Grave of the Fur flies

 Apologies for the bad pun in the title, though I guess it is kind of apt. Have been wading through a ton of spam in my inbox (the usual suspects here, and for some reason Norton which I've not used for over a decade) and reading books.

Sky Sabotage, which you'll probably get, soon, Private Eye's SARS 2 electric boogaloo casebook, about what should have happened when the coof arrived. And Meeting in Japan, Fosco Maraini, which the heading pertains to.

August time, so I'm guessing O-bon festival, it talks about Buddhist remembrance festivals for the fish taken and something about cats and Hachiko the Dog, bravely waiting for its master down at Shibuya.  Can remember bits from The World Ends With You where its implied he only stayed there because people gave him tidbits to eat.

Anyway, before I digress further, the cat bits and fishlore I've not heard before and as it was written in the late 50's (Italian Original) or early 60's (English Translation) maybe its the last gasp of old Japan, before the new Showa era wiped it out.

In August Buddhist monks and laymen go down the Sumida river in boats, both to say prayers for the drowned and to apologize to the fish of the river for having taken their lives with rod and line, spear, and net. At the Oizumi cemetery, and in many other places, impressive services are held for the souls of dead cats and dogs and other animals, sometimes including insects. On such occasions many people visit the graves of cats who became famous for saving their master's lives, often in highly dramatic circumstances; the celebrated Gokoku-ji and Eko-in cats, for instance. There is a bridge in Tokyo, the Nekomatabashi, dedicated to a cat which, with a somewhat under-developed sense of private property, tried to relieve the poverty of its sick mistress by stealing small gold objects from a neighbouring moneylender. 

The paragraph goes on to describe loyal doggo, Hachiko, waiting for his master's return.

Looking at English sources for this I've found very little about this gift giving cat, only that the bridge was in Koisihkawa ward in Tokyo (home of the Tokyo dome) and that the area is mostly unscathed from quakes, WW2 firebombing, and other disasters. It's also home to some impressive Tokugawa Shogunate graves too.

A monster cat lived there (Nekomata) and people were scared to cross it. There is also an Ukiyo-e print of a demon Weedle, from that area, too. I know it best from Megaten. 

There are plenty of tales of cats dragging stuff back to their owners, so maybe this is some postwar version from Japan. 

Edit. Found out what Eko-in is about, there's a shrine to cats and dogs there. Gokoku