Talk:Maneki-neko

message: To Americans and Europeans it may seem as if the Maneki Neko is waving rather than beckoning. Over here in Portugal we use both forms of beckoning - the "Euro/American" fingers-up is slightly more authoritative, and the "Asian" fingers-down is more familiar and playful. -- Tintazul 10:44, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In the article it is written: "To Americans and Europeans it may seem as if the Maneki Neko is waving rather than beckoning." Can anybody tell a non native speaker the difference between waving and beckoning? --Tubesship (talk) 06:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: A wave is a greeting or a goodbye. A beckoning gesture means 'Come here'. --Thnidu (talk) 02:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  It beckons (sort of) like a Portuguese! 

message: So if a Maneki Neko's koban is worth 10 million ryō, and a ryō is $1000, the coin is worth roughly $10 Billion. Is there maybe some mistake here?... Odedee 04:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On exchange rate 

message: There should be an article on this. Chris 17:24, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jiseiin cat temple

message: What does it mean if a cat is green with it's left paw raised? In other words: the left paw / right paw issue in the leader seems unverifiable and vague, like it belongs somewhere else, and it doesn't have a cited reference either. Anybody can clear that up? --24.199.103.240 22:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Color/Handedness 

message: I have a Japanese bobtail cat who is always making this gesture (reaching out to me). I wonder if it is something common to the breed? 67.149.150.252 01:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese bobtail beckoning behavior 

message: I just bought a golden cat, with a choixe of sentences you can stick to the arm for good luck.
They are in chinese. I don't understand them. Are these standard phrases ? Should I post the images of the phrases ?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.57.182.248 (talk) 10:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, please post them. --89.56.175.237 (talk) 01:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of the chinese sentences 

message: The article says "small bells were attached for decoration and to keep track of the cat's whereabouts.". Where the bells not to prevent the cat's from hunting? Cat bells are still used for that purpose today.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.61.20.245 (talk) 15:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: the bells 

message: Any sources for Meowth aside from him looking like it and it looking like a cat?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.137.207.191 (talk) 13:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meowth 

message: I have seen some of these maneki neko holding a red fish (a carp?). Does anyone know what that symbolises? --Fauzi (talk) 11:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lucky Tai Fish 

message: The Wired reports a struggling japanese rural railway choose a female cat as its new president and now they have good ridership, as everybody wants to touch her. 82.131.210.162 (talk) 11:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maneki Neko real life 

message: Hi, you can see this cat on the poster (Leu Tempo Festival 2009) here: http://www.lesechoir.com/rubrique/leu_tempo2007.php?id_cat=2&id_ss_cat=20 or http://www.lesechoir.com/boutik/data/photo/427.jpg 90.43.62.247 (talk) 06:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leu Tempo Festival Poster 2009 (Collector !) 

message: [Add/supplement :] 
If you travel west from Tokyo via the Odakyu rail line into Setagaya-ku, you can find a temple named Gotoku-ji. This Buddhist temple is located near the station of the same name, a short walk away. And walking behind the main hall of the temple you can find what looks like a memorial, a grave, with many offerings about it - and prayer notes offered for good fortune.
About the gravestone stand many cats - ceramic cats painted in white or other colours, adorning the site.
For this is the resting place of the maneki-neko : the beckoning cat.
This story began a few hundred years ago, during the Edo period in Japan - the time when this country was ruled by the bakufu - a military dictatorship, headed by its great commander, or shogun - as some Westerners might better recall.
At this time, the temple was struggling to survive - donations were inadequate to maintain its buildings, and there seemed some danger it might collapse and have to close down. The head priest was vexed, and spoke of his worries to the several cats he looked after - they were his companions. How can we find some way to save our temple ? he wondered aloud to the cats. What ideas do you suggest ? The cats offered no ideas for him then, and simply continued to wash themselves again, a normal cat response to questions without easy answers.
Some time later, during a dark and rainy night a group of samurai traveled by on horseback. The weather had caught them, and they were seeking some kind of shelter.
Then, passing a ramshackle temple, their leader stopped: his eye had caught the sight of a small cat outside the gate, seeming to signal them. Here we should explain that the gesture used in Japan to attract attention, or beckon for help for example, is different to that Westerners are accustomed to - a hand is held beside the head and the fingers moved in a small flickering wave. So no doubt the sight of a cat washing one ear might at first simply appear that way. Amused by this, the visitors dismounted and tethered their horses, then entered the temple and were welcomed in to its meager shelter by the priest.
By this time a violent thunderstorm had erupted, and the samurai counted their good luck at suddenly finding such shelter in this way. The priest served them tea, apologized for the wretched state of his hospitality, and then to pass the time while the storm raged he read to them a sermon. His simple kindness impressed them.
The leader of this group was Lord Ii Naotake from Hikone, in central Japan. He decided then to endorse this temple with funding to assure its survival, and so it continues today. The story became famous as a part of folklore, and after the later death of the responsible cat it was buried in a small grave by the temple's burial area, even with its own headstone. It became a widely believed symbol of good luck, with a craft trade in painted ceramic figures of the cat, many deposited by the gravestone by visitors seeking to earn some of the fortune associated with the cat's story.
And so many restaurants and other such public businesses have also adopted the figure of this "beckoning" cat, although relatively few of them would these days know about the historic and folkloric background to this figure.
(Story recounted to author in Tokyo, 1970 - by writer Lewis Bush
::A synopsis of this story should be included in the folk tales section.  Also, I had heard a version of the story explain that a samurai was riding past a temple when he saw the cat beckoning.  He dismounted and led his horse towards the cat, and at that moment, lightning struck the ground where he had stopped.  That was another explanation for the beckoning cat as a symbol of good luck.
TheBaron0530 (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  good faith but unencyclopedic, moving to talkpage as still valuable and interesting 

