This is not a real work for a cat – Meduza

Almost nine years ago, in June 2016, Medusa published a short note about the “Cat Massenger” in the Shato section, which offers its services in one of the spa centers in Japan. The video from that note again became popular in the Russian information field in February 2025: they talked about an unusual cat in popular telegram channels, on entertainment sites, and even on television broadcasts.

The factor project “Verified. Media” became interested in the story about cat massage – and found that, alas, it would not be possible to order such a service. Here is what we learned from their investigation. “Cats do massage in Japan-the dream service is available in the special feline cafes of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, where the fluffs are kneaded by customers with paws,” the axle-a-tire-channel “ax” from 8.4 million subscribers said on February 23, 2025. A video is attached to the post that a cat really helps a woman’s massage: she climbs a client on her back and wrinkles her with paws. Other telegram channels, including the Komsomolsky Pravda channel, also informed her from Japan. The video also posted in the “Zen” the documentary television channel RTD, parts of the television network of the Russian propaganda television channel RT, and also shown on the air of the Moscow 24 channel. Most of all, the details in different sources are repeated: it is claimed that the case takes place in special feline cafes in Japan, and visit them one and a half thousand yen per hour (about 900 rubles). “Verified. Media” tried to find the source of these messages and came across the material of the “Medusa” of 2016. Then, in the heading of Shapito, a short note was released “A Cat Massenger works in a Japanese spa.” It consists of only four sentences, which say that one of the spa centers in Japan offers a special, feline type of massage. But neither the name of the place, nor the name of the cat in the note are indicated. The same video was inserted into the material as in publications from 2025 (later it was deleted). “Retrieved. Media” notes that it was in that “Shapito” material that the video first appeared in the media. The author of the note and the then editor of Shapito, Sultan Suleimanov, in a conversation with the authors of the investigation, suggested that he built all his guesses about the existence of such a spa and the availability of such a service there – he didn’t have any other sources. Did they offer cat massage in Japan? The investigation authors found in which the video was filmed and what they called the cat and the name of the cat is. It was established that it would not be possible to specially order the service. The animal is called Nya, and she lived in the Parbine Hikari beauty salon in the city of Hikari Yamaguti Prefecture. In February 2015, the owner of the salon wrote about the love of Nya to make massage to customers on her blog: a cat Nya-chan lives in Parbine Hikari, also known as a cat-aidol nya-chan. Nya-chan loves the customers of the salon and welcomes them with his “nia-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 is a cat-cosmetologist! About Nya in 2014 and 2016, they shot stories on Japanese television. And that very video with a massage in December 2014 was shown in the television program of Wan-Nean Club (“Club of Cats and Dogs”). As the fate of the nya-chan and cats named Mi-chan, who at the same time in Parbine, was further developed. The blog of the beauty salon has been abandoned, and in recent years other cats have already appeared there. At the same time, “cat massage” as a service is not mentioned on the Parbine website. “Checked. Media” failed to find such services in Japanese Kotokafa. But in one of the Kotokafe, the “Republic of Cats” in Osaka, there is a CAT SPA program, which costs just 1,500 yen per hour-as indicated in the posts of Russian telegram channels. However, this program does not have relations with spa procedures: customers simply spend time in a room, designed in retro-resistance of Japanese public baths. (Tagstotranslate) News

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