Bakeneko.
The Bakeneko is a type of Japanese Yōkai, or supernatural creature that is a cat. It is often confused with the Nekomata, another cat-like yōkai, and the distinction between the two can often be quite ambiguous.
Description[]
Bakeneko begin their supernatural life looking almost identical to an ordinary housecat. Soon they begin to walk about at on their hind legs. As they age and their powers increase, they can grow large to where they reach up to the size of a full-grown human.
Bakeneko possess great shape-shifting abilities and disguise themselves as smaller cats or humans—sometimes even taking the shape of their own masters. Many learn to speak human languages. While in disguise, they are known to dress up as humans with towels wrapped around their heads. In this form bakeneko dance around merrily.
Overview[]
Bakeneko can come into being as a result of a number of things, but the most common reasons are by being long-lived (over thirteen years old), growing to a certain size (over 3.75 kilograms), or by licking up large quantities of lamp oil; it is said that for a cat to lick this oil is an omen of some strange event about to occur.
A telltale sign that a cat may be close to becoming a bakeneko is believed to be an exceptionally long tail. The older and wiser a cat gets, the longer its tail becomes. This superstition led to the custom of bobbing cats’ tails at an early age to prevent them from transforming into yōkai.
If they do not directly kill their owners, they can bring down great curses and misfortune. They can summon ghostly fireballs and are known to accidentally start house fires, their tails acting like torches igniting any flammable materials in the house.