Lucky Cat Museum (Manekineko Art Museum)

The Lucky Cat Museum (Manekineko Bijutsukan) is a delightfully specialised museum devoted entirely to the maneki-neko, the beckoning cat that Japanese tradition holds brings good fortune. It sits amid quiet, green mountains in the Kanayamaji district of Okayama's Kita Ward, at around 250 metres elevation on the slopes below Mt. Kanayama, close to the ancient temple of Kinzanji.

The museum opened on 10 October 1994, founded on the idea that the folk culture of the beckoning cat, born in the Edo period, deserved to be cherished and passed on. Its first director became captivated by these humble figures of popular art and began collecting them, and today the museum displays a nationally renowned collection of roughly 700 to 800 cats, with items ranging from Meiji-era antiques through countless regional folk variants to contemporary artists' creations. They come in every material imaginable, wood, stone, ceramic and more, and in every size, filling the rooms so completely that the effect is genuinely overwhelming in the best way.

The main hall is a lovingly renovated old farmhouse, a kominka whose wooden beams and rural character are part of the charm; the museum even frames the changing seasons of the surrounding woods as art in their own right. Among the crowd of cats, one showstopper is a Lego maneki-neko built in 2020 on the theme of Japan by the Lego club of the University of Tokyo. Next to the main hall stands the Lucky Cats House annex, home to the Yamaneko Bunko library and, most popularly, a hands-on workshop where visitors can paint their own original maneki-neko for a small extra fee.

A charming piece of local lore is that the beckoning gesture carries meaning: a cat raising its right paw is said to invite money and good fortune, one raising its left to invite people and customers, and the colours signify different kinds of luck. Staff enjoy explaining these distinctions, and the museum has become one of Okayama's favourite power spots for those seeking a little good fortune.

The visiting experience is warm and unhurried, well suited to about an hour, and the on-site shop sells original beckoning-cat goods found nowhere else. Because the setting is a rustic hillside building, visitors should expect a countryside outing rather than a slick urban gallery; the reward is atmosphere and a break from the city. The museum is closed on Wednesdays, except when that day is a public holiday.

Autumn is arguably the loveliest time to come, when the wooded slopes of Mt. Kanayama blaze with colour around the old farmhouse, though spring greenery is also beautiful. Because it sits in the hills, the museum is best reached by car or taxi, roughly twenty minutes from Okayama Station. By rail, take the JR Tsuyama Line to Tamagashi or Makiyama Station and continue by taxi, since the final climb is long and steep. The JR Tsuyama Line is covered by the JR Rail Pass and IC cards are accepted, but do plan the last leg, and consider combining the trip with Kinzanji temple just down the road.