At the end of February 2025, a video spread about an unusual service allegedly available in some institutions of Tokyo, Osakak and Kyoto in social networks and the media. We checked how reliable this information is.
The video shows a woman who is massage in the cabin, and a cat lies next to her. The masseuse lifts the blanket, helping the animal to go to the visits of the visitor, and then they continue to work together: the cat rumizes the client’s back with his paws, and the masseuse kneads her legs. The authors of posts add that such a service is available in some Japanese Kotokafe for 1,500 yen per hour. The video published such Telegram channels as "Ax+"(1.7 million views at the time of writing this analysis),"Today is in trend"(159,000),"Kotka"(123,000),"Flash"(104 000),"Drilling rat"(109,000) and"Komsomolskaya Pravda: kp.ru"(61 000). A video with a cat massacre appeared on the air of the TV channel "Moscow 24", He was published in"Zen" Instagram And on entertainment sites.
Kotokafe, or cat cafe, is a space in which people can enjoy communication with cats. The first such institution in the world counts Cat Flower Garden, which opened in Taibe in 1998. A few years later, Kotokafe appeared in Japan and became extremely popular there. As a rule, in such spaces you can play with cats, iron them and treat them with special snacks. In some institutions, customers are even given the opportunity to take a nap surrounded by cats, but “verified” could not find a single kotokafe that would offer their customers a massage performed by animals. In the "Republic of Cats" in Osaka there is CAT SPA program, the cost of which coincides with the viral video indicated in the posts, but it does not imply any real spa procedures. For 1,500 Ian, the client will simply prompt with cats in the room designed in retrostilism of Japanese public baths. As the description of the program on the site says, “cat spa is like forest baths or sunbathing. You will be surrounded by cats, which has a beneficial effect on physical and mental state. ”
The video with a cat massacre is not a viral not for the first time. Previously, he appeared as in Russian -speaking Media and social networks, and in English -speaking, however, the location was not indicated anywhere. The earliest publication of this video, which we managed to find in the Russian -speaking segment of the Internet, dates from June 3, 2016: on this day it Loose The Medusa publication in the entertainment section "Shapito". A video was attached to the note inserted into the text of the article with Facebook, but now inaccessible.
Sultan Suleimanov, who was then the editor of the Shapito heading, shared with "verified" link For that video. Unfortunately, his sun -archmed copies were not preserved, although the profile itself on Facebook, where it was placed, Continues Publish posts. “Judging by the fact that there are no details in the“ Shapito ”note-neither the name of the“ spa center ”, as I called it, neither the name of the cat (it is always important to clarify the name of the cat!)-I built all my guesses for this text on the video I saw,” said Suleimanov. “Of course, it would be more precisely to write that the animal was simply stuck on the back of the visitor, but it was funny to assume that the cat was working there, and it was worth the world to find out about this service, as it would not have a hush of customers.”
In addition, on the website IMGUR has been preserved GIF animationpublished on June 1, 2016. Its source indicates the same video to which Medusa referred to two days later. This gif gained 76,000 views. Two days after Medusa, the same video Published YouTube user, he scored more than 400,000 views.
With the help of a reverse search for the images, it was “verified” that the logo in the upper left corner of the frame belongs to the Japanese television program Wan-Nyan Club ("Club of Cats and Dogs"), which was published on the BS Nippon channel from 2014 to 2017. We also found article On the Japanese site, which claimed that this fragment of Wan-Nean Club was first shown on December 9, 2014. The video was allegedly shot in the Parbine Hikari beauty salon in the city of Hikari Yamaguti Prefecture, and the cat that starred in it is actually a cat called Nya.
On the site Parbine There is no information about this cat or about cat massage services. However, it turned out that from 2013 to 2020, the owner of Parbine Hikari led a blog on the platform Ameblo. And there really were photographs of exactly the same cat (against the background of exactly the same wallpaper) as in a viral video. February 22, 2015 on the blog was published Record With a story about her:
“The Parbine Hikari cats lives a cat Nya-chan, also known as a cat-aidol nya-chan. Nya-chan loves the customers of the salon and welcomes them with his "nya-i!". But that's not all! She loves to lie on the couch next to customers during the procedures, and sometimes even makes them massage. Nya-cosmetologist cat! "
Due to the fact that the hostess of the salon often talked about the habits of Nya-chan on the Internet, the cat attracted the attention of journalists. “Verified” could not find information about her filming for Wan-Nean Club on the blog, but it says that she took part in the program twice Mezamashi doyoubi Channel Fuji TV (in February And July 2014). Perhaps one of these filming was later used on the air of Wan-Nean Club (or the owner of the salon sent her own video to the editorial office). In addition, Nya-chan was guest one of the issues of television show Tensai! Shimura DubutsuenBut his filming took place in a studio in Tokyo, and not in the salon.
Together with Nya-chan, another cat lived in the cabin-Mi-chan. She, judging by the posts on the blog, too Sometimes I went to customersbut did it less often. “Verified” failed to find out the further fate of the Nya-chan and Mi-chan: the blog and pages of the salon in social networks have not been updated for a long time, and in recent years other cats appeared there (but they no longer talked with customers as closely as Nyan-Tyan did).
Thus, Japanese Kotokafe do not offer cat massage services. The hovering video was shot in the mid-2010s, and it was captured by the Cat Nya-chan, who lived in the Japanese beauty salon Parbine and sometimes made massage to his customers-simply because she liked it.
Photo on the cover: a screenshot of a viral video. Source: Telegram
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