You love its ruthless flattery, to the point of being desperate, and most importantly, you don't need to be loyal.
Japanese love cats.
"The Tale of Genji" wrote "Mimi's voice is so delicate." Haruki Murakami found that the cat was gone, "The whole heart is empty."
In the movie [Witch's Delivery Service], the female protagonist takes the cat to practice; [The villain Arrietty who borrows things], the male protagonist holds the cat and reads a book; [The Cat's Repayment], someone also rescued the cat from under the wheel.
And [Canis Island] .
In 2038, Japan's "Kizaki".
There are cat stickers on the door, a lucky cat on each side, and the chandelier on the ceiling is also a cat. Even the planes and uniforms of the contingent have a cat-head logo to show their glory.
Speaking on the stage, the mayor said that "canine distemper" is serious and that all dogs will be sent to the island to fend for themselves.
The podium was inlaid with a cat's head emblem, and all the dignitaries who listened to the lectures came with cats.
For a while, I understood that what kind of canine distemper is just a conspiracy used by cat slaves to abuse dogs. This is called "cat regime, shameless."
As a veteran cat owner, it's time to stand up.
That's right, [Canis Island] tells the story of five dogs. However, I want to talk about the cat inside.
01.
If I can't find a cat, I come back and cut my belly
The background of [Canis Island] is the future city of Kizaki, which is spelled "Megasaki" in Roman characters, alluding to "Nagasaki" in Nagasaki.
Coincidentally, in Japanese archaeology, the earliest 12 cat bones appeared in Nagasaki during the Yayoi period. Just like in the movie, it's also a house cat.
In the 6th century, some eminent monks from the Tang Dynasty traveled eastward to Japan, bringing with them scriptures, portraits, and relics.
The journey at sea was long, and there were fears of rats in the boat that would be hungry and devour the scriptures, so the monks also brought their cats there.
The Japanese, who are used to learning from people, even kept cats and put them in temples to protect the manuscripts of Buddhist scriptures. But this is because of his ability to catch mice, not a pet.
If you really want to say favor, you have to be the head of the emperor.
In the 9th century, there was Emperor Udo . In his diary "Kanping Yuji", he boasted about his black cat as a flower.
Ah, it looks like Han Lu. Lying cross-legged like a black millet, stretched like a bow, lying down and reunited with no tail, like a mysterious jade in a cave, walking without hearing its sound, just like a black dragon on a cloud. The ferocity of catching mice at night is better than that of other cats.
After that, another emperor came , which was even more incredible.
He raised a little female cat, which was donated by the Korean peninsula. One day, the cat was about to give birth, so he invited a nanny and sent ministers on the left and right to congratulate the newborn kitten.
That's all, he actually called the female cat " life wife ".
What concept? From five or more official ranks, it is equivalent to a Chinese servant. If you want to leave the Qing Dynasty, you can still be on an equal footing with Ji Xiaolan.
Once, the woman was chased by a dog named "Ong Maru" and fled into the emperor's arms. In a fit of rage, the emperor beat the dog and sent him into exile on the island.
It looks like [Canis Island], I don't know if it was taken from here.
But in any case, it can be seen that the cat was raised in the deep palace earlier, and it was very rare. Moreover, a horse costs one tael, and a cat costs five taels. Naturally, only royal family members can afford it.
This point coincides with [Canis Island]. The cats in the film are all the mayors, presidents, presidents, inspectors, and dignitaries.
By the 12th century, it was unknown where it was rumored that there were cat demons.
According to "Void Grass", if a black male cat grows to be more than ten years old, it will become a fine, the tip of its tail is divided into two strands, it can speak, and it can make the dead dance, and it is called " nekomata ".
The aristocrat became frightened, but thought to himself, if he kept a short-tailed cat, wouldn't this kind of thing be gone?
As a result, they fell in love with the bobtail cat caused by genetic mutation, and raised a large number of them, and it became a unique breed, which was called "Japanese bobtail" by Westerners.
It has large black and white spots, is slender and strong, and has a gentle sex. It raises one front paw when sitting. Therefore, people prefer to call it the lucky cat .
It is rumored that there was a brothel in the Edo period, and there was such a one in front of the shop, which was painted with silver, and the business was booming.
