Japanese – Pain In The Bud

Buddy’s Cat Café Celebrates 2 Years Of Offering Customers The Chance To Lavish Affection And Treats On Buddy

Buddy’s Cat Café and Catnip Lounge has become a neighborhood fixture where feline lovers can enjoy their favorite caffeinated beverages while lavishing snacks and catnip on Buddy himself.

NEW YORK — When Buddy’s Cat Café and Catnip Lounge first opened its doors in late 2023, skeptics were quick to predict its demise.

“A cat cafe featuring only one cat sounds more like the selfish plot of the proprietor feline and less like a legitimate cat cafe experience,” the New York Times sniffed, while the New York Post derided the venture as “one chubby cat’s ludicrous scheme to gorge on endless snacks and catnip while customers line up to shower him with affection.”

Two years later, with a 4.8 out of 5 rating on Google and hundreds of regulars, Buddy’s Cat Café has not only been a success, it’s inspired other felines to open their own single-cat locations.

Mrs. Nakamura watches her students interact with Buddy, affectionately known to them as Badi-chan.

Mrs. Tomoko Nakamura, a teacher at the Japanese Academy of Manhattan, has been taking her class to Buddy’s since the cafe opened.

“Badi-chan very handsome and charming,” Mrs. Nakamura said, smiling as her students giggled and offered an array of crunchy treats to the lounging feline. “All my students love him!”

Sisters Dierdre and Stephanie Sullivan are regulars who say they take their kids to Buddy’s almost weekly.

“Madisyn, Skyelarr and Jaxon just love little Buddy,” Stephanie Sullivan said, calling other cat cafes “a tragedeigh in comparison.”

Buddy and friends during a Tabletop Tuesdays gathering at Buddy’s Cat Café and Catnip Lounge.

Since its opening, Buddy’s has featured an array of themed nights that cater to regulars with shared interests.

On Saturdays a lively crowd of people wearing perms, neon clothes and big shoulder pads flock to the cafe for Retro 80s Night. Sunday crowds gather to watch football with Buddy on the big screen TV, and Tabletop Tuesdays cater to miniature wargamers, with Buddy and his regulars continuing long-running campaigns in Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer 40K.

One of the most popular themed nights is Freestyle Fridays, when local rappers and hip hop heads gather to spit bars, smoke blunts and collaborate on beats.

DJ Rashid, center, jubilantly hoists Buddy while the others cheer on a recent Freestyle Friday at Buddy’s Cat Cafe.

Buddy after indulging in too much catnip on Freestyle Friday.

Da Ill Collektah, a local underground emcee, rolls catnip blunts for the tabby proprietor so he can fully participate in the levity.

“Oh, that’s good ish!” Buddy said on a recent Friday as he exhaled a nimbus cloud of ‘nip smoke to cheers from the assembled hip hop heads.

“Watch out!” beatsmith Biggity Biggity Bryce exclaimed. “Buddy gonna bless us with a fiyah freestyle!”

Lysander The Lyrical Destroyer, a Brooklyn emcee and longtime “associate” of Buddy, said no other cat cafe could hope to compete.

“Buddy’s cafe got the freshest jams, the livest atmosphere, and the bang bang boogie don’t stop the boogie,” he noted. “But most of all, it’s got Buddy.”

Maru, Youtube Star Feline, Dies At 18

With his comical expressions and determination to squeeze in the tiniest of containers, Maru developed a loyal following. For a time, he held the record for the web’s most popular animal.

Maru the cat, who was once the most-viewed animal on the internet, passed away after a short battle with lung cancer.

The 18-year-old Scottish Fold was one of the first viral animal sensations on the video platform, and his videos have amassed a staggering 578 million views over the years. In 2017, Guinness World Records named him the most popular animal on the internet, lending credence to the joke that the internet was invented to share photos and videos of our feline overlords.

His name, which means “round” in Japanese, was an apt descriptor, and viewers found laughs and distraction while watching his antics. More often than not, his adventures included boxes and other containers he could barely fit in.

For Maru, the smaller the box, the bigger the challenge. Credit: Mugumogu/Youtube

Maru’s face was familiar even to people who weren’t big Youtube watchers, with internet users authoring several popular memes using his image over the years.

Maru’s human, who shared the bad news in a video, said she brought the little guy to the vet when his behavior changed and he stopped eating. His health rapidly deteriorated and he passed away on Sept. 6.

In one of his most-watched videos, the chonky Scottish Fold comically takes a tumble while trying to scale his cat tree, and demonstrates his dedication to laziness by laying on his back, half-heartedly batting his paws at a wand toy while his human tries to get him up.

In the video announcing Maru’s death, his human thanked his fans for being invested in his life for so many years.

“Maru was a laid-back and calm cat,” she wrote, “but at the very last moment he made a mad dash.”

Header image credit Mugumogu/Youtube

Tokyo’s ‘Waving Cat’ Temple, Gōtoku-ji, Has Run Out Of Cats

The world-famous cat shrine has experienced a surge in tourism, leaving it bereft of the familiar statues that are inspired by the legend of a friendly cat.

Gōtoku-ji temple has a unique problem.

The complex, where legend says a friendly waving cat led a Japanese feudal lord and his men to warmth and safety ahead of a brutal storm, has seen an influx of travelers since Japan relaxed its COVID-era restrictions and tourists have returned.

