You may have seen pictures of cats dressed up bosozoku a couple of times before and probably wondered what the idea behind these pictures were…
Somewhere during the late 80s the Nameneko cats (also called Pelorian) were a really popular hype. The hype was that people dressed up cats in ridiculous costumes and took pictures of it. The most famous creator of pictures and videos of these cats was an artist called Tsudo who called them Nameneko. Nameneko means unlickable (slang for Namen Nayo which means don’t lick me).
This hype was also at the top of the popularity of the bosozoku, so naturally a lot of these cats were dressed up as bosozoku or Yanky.
You may think the Nameneko cats were exposed to cruelty. According to various sources the photoshoots were actually done very carefully without harming the cats! All cats are not looking angry nor freightened and cats defend themselves if they don’t like the situation they are in.
To ensure the cats remained “cute” the shootings had to be done in a very short period. So multiple people were needed per photoshoot to ensure the cats did not start to get angry or bored and only a few pictures could be made per session. In this light some of these videos must have taken months to complete and are a true piece of art!
Nowadays Nameneko cats are still popular in Japan, but due to new technology it is no longer necessary to actually dress up the cats. 😉
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