Later, some people followed suit and opened a brothel next door. They put a gold lacquer one, and the cost of love is double the former.
Of course, it's not just for brothels either.
The opening of [Canis Island] is a shrine with a statue of a lucky cat standing on each side.
It is said that it can attract wealth with its right hand and guests with its left hand. But here, it is clear that neither is the case. The culturist Naoe Hiroshi wrote in the Dictionary of Japanese Cultural History:
Cats have spirituality, and Japan's special phenomenon of "gods and Buddhas worshiping cats together" is a transcendental relationship between cats and gods.
At the end of the 15th century, cats were still rare play animals.
At that time, there was a cat slave named Toyotomi Hideyoshi . He was a military commander.
Later, when the cat disappeared for no apparent reason, he ordered people to search the whole city, and if he couldn't find it, he came back and cut his belly . But he couldn't be satisfied.
Cats were extremely valuable in Japan until the 17th century. Tsunayoshi Tsunayoshi, the fifth-generation general of the Tokugawa family, once issued a "Order of Compassion for Living Beings", saying that cats should be protected.
As a result, the head of a station in the shogunate called Goro Amano, in the area he was in charge of, a cat fell into a well and drowned. He was sentenced to a heavy sentence and exiled to Hachijo Island.
To this day, cats still have an aristocratic atmosphere in the eyes of the Japanese, mostly because of their relationship with the Tokugawa family.
02.
Only cats and women can't live up to them
[Canis Island] There is a scene where the mayor takes a bath.
He soaked in the bathtub, and behind him was a huge Ukiyo-e print, with mountains and pagodas in the distance, and small bridges, flowing water and cherry blossoms nearby.
There are countless cats on the shore, orange, black, and spotted, some curled up to sleep, some are stretching, and some are scratching.
It is said that this style of painting is a tribute to Katsushika Hokusai, the most influential ukiyo-e artist in the Edo period. At that time, he was famous for his painting "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji: The Great Wave off Kanagawa".
I don't know if he painted cats, but there are indeed many cats in Ukiyo-e.
After all, it was the Edo period, when the civil war subsided, Japan was unified, the economy prospered, and literature and painting ushered in an unprecedented golden age.
"Ukiyo-e" emerged at this time, depicting people's daily life, scenery and performances.
Here is a cat change.
Earlier, cats were always bound by collars and ropes, and "Pillow Grass" wrote this paragraph:
In summer, outside the curtains with bright hats, near the hook rail, there is a very cute cat, wearing a red collar, hanging a white sign with a name, dragging a rope, walking and playing, it is also very cute. graceful.
The master of erotic palace painting, Xi Zhai Yingquan, also painted a similar picture:
However, in the Edo period, the rat infestation was serious .
As soon as the ban came out, the nobles untied their ropes and allowed them to hunt mice freely. The rat pests were greatly reduced, and cats were no longer the exclusive playthings of the upper class.
According to Japan's "Silkworm Breeding Law", "people who raise silkworms must keep cats at home." Some people even sell cat paintings on the street, which can repel mice and ward off evil spirits.
Speaking of cat paintings, I have to mention Utagawa Kuniyoshi .
Men, like "Water Margin" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", are called "Ukiyo-e ghosts", and they are crazy about cats.
There are cats everywhere in his workshop, and he also holds cats when he paints. There is a Buddhist altar in his home, where he enshrines memorial tablets for dead cats, and weeps a lot.
There is also a self-portrait of him sitting on his back, with a tabby and black and white head lying on the blanket, with three milk cats sleeping soundly on the right.
But what really exposed his cat slave nature was "Cat and Tokaido Fifty-Three Times" .
Not the most famous.
In the 1840s, the Tokugawa shogunate initiated the "Tenpo Reform", which banned artworks depicting kabuki, geisha and prostitutes.
If there is really nothing new under the sun, I thought it was a censorship system that only emerged in the past two years. Fortunately, Kuniyoshi thought of a way to anthropomorphize a cat and wear Kabuki clothes to escape the censorship.
It was a sensation, and it was sold out as soon as it appeared.
From here on out, cats in Ukiyo-e are often entangled with women.
Aristotle said that female cats are naturally dissolute, because they scream to lure male cats into mating.
French writer Alphonse Stusnell said, " Cats and prostitutes have a lot in common, such as enjoying a leisurely life, being lazy and frivolous, being slick, and having great energy for sex. "
At the beginning of the 20th century, the painter Takahashi Matsutei painted "Nude Playing with Cats" , which is considered to be the best nude art of the "New Printmaking Movement".
But if you confuse literature and painting, the earliest connection between cats and women is actually The Tale of Genji .
On the thirty-fourth time, the third princess' cat ran out from under the curtain, and the long rope tied around her body lifted the curtain at once, and asked Cypress who passed by to take a peek.
That is the third princess who is already married, "beautiful beyond words, and terrifyingly charming."
In 1857, Utagawa Kunisada painted a picture of "Yu Zi Tian Sha Genji Cypress" , but in the painting, the three princesses became the active party, teaching Cypress who couldn't stop.
He knew he couldn't get her, so he asked her cat to keep him. The cat's body is full of the body fragrance of the three princesses.
To comfort Acacia suffering, seeing a cat is like seeing a person. Why do you cry to me, is it my bosom friend?
As for what I did with the cat, I don't know.
03.
You are the villain, but the most innocent
The cat slave in [Canis Island] is the villain.
You see, although it is a movie full of Japanese style, the cultural customs of the corners are also accurate, but it still cannot get rid of the virtues of the Westerners.
[007 Thunder Valley], the big Boss hugged the white cat and said he wanted to rule the world; [Godfather], Don Corleone licked the cat and said, "I understand, you made a fortune in America";
[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix], Umbridge's cat runs to spy on Harry; [Cinderella], Cinderella's stepmother has a black cat, grin and you know it's suffocating.
In 1964, Woody Allen was writing the script for [The Merry Gentleman] on the set when a cat ran on his typewriter and stepped on it, so he had to wait patiently for it to go away.
In short, in the eyes of Westerners, the bad guy is either a cat or a cat slave, which is not good anyway.
But that's a cat trait.
Cats are more suitable for the villain's thinking mode, acting sneaky, elusive, like to observe secretly, and never listen to instructions.
There are exceptions.
For example, in 1953's Wet Dangerous , actress Esther Williams swam with Tom Cat.
This time, it's not the slightly opportunistic bad cat of Tom and Jerry. The change in this image is closely related to the social status of women in the 1950s.
There is also [Paris Wild Rose] in 1986. The female protagonist is as sensitive and pure as a cat, and then commits suicide, leaving the male protagonist alone with a white cat.
He stared at the cat, and in a trance, he seemed to hear the hostess say, "What are you writing?"
"I'm just thinking," he said to himself.
Some people say that the cat is the soul of the heroine. Others believe that everything about the female protagonist is the imagination of the male protagonist.
But in any case, this setting is the closest to the Japanese view of cats.
Murakami's women are like cats, disappearing when men are unaware.
Mishima Yukio is most inseparable from the cat's " a little bit of a clever and tantalizing expression ", which is almost feminine.
But what I love most is the way Natsume Soseki and cats get along.
The first cat he raised often scratched the soles of his feet when he was not prepared to make him ignore the dignity of the "National Great Writer", so he grabbed a ruler and chased the cat at home.
Later, based on the cat, he wrote a novel called "I Am a Cat" , which has been adapted into movies many times.
There are also [Teacher and Stray Cats], [Why Cats Can't Meow] and [If Cats Disappeared from the World].
You see, only the Japanese are serious about this animal, because of its freedom and almost ungrateful character, because it smells fishy when it yawns in its arms.
From this point of view, it is not surprising that there are cat slaves in [Canis Island].
You love its ruthless flattery, to the point of being desperate, and most importantly, you don't need to be loyal.
That's why I have cats and not dogs.
The dog is too enthusiastic, it is a burden. Only cats, looking at you or not looking at you, always have three words written on their faces, "too lazy to care".
Not the villain, but looking at the world in a nonchalant way, as ruthless as cherry blossoms and katana swords.
Then I'd be happy to go over there with a shy face, snoring and purring, as if to please, although [Canis Island] acted like that, but I know that you are innocent.
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Author/Aunt Liu
The article was first published on the WeChat public account "Bao Ci Er"
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