Cats are big in Japan. With their faces showing up on virtually every product imaginable, it’s safe to say that they?re a huge part of the nation?s pop culture. In Japanese folklore, cats symbolize good fortune, and putting a ?maneki neko? (beckoning cat) statue in front of your business is believed to help draw in customers and overall prosperity. There?s even an entire island, Tashirojima, where thousands of stray cats thrive without the presence of dogs and outnumber the local human population. So it?s no surprise that Japanese designers would create furniture specifically for feline usage that rivals both the quality and craftsmanship of its human-sized counterparts.

Our feline friends are decidedly unpretentious about their digs. Give a cat a suitcase full of clothes to lay in, and she?ll purr in thanks (and shed all over it). Offer her a cardboard box, and she?ll be even more content. So most cats probably aren?t going to turn their noses up at ridiculously adorable modern furniture made exactly to scale for their enjoyment.
As part of a new campaign called “craftsman MADE,” which aims to revive the historically successful craft industry of Japan?s Fukuoka prefecture, artisan collective Okawa Kagu used its members’ combined skill sets to produce a line of high quality, beautifully produced feline furniture. These pieces don?t look like typical cat beds, and that?s because they?re actually just tiny versions of each participating craftsperson?...