message: Dear native and non-native speakers of the Japanese language, could you translate the stuff that is written on the cats, e.g. here: 200px? --Baruch ben Alexander - ☠☢☣ 22:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  exact meaning of the Japanese characters on the cats 

message: Why is “Maneki Neko” capitalized?  Is it a proper noun?  Is the plural also “Maneki Neko” as the article suggests?
— Dan337 (talk) 23:13, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Because some people obsessively capitalize everything they think is important or special.  MOS:CAPS specifically deprecates capitalization as a form of emphasis, but people who don't know better keep doing it anyway, just like greengrocers keep writing "Apple's 4 for $1" and "Express aisle, 15 items or less".  I've fixed it in this article.  I have no idea about the plural, nor whether this really should be hyphenated the way it presently is (I suspect not, but I'm no specialist in Japanese-to-English transliteration).  I've rarely seen this hyphenated in the real world. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ  Contrib.  06:42, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Japanese words and phrases do not generally get the plural -s ending. I agree that it is incorrect to capitalize any part of maneki-neko. Hyphenation in Japanese transliteration is generally inconsistent, so I'm willing to leave that alone in this case. Krychek (talk) 20:31, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization, plural and hyphenation

message: One or two paragraphs that seem to be legends/stories are in the History section.  Is there any reason why these are in History while the rest are in Legends & Stories?  M-1 (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  History vs. Legends & Stories 

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thread_title: File:Maneki Neko Bank.JPG Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: I was told (by a Japanese-American) than the white ones stand for good luck generall, the gold for monetary fortune, and the black for good health.  Did not comment on the rare red ones or any other color.  Anyone ever seen a reliable source for something like that? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ  Contrib.  06:38, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no "Japanese-American". You are either Japanese or American, you cannot be both! For details, read US president Theodore Roosevelt's book "America for Americans" 217.250.174.7 (talk) 09:19, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Color meanings 

message: The Color section begins with a claim about the most common colors of maneki-neko, then that such colors are traditional, followed by a source (the Daruma article).  Since the source doesn't support either claim, I removed the inline citn and tagged the claims CN. Richigi (talk) 01:11, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Color claim Failed Verification 

message: Seems to me that Hello Kitty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Kitty) is very much related to this, and should be included in the popular culture section?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.119.246.70 (talk) 19:48, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hello Kitty 

message: To my knowledge it was the number four that is surrounded with superstition in Japan, due to the word for four, shi, being similar to the word for death. Is it supposed to the the fourth floor of buildings? --95.204.173.237 (talk) 03:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third floor of buildings 

message: The History section seems very clear that the first evidence of this kind of statue is the late Edo period, and cites several dates for various "firsts", mostly around the 1850s.  Immediately next to this is an image from the Brooklyn Museum of Art of a Maneki-neko statue from the 18th century, 150 to 50 years before.  This seems inconsistent (although possibly nobody mentioned them for the first 150 years).  Should the page mention the inconsistency, or how should that be handled?MichaelCroft (talk) 04:25, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Eighteenth Century vs 1800s...

message: I'm astounded that there are no translations! kencf0618 (talk) 02:16, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translations? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Maneki-neko. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://www.webcitation.org/67mEC7L7K?url=http://gojapan.about.com/cs/traditionculture/a/luckycats.htm to http://gojapan.about.com/cs/traditionculture/a/luckycats.htm
https://manekicats.com/the-meaning-of-the-lucky-japanese-cat-cat-maneki-neko-2/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2402:9D80:22B:15A4:1857:AF0D:EABC:637 (talk) 03:08, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article cited for the statement that Meowth is based on a maneki-neko is fan-written, unsourced and speculative. I’ve added a dubious marker to reflect this.  5th Curtis (talk) 09:56, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meowth source is dubious 

message: There was an attempt make a few weeks ago by a user more active on the MarioWiki to add in some fairly relevant information on the Paper Mario series, which was rejected on the grounds that it was unsourced. However, is there some way to source those appearances through non-conventional means. I mean, in certain video game articles themselves, certain quotes are used to source parts of plot summaries, so couldn't there be something similar here? ToThAc (talk) 20:09, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Would suggest to ask WikiProject Video games about it. Include a link to the rejected edit. Gryllida (talk) 22:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. ToThAc (talk) 01:54, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:   The reverters seem not to have included a link to one of the policy-based reasons why the edits were declined and which explains fairly clearly what you are proposing to do is not the way to go about it. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 04:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sourcing appearances in ''Sticker Star'' and ''Color Splash''