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Celebrating The Quirky And Playful Side Of Cats: 50 Of The Best Photos By Masayuki Oki
Interview With Artist
For more than ten years, Tokyo-based photographer Masayuki Oki has been documenting the everyday lives of stray cats across Japan. His photos capture them just as they are — curious, sleepy, grumpy, affectionate, and everything in between. Oki has a special talent for noticing the small moments that reveal each cat’s unique personality, turning ordinary encounters on the street into touching, funny, and sometimes surprisingly emotional portraits.
This time, we’re doing something special — a celebration of the very best of Oki’s work. We’ve gathered the top photographs shared on Bored Panda over the years — the ones our readers loved most, voted for, and couldn’t stop commenting on. These are the moments that made us smile, laugh, and maybe even tear up a little. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this ultimate collection of Masayuki Oki’s most beloved cat photos — a purrfect tribute to the street cats that have captured all our hearts.
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Masayuki’s journey began by chance. “It was New Year’s Eve, and I was very exhausted. I went to a nearby park to have a break, where I met a cat in the middle of the road. From the time I met it, the course of my life changed greatly,” he once told Bored Panda. That cat — Busanyan Senpai — became his first muse and the reason he picked up his camera the next day. “The more I looked at the cat, the bigger an urge I felt to photograph it. A passion was born in my heart.”
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Since then, Oki has spent countless hours walking through Tokyo’s backstreets and traveling to Japan’s “cat islands” to meet and photograph new feline faces. He says each cat teaches him something different. “Sometimes I feel as if the cats are telling me to capture the moment, making them my photography teachers,” he shared. “Once you know the quirks, you can predict the future and find the best shooting position.”
But photographing cats isn’t always easy. In recent years, Oki has noticed that the number of stray cats in Tokyo has been decreasing due to TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) efforts. “Lately, the number of cats I photograph in Tokyo has been decreasing... As a result, my photography days have also decreased, and I often go more to check on the cats’ well-being rather than to photograph them.” Still, he makes time to visit cat islands for longer photo trips, photographing “relentlessly from sunrise to sunset.”
Through all these years, his motivation has stayed the same. “I've always hoped that my cat photos would bring happiness to people around the world, and I approach my photography with that belief,” Oki said. “It might sound laughable, but my feelings about this haven’t changed.”
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April Pickett 3 weeks ago
How do they do that? He looks comfortable, but how did he get there? It's a cat mystery.
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B Hobbs 3 weeks ago (edited)
Later, "Cat! It was a HUGE leaf! It kept trying to wrap around me. I kept shredding it, it kept attacking me. It felt like we fought for hours. Finally the wind picked it up. It is probably two or three blocks away by now. I need a four hour nap now. Wake me up if the fish truck comes."
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Sinead Kenny 3 weeks ago
Wow! Imagine if I had 4 of them instead of these killer pins? I'd be so sleek and fast!
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