A Digital Cat Is Melting Hearts (and Napping a Lot) in Japan

“There are many reasons we decided to display the cat, but one of the big reasons is that with corona, the world became very dark,” Mr. Ohkawa added, referring to the coronavirus pandemic. “Through the cat display, we wanted to revive Shinjuku and make it brighter.”

Officials in Tokyo reported 920 new Covid-19 infections on Wednesday, the city’s highest tally since mid-May. On Thursday, the Japanese government placed Tokyo under its fourth state of emergency since the start of the pandemic, weeks before the city is scheduled to host the Summer Olympics.

When one fan of the feline, Kenjiro Shimoda, stopped by Shinjuku station recently, he saw other people hanging around waiting to record multiple cat cameos. He could only stay long enough to see one, he said, but it was worth it.

“Its impact was more powerful than I thought,” said Mr. Shimoda, who works in marketing.

It isn’t the first three-dimensional billboard to delight pedestrians and social media users in East Asia. One last year in Seoul displayed a crashing wave. Another, in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, showed a “Star Trek”-like spaceship that appeared to emerge from a building.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/world/asia/japan-cat-billboard.html