Jin Machigatta

*This article contains **SPOILERS** for* The Misadventures of Misfit and Mieko*.*

## Physical description

### Eye color

White

**Jin Machigatta** is a lucky cat featured in *The Misadventures of Misfit and Mieko*.

## Biography

A gambler who hoped to make a success of himself, Jin was best friends with a warrior named Sanji. At one point, after the latest in a series of Jin’s failed attempts to get a job, Sanji presented him with a golden bell that supposedly brought good fortune to its wearer. Later, after beating his friend in a dice game, he announced that he had at last succeeded in finding work. However, overcome by an unknown ailment, Jin collapsed, much to the distress of Sanji.

Jin spent some months in a terrible condition, nearly perishing at least once. However, the day after, he unexpectedly regained his health and awoke from his coma. Jin immediately demanded to know Sanji’s whereabouts, but his caregivers-a pair of cat women-informed him that Sanji had been missing for months. More disturbing still, Jin soon found that he had changed from an ordinary cat to a lucky cat, and now attracted unwanted attention from every quarter.

Desperate to find Sanji, Jin eventually made his way back to where Sanji had given him his bell. One snowy day, Sanji appeared, and revealed that he had visited the Seven Spirits of Luck and asked that they save Jin’s life. However, since his encounter with the spirits, Sanji had suffered horrible luck. The worst came as Jin, realizing that his own status as a lucky cat was a result of Sanji’s actions, exploded at him.

Far from being grated for Sanji’s efforts to save his life, Jin came to resent him for robbing him of the chance to make his own way in the world as he had desired. He further accosted Sanji for leaving him in his illness, saying he would have preferred to die with his best friend at his side. Now loathing his friend for the fate he had brought upon both of them, Jin turned his back on a pleading Sanji. Unbeknownst to Jin, Sanji had only obtained blessings from six of the seven spirits, and had misused those gifts in his effort to save Jin’s life.

However, Jim would later be forced into another encounter with his estranged friend. According to legend, Sanji’s bad luck eventually caused him to become a rampaging monster. In this form, he brought about the Great Calamity of Nekoken. It fell to Jin, and his own magical luck, to challenge the maddened Sanji.

Though it later came to be believed that Jin slew Sanji on that day, it appears to have been otherwise. A grave marker, apparently inscribed by Sanji, claiming to mark *Jin’s* resting place was discovered long after their confrontation. Whatever the truth, the curse upon both cats did not die with them. Instead, it would be passed down through the generations until coming to rest upon their distant descendants (and lookalikes), Misfit and Mieko.

More than Jin’s luck would pass to Mieko. As an infant, the cat would be found with the bell Sanji had given Jin long ago, though with its “Friends to the End” inscription scratched out. And after meeting Misfit, Mieko would discover a mystical link between himself and Jin.

## References

1. ↑ As revealed in The Three Legged Frog