What sort of cat does the japanese consider to be traditionally "good luck" ?

Question

I used to have grandmother that loved Japanese Good Luck Cats (17 healthy-playful-and all got along well with each other) though 8 seemed to be ordinary tabby cats, the rest were black & white patch cats, if they weren't cat shaped they could of passed for B & W cows.

When she passed away, all of the cats passed away within a year, so we suspect because they missed her presence. It was quite a sight to see her walking her cats, where ever she went they all followed her & never strayed off to explore.

Answer 1

Japanese call it "mike" (three types/ colors of hair).Some even call it Japanese cat.

I'm happy to know that you had such awesome creatures in your house.I'm keeping one and she has been my best buddy for almost 4 years.Just like your garndmother's cats , mine is huge and too clever for a cat. She dislikes going outside and follows me everywhere.

While cats in the folklore have rather negative image (shape-shifters, demons, man-eaters), in the folklore which comes from the Budhist shrines, the cat is loved and considered lucky. The cat appears in late Medieval religious novels as brave guardian against the mice,which used to devastate shrines` limited rice resourses. Later there are novels where a grateful cat performs a miracle or predicts something and thus brings fortune to the shrine where it had been living for long time.And the story about the Good luck cats or Welcoming cats(Maneki neko) is also connected with a shrine.

As explained by Patricia Dale-Green in "The Cult of the Cat" (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1963), the Beckoning Cat is associated with an ancient cat-shrine on the grounds of a temple known as Gotoku-ji near Tokyo. She writes:

This temple was originally a very poor one, no more than a thatched hut run by poverty-stricken and half-starved monks. The master-priest had a cat of which he was fond, and shared with it such little food as he had. One day the cat squatted by the roadside and, when half a dozen Samurai appeared on splendid horses, it looked up at them and raised one of its paws to its ear, as if it were beckoning to them. The noble cavaliers pulled up and, as the cat continued to beckon, they followed it into the temple. Torrential rain forced them to stay for a while, so the priest gave them tea and expounded Buddhist doctrine.

After this one of the Samurai -- Lord Li -- regularly visited the old priest to receive religious instruction from him. Eventually Li endowed the temple with a large estate and it became the property of his family.

Because the Beckoning Cat had lured a wealthy patron to the poor temple, images of this cat soon became talismanic emblems and were particularly favored by shopkeepers.