A shape-shifting bakeneko depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Hyakki Tsurezurebukuro. It is a split-tailed cat balancing a gotoku—an iron trivet for a hearth—like a crown, fanning the fire with a blowpipe. Sekien plays on the phrase “gotoku-no-kanja” from Tsurezuregusa, punning on the utensil name. Scholars note continuity with Muromachi-period Night Parade scrolls that show figures wearing trivets, placing this design within that iconographic lineage.
Folklore & Legends
In Tsurezuregusa section 226, the courtier Yukinaga forgets two virtues of the dance “Seven Virtues,” earning the nickname “Man of Five Virtues” (gotoku-no-kanja); Sekien cites this and adds a wordplay note. Muromachi Hyakki Yagyō scrolls depict beings with trivets on their heads, and Gotoku Neko is understood as drawing on that imagery. Later writers say it stokes its own hearth fire, but early sources give few concrete behaviors.
Yokai Cards2
Gotoku Neko (Trivet Cat) across multiple art-style decks
This version reconstructs the Gotoku-neko based on Toriyama Sekien’s original image and earlier iconography. An aged cat with a forked tail wears a trivet like a crown and lingers at the hearth’s edge. In Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro, Sekien plays with the boundary between tool-spirits and animal-spirits, citing Tsurezuregusa’s “Crowned Trivet” and offering a punning interpretation. Thus the Gotoku-neko is not merely a monster cat but a symbolic being linking utensils and literary sources. The Muromachi-period Night Parade scrolls show a yokai bearing a trivet among figures balancing tools on their heads; Sekien follows that lineage while giving it a feline form. The postwar notion that it “kindles fire by itself” derives from later guesses about the depicted blowpipe; older records do not specify such acts. Accordingly, in this version it is restrainedly treated as an apparition seen by the hearth, attended by the presence of fire.
Character Profile
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
often sighted in places associated with fire and household utensils
Abilities
said to bear a forked tail as a long-lived catappears at the hearth accompanied by a sense of firemanifests unexpectedly as a symbolic being bound to household utensils
Weaknesses
details unknown, sometimes said to dislike loud noises and strong light like ordinary cats
Habitat
rooms with an irori hearth, old kitchens, barns and earthen-floored rooms
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