We’re diving back into some Japanese mythology today with a double-header—and even better, it’s about cats. We’re going to learn about the bakeneko and maneki-neko in this post!
First off, quick Japanese language lesson: “neko” (written as ねこ or 猫) means “cat” in Japanese. This is vital information to know for your internet travels, because as we know, both the internet and the Japanese love cats.
So you can see that both bakeneko and maneki-neko feature the word cat in them! (Not all youkai are so simply named. Enjoy it while you can.) Which is why they’re lumped together in this post*.
*There’s another reason as pertaining to my specific story, like how I tie all my lore corners into my fascinating and fun worldbuilding.
Maneki-neko are somewhat known in the West, too—they’re known as the “lucky cat”. Have you ever seen those little figurines of the sitting cat with one paw held up? Sometimes they hold an amulet or an old coin, and technically there are different meanings depending on the color of the cat as well as which paw is held up.
The gesture the cat is making is actually a beckoning one, though it’s not seen that way in many Western cultures—and the “maneki” part of the name means “beckoning”. With the left paw raised, the maneki-neko is beckoning customers in; with the right paw raised, the maneki-neko is beckoning money in. So you’ll see them in many shops and stores, and you can even have them in your home as well.
There are a few different origin stories for the maneki-neko, but one I like best is that a man was trapped in a storm, taking shelter under a tree, when he saw a cat holding its paw up in a beckoning gesture at a nearby temple. The man went to investigate, because why would a cat motion someone over? As soon as he neared the cat, lightning struck the tree he’d been hiding under. It would have killed him.
So the maneki-neko is seen as a sort of guide, be it for safety, luck, prosperity, or more. There are plenty of color varieties that change the option, though calico cats are the most commonly depicted ones. They usually also have the bobbed tail that is so characteristic of cats in Japan.
So let’s go to the opposite spectrum of the tail length for cats, shall we?
The bakeneko isn’t a nice, friendly cat spirit. (The “bake” part in its name means “changed” or “transformed”.) Bakeneko have long tails, sometimes even unnaturally long; it was said that the long tail, like a snake, could bewitch someone. It was very common to actually cut cats’ tails shorter, and it’s a popular theory that so many cats have short or bobbed tails in Japan due to natural selection, since people weren’t killing them as compared to their long-tailed siblings.
Unlike the maneki-neko, who could feasibly be a normal, if lucky, cat, the bakeneko is a spirit, or youkai, through and through. The amount of time varies region to region, but basically, if a cat lives long enough, it will transform into a bakeneko, and usually kill its owner too. (Animals living a long time and turning into a higher or more monstrous form of their normal self is a pretty common youkai trope.)
Bakeneko can stand on their hind legs, are associated with oil and fire, can speak in human tongue, and even transform into humans if the fancy strikes them. They weren’t nice spirits, as most folklore isn’t. They’re usually seen as vengeful spirits. There is a lot of old literature associated with them, whether it’s about ones who take the form of their murdered owners, ones who try to trick or bewitch travelers, or even one bakeneko who transformed into a human because he wanted to become a sumo wrestler.
There are more monstrous and violent youkai, to be sure, but having a pet cat who happened to live a long time, and suddenly you’re wondering if it’ll eat you in your sleep and take over your life? That’s a pretty special fear.
In my urban fantasy series, I have a character who is both a bakeneko and maneki-neko (hence why I put these together for this Lore Corner!). How? Simple: maneki-neko is more like a career path, whereas bakeneko is the actual species of the character.
Like many other spirit characters in my series, she can transform into human guise to walk among them and communicate with them, though she can also speak with humans as a cat, too. She’s a calico, too, for extra luck. She’s a luck spirit, and while capricious and prone to aggression, we see her mostly as a positive figure, as she decides to take another spirit under her wing as a sort of adoption. (And yes, she refers to that character as her kitten.)
Most other characters who meet her are a little leery—because as a luck spirit, she can manipulate luck in a general sense, as well as others’, which is not a nice thing to have happen to you. The main character actually gets her luck sapped in the beginning of the story and has to navigate several chapters while running into poles, losing the items in her pockets, getting lost, and, ultimately, having her bad luck (or rather, lack of luck, since there is no “good” or “bad” luck in my series, only the amount you have, and even then, it’s not always a purely good thing) help to raise a demon. Whoops!
Also, a cat spirit who can set things on fire at will is another reason to avoid a bakeneko in a dark alley. Or anywhere, really. One character manages to befriend her without realizing what she is by feeding her leftover ham, so maybe the answer to avoiding death by cat fire is to give all cats extra snacks. Just in case.
Cat spirits from all cultures and sources are near and dear to my heart, as a big cat fan myself. But the Japanese definitely have some of the most dynamic—not to mention commercial, since it’s quite easy to get your own maneki-neko figuring these days. (There’s even a temple in Tokyo dedicated to them! Definitely on my travel bucket list.) But to close, remember this: if the cat has a short tail and has a cute paw raised, approach and it may save your life. If the cat has a long tail, maybe don’t let it live with you for life. And check on your neighbors to ensure their cats haven’t turned into monstrous spirits and taken over their lives, too.