Now Gōtoku-ji can’t keep up with the demand for maneki neko, the ubiquitous “beckoning cat” statues that visitors purchase at the shrine’s tiny gift shop, the Washington Post says in a new report. People who come to the temple write prayers on the statues and place them in a perpetually-expanding section of the shrine grounds.

The cats are said to bring good luck, with variations in their designs and colors: red for health, pink for love, gold for success and so on. White maneki neko, which are sold at the shrine, are the original and “all purpose” prayer cats. The shrine is Buddhist, but practitioners of Shinto, Jainism, Christianity and other religions write prayers on the little cats, hoping they’ll be heard by whichever version of God they believe in.

The manufacturer, which also makes statues for the Lunar New Year and other festivities, can’t keep up with the demand. Now staff at Gōtoku-ji have put up signs apologizing to visitors. They say they don’t know when they’ll get more maneki neko.

When I visited in 2019 there were many thousands of the iconic statues, but the photos from Monday’s WaPo story show thousands more placed on recently-built shelves. Temple staff have begun asking visitors to take their maneki neko home with them instead of leaving them at Gōtoku-ji. They clean, shelve and organize the thousands of statues currently there and won’t dispose of them because they represent the prayers of visitors, but the volume has become unmanageable.

Maneki Neko at Setagaya Tokyo — Visitors leave their own maneki neko statues at the shrine, often with personal messages asking for different blessings and written in black marker on the back of the statues. Credit: Pain In The Bud

Despite Gōtoku-ji’s rise in popularity, I still recommend checking it out, especially for cat lovers who are headed to Japan. While most of Tokyo’s most famous shrines are located in the city proper, with modern skyscrapers looming above temples that date to pre-modern Japan — never letting you forget you’re in a bustling metropolis — Gōtoku-ji is in Setagaya, a mostly-residential ward.

The temple grounds are surrounded by homes and they’re quiet in a way that others aren’t. The shrine is well-manicured and beautiful, dotted with statuary as well as centuries-old wooden temple structures.

When I was there a smiling elderly docent walked the grounds carrying a photo album that showed the temple and its structures over the years. With my sister-in-law’s rudimentary Japanese we were able to get a bit around the language barrier, and he told me one of the most striking buildings, a three-story tiered wooden tower, was home to one of the resident cats who liked to sleep on its second floor.

I wasn’t able to catch a glimpse of the little one but I imagine Gōtoku-ji is one of the best places on the planet a stray cat could call home. Like the people of Turkey, respect for cats is ingrained in Japanese culture and temple cats in particular are treated extremely well. Some even have their own Instagram pages and fan clubs, becoming tourist draws in their own right.

Maneki Neko Setagaya Tokyo — Maneki Neko statues at Setagaya shrine. Credit: PITB

Fresh Off Binging K-Dramas, Buddy Demands Others Call Him Jeonha

Buddy has taken to styling himself as a Joseon king after gorging himself on Korean period dramas set during the long-enduring dynasty.

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat has taken to wearing Joseon dynasty royal robes and insisting others call him “Jeonha” — a style of address for a king which means “Your Highness” — after binging Korean historical dramas over the last several months.

The silver tabby, who once pretended to be Spanish and has previously tried to ingratiate himself with lion prides and zoo tigers, took on the persona of a king of Joseon, the historical name for the kingdom of Korea as it existed for half a millennium. The move followed an extended TV binge during which Buddy watched Netflix’s Kingdom, The Crowned Clown and Six Flying Dragons.

“Where is the Left State Councilor?” Jeonha Buddy shouted on Friday while lounging atop a replica of the famously elaborate Phoenix Throne. “The Ministry of Yums is late with my dinner once again. This will not be overlooked!”

Committing fully to his cosplay, Buddy designated each floor in his apartment building as its own “province,” appointing cats in other apartments as governors, Confucian scholars and tax officials. In addition, he created a court schedule dictating three official audiences per week, demanding reports on “the state of the cat food cupboard” and vigilance in looking for signs that a Japanese neighbor, Mr. Fuji, planned to invade his realm.

“We must not underestimate the Shogunate,” he said. “Have the Chief Secretary draw up an official mobilization order for the Five Armies so that we may have a regiment stationed along the border in case Mr. Fuji has military intentions.”

“Yes, Jeonha!” the other cats said, bowing. “Your grace is immeasurable!”

Asked on Sunday what he thought of the group of cats who stood watch outside his apartment, Mr. Fuji said: “I like cats!”

Seoul_Throne_in_Geunjeongjeon_03 — Buddy’s replica Phoenix Throne. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Most of Jeonha Buddy’s royal decrees, however, have dealt exclusively with food. Royal Proclamation #11, for example, specified the size and serving time of the king’s late night snack, while Royal Proclamation #19 clarified that seafood must not be served two meals in a row, and should be served only after meals of poultry or beef.

Meanwhile, Royal Proclamation #22 sought to appoint Big Buddy as the king’s eunuch.

“You’re pressing your luck, ‘Jeonha’,” the human said, glaring at Buddy. “I still have my balls. You, however, do not.”

As of press time, Buddy consulted the basket that holds his many toys and confirmed that he did indeed still possess his balls, including one that lights up and makes a beeping sound when it’s batted around.

“My court eunuch is a liar,” Jeonha Buddy declared. “Eighty lashes for him!”