User:Execjosh/Néko Nabé

Néko-nabé (ねこ鍋) is a video clip of cats (ねこ) that have balled themselves up and fallen asleep inside earthenware pots (土鍋).

It was originally uploaded to Nico Nico Douga in August, 2007 by a user named エレファント (erefanto), who is apparently a woman in the farming business that lives in Iwate Prefecture. By October 1st of the same year, the video had been viewed more than 550,000 times, and also was being marketed in DVD and photobook form.

Overview
The author noticed her kittens climbing into and sleeping inside some earthenware pots, which she had lain out on the floor with the intent of cleaning. She filmed the kittens and uploaded the video to Nico Nico Douga.

Initially, some users raised accusations of animal abuse, saying that the author must have forced the kittens inside the pots. However, another video, Néko-nabé: Extra Scenes (『ねこ鍋〜補足〜』), was later released showing the kittens climbing into the pots of their own volition. As cats are known generally to like tight spaces, the fact that they enjoy the pots is nothing too extaordinary. Prior to Néko-nabé, many other images of cats in funny places, such as empty boxes, had already been released on the internet and in various magazines.

Néko-nabé has many different scenes: a kitten curled up in a perfectly sized pot; kittens searching pots for a best fit; multiple kittens cramming into one pot; etc. A full-grown cat can also be seen in the video; but, it does not try to climb into any of the pots (perhaps they were too small for its taste).

Four of the featured kittens, actually, had been found discarded near a river and adopted by エレファント in June of 2007. She uploaded a video of the four to Nico Nico Douga and asked users to help out with deciding their names. That video received many comments, such as "they're so cute!" After the naming poll video, she continued to document their growth by uploading more videos of the quartet, one of which happened to be the now infamous Néko-nabé.

Names have been established for the different types of néko-nabé. The name depends on how many cats there are :
 * 1 cat is an average portion (並盛り);
 * 2 cats is a large portion (大盛り);
 * 3 cats is an extra-large portion (特盛り);
 * 4 cats is either a super portion (もり盛り) or an extreme portion (激盛り)

Starting with its being featured on NHK's This Week and You (未来観測 つながるテレビ@ヒューマン) on August 26, 2007, Néko-nabé began to appear more and more in mass media such as newspapers and shūkanshi.

A DVD entitled 『ねこ鍋』 (neko nabe) was released on October 17, 2007 by dwango AG Entertainment (ドワンゴ・エージー・エンタテインメント), a sister company of Niwango (ニワンゴ), the operators of Nico Nico Douga. After that, Kodansha released an official photobook, and Futami Shobo Publishing released a book version of the blog.

The Cats

 * Ichigō (1号), a female
 * Monpé (モンペ), a female
 * Nyangorō (ニャンゴロー), a white & brown male tabby
 * Manzu (まんず), a female calico
 * Niko-bō (ニコ坊), a white & brown male tabby
 * Mashumaro-daibutsu (ましゅまろ大仏), nicknamed Masuro (ますろ), an all-white male

The remaining four are the kittens that were named via the name poll video on Nico Nico Douga.

Publications

 * DVD Néko-nabé (『ねこ鍋』), dwango AG Entertainment (ドワンゴ・エージー・エンタテインメント), 2007-10-17, ASIN B000W4RUFC
 * Néko-nabé: Cats from Michinoku (『ねこ鍋―みちのく猫ものがたり』), Futami Shobo Publishing (二見書房), 2007-10-25, ISBN 4576072064
 * Néko-nabé Photobook (写真集『ねこ鍋』), Kodansha, 2007-11-1, ISBN 4062144042