Colour tattoo of a teal maneki-neko lucky cat holding a coin, with pink cherry blossoms, in a Japanese-influenced style on skin.

Maneki-neko lucky cat with cherry blossom

Japanese · Colour · Photo

A teal maneki-neko cat raises one paw and holds a coin marked with black kanji, wearing a dark collar with a bell and a pink kimono-style patterned chest panel. Cherry blossom petals in lavender and pink sit around the cat, with bold black outlines and soft blended shading on the fur. The palette is pastel teal, pink, purple and yellow on a pale background, and the design fills most of the frame.

Japanese Neo-trad Maneki-neko Cat Lucky cat Cherry blossom Coin Kanji Bell Collar

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz,

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The customs man at Harwich would not let the box through until he had turned the cat over three times and read the coin aloud, badly, the way a man sounds out a word he has only seen on shop signs. He rang your mother to ask what it said, and she rang me, and I told her it says fortune, or luck, depending on how you hold your mouth. The shop in Kobe wrapped it in newspaper from the week the cherry trees came out, so there were petals stuck to the tape for days after.

I should explain the teal. Mr Hagiwara painted that cat himself, years ago, when the glaze on the white ones kept crazing. He said a cat meant to call customers in should not look like a bank clerk. So he mixed the blue from the pot he kept for the sea, and every cat since has been a little bit lost at sea, which he said was a kind of honesty.

In the end the officer decided it was pottery and not a weapon or a dodgy import. He stamped a form. Then he lifted his own hand, palm out, and waggled it the way the cat does, laughed at himself, and said he had no idea why he'd done that. I told your mother that was the cat's doing and she should not argue with it.

Bring the box up from the car on Sunday. Put the cat on the windowsill facing the road, where the paw can wave at the lorries. I'll ring you when the petals fall.

Love, Aunt Reiko