the contemporary smash hit The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa even makes reference to the opening line of Sōseki’s novel: ‘I am a cat. As yet, I have no name. There’s a famous cat in our country who once made this very statement.’ But while it’s obvious that Sōseki was a trendsetter when it came to modern Japanese fiction, what came before him?
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Cats in Japan
Despite the now famous connection between cats and Japan, it took a while for our furry friends to claw their way into the exalted position they now occupy in the country. Although archaeological bone evidence suggests that cats existed in Japan as far back as the Jōmon period (14,000-300 BC), they seem to have gone extinct during the Yayoi period (300 BC-250 AD). However, Japanese scholars affirm that domesticated cats were reintroduced to the archipelago between 538 and 710 AD.
Cats were brought onboard ships, along with Buddhist scriptures from mainland Asia, and their duty was to protect these scriptures from rats and mice who would nibble away at the pages during the journey. Upon arrival, it was only logical for the cats to be taken with the scriptures to various temples throughout Japan. This began a tradition of folk tales involving friendships between Buddhist priests and cats. One example is the story Nezumi Taiji – ‘The Hostile Rat’ – in which a Buddhist priest saves the life of a cat. The two become friends, with the cat never leaving his side. One day, the cat overhears a giant rat plotting to take the life of the priest. The cat cannot defeat the rat alone, so calls on a cat friend to join forces to defeat the rat. The cats are fed a huge amount of food and fight the rat and kill it, but the cats are left mortally wounded. A temple is finally built to pray for the afterlife of the cats. And so, alongside this early folktale example of a friendship between a Buddhist priest and a cat, the manner in which cats were introduced to Japan was essentially in tandem with the sacred scriptures of Buddhism. The cat, therefore, began its career in Japan as an illustrious and venerated figure – a friend to priests, and a guardian of the words of Buddha.
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Cats in the Court
However it wasn’t just in the world of Buddhism that the cat made a name for itself. In Chapter 34 of The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu – a huge literary work, often considered to be the first novel ever written in the world – a karaneko (Chinese cat) plays an important role in a key scene. The cat rushes through the palace, pulling aside a curtain which then reveals a princess to a man named Kashiwagi. Kashiwagi subsequently catches sight of the princess, and lusts after her, thus bringing about the downfall of both characters. This scene was commonly illustrated in early manuscripts of the tale, becoming a driving factor in popularizing artistic depictions of cats. An account of a cat in the Heian court getting the better of a dog named Okinamaro also appears in Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, and we can see from its appearance in early Japanese literature that the cat was viewed as a prized pet by courtly ladies at the time.
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Bakeneko and Nekomata
And yet, while priests and courtiers respected the cat, the species was viewed as strange and unfamiliar animals by the average citizen. Around the time when cats came to Japan to live with Buddhist priests as guardians of the scriptures, and to be the darling pets of the princesses of the courts, Japan was mostly vegetarian. And so these cats residing in Japan would often go on the hunt for something to satisfy their carnivorous instincts. Fish oil was used in lanterns, and the cats would try to get at it, resulting in the townsfolk seeing these strange furry animals walking on their hindlegs with the lights of the lanterns reflecting demonically in their eyes. This is the origin of two mythical shapeshifting cats – the bakeneko and the nekomata. Nekomata were said to be demonic cats with multiple tails who devour humans, while the bakeneko was rumoured to be able to transform into a human and then back again. The bakeneko in particular was the genesis for many yōkai ghost stories about women who would lure men into dangerous situations while shapeshifting between cat and human form.
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Cats in Art
Another way cats became prominently depicted in Japanese cultures was via the visual artist. As mentioned above, the text of The Tale of Genji in particular was commonly accompanied with illustrations, and the cat incident, because of its integral turning of the plot, was a scene commonly illustrated.
One extremely popular figure in the art world was Utagawa Kuniyoshi, an ukiyo-e artist who was very much obsessed with cats and a great influence on artists to follow in his footsteps by depicting cats in art and manga. In the Edo period, Utagawa Kuniyoshi found a clever loophole to a law which prohibited the artistic depiction of kabuki actors. Authorities had deemed kabuki too lascivious for the general public, and outlawed artists from painting scenes from its plays. However, Utagawa worked out that he could still paint scenes from kabuki if he just changed one thing – substituting the human actors for cats. In general, cats were a common subject of his, and he could be considered a massive influence in the realm of cats in Japanese art.
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Nekonomics
While the tale of the cat in Japan has been a long-lived one, more recently, Professor Katsuhiro Miyamoto of Kansai University coined a portmanteau term ‘nekonomics’ (cat + economics) to explain the phenomenon of how cat-related commodities significantly boost the GDP of Japan. Whether it’s Hello Kitty, the cat bus in My Neighbour Totoro, or Tama the station cat, cats have been a driving force in spreading art and culture throughout Japan and the world at large.
Despite not having its own year in the Chinese Zodiac, in Japan, every year is the year of the cat!
Learn more about cats in Japanese literature through the Library display ‘I am a cat’ at Japan House London, on until 31 May 2026.
About the author
Nick Bradley is the author of two novels set in Japan, The Cat and The City, set in Tokyo and Four Seasons in Japan set in in rural Hiroshima prefecture. He wrote his PhD on the figure of the cat in Japanese literature, and recently translated Natsume Sōseki’s I Am a Cat for Vintage Classics.