S P O T ／ SPOT-076

Lucky Cat Museum (Maneki-neko Museum)

招き猫ミュージアムまねきねこみゅーじあむ

In Seto, one of Japan's six ancient pottery towns and a major historical producer of maneki-neko (the beckoning cats that summon customers from every Japanese shop window), a private museum holds one of the country's largest collections devoted to the figure. Several thousand cats are on permanent display, organized by region, period, and style — Edo-era folk-art pieces in faded earth pigments, Showa porcelain cats in primary colors, contemporary character-designed cats, and the local Seto-yaki ceramics that have shaped the iconography for centuries. The museum's special attraction is the way it explains how, over roughly 150 years, this folk-religion symbol of mercantile good fortune migrated from the back rooms of small shops to the front shelves of souvenir stalls and finally to the global pop-culture canon. A small workshop area lets visitors paint their own ceramic cat, and the gift shop is, naturally, encyclopedic. Combine the museum with the Seto Pottery Museum and the Kamagaki-no-Komichi pottery alley for a full day in the home town of the lucky cat.