Nekomata

As early as the fourteenth century, a Japanese writer recorded the fear that cats grown too old would transform into something dangerous, capable of devouring people. This creature exists in two versions: a giant mountain beast that hunts humans, and a domestic version that controls the dead and makes corpses dance out of pure mischief. The clearest sign that a cat has reached this level is simple: it grows a second tail.

An advanced, more powerful form of the supernatural cat: on growing very old, the cat gains a second tail (nekomata, 'forked-tail cat'). It exists in two varieties: the domestic one, evolved from the bakeneko, and the wild one, a giant beast of the mountains.

Within the folk and mythological corpus compiled by the Codex Monstrorum, the creature Nekomata occupies a distinctive role in the symbolic imagination of its culture of origin. Its mythos articulates primal human anxieties, the mystery of untamed wilderness, and social norms preserved through the lens of bestiary literature.

Kenko, in the 14th century, already recorded the fear that old cats would become nekomata and devour people. The mountain nekomata was described as a huge beast that hunts humans; the domestic one, as a cat that controls the dead (making them dance) and manipulates families. It has necromantic powers and commands ghost fire. Codex distinguishes the wild mountain nekomata, the domestic one evolved from the bakeneko, and the modern reception of the two-tailed cat.

According to tradition, the nekomata is more dangerous than the bakeneko: a necromancer, it can reanimate and control corpses, cast curses, and start fires with ghost fire. The mountain one, the size of a boar or large dog, attacks travelers. The forked tail is the sign of its power accumulated through age.

First appearance and primary records: A forked-tailed monster cat of Japanese folklore, mentioned in medieval sources such as Yoshida Kenko's Tsurezuregusa (14th c.) and systematized in Edo-period encyclopedias and prints.

Oral transmissions and preserved manuscripts indicate that legends surrounding Nekomata underwent substantive evolution over successive centuries. From archaic oral traditions to classical and medieval written records, each period reframed the creature according to its own ethical and cosmological paradigms.

The morphology is defined by the forked tail, the absolute sign that distinguishes it from the bakeneko. The domestic one looks like a large two-tailed cat; the wild one, a huge feline beast. The number of tails and the size indicate the age and power accumulated over decades.

The nekomata organizes the fear of hidden power that accumulates over time and of the boundary between the household animal and the necromantic beast. Its function is to take the cat's ambivalence to the extreme — the companion that, on aging, may become lord of the dead and of curses.

An advanced form of the bakeneko, the nekomata is distinguished by its forked tail and necromantic powers. Against the nine-tailed kitsune, it shares the logic that more tails mean more power; it resonates with witch-cats and necromantic animals of other traditions.

From the Tsurezuregusa and Edo encyclopedias to ukiyo-e prints and theater, and onward to manga, anime, and games (the nekomata and the two-tailed cat are recurring motifs), the figure established itself as the supreme form of the Japanese supernatural cat, an emblem of the domestic animal that becomes a hidden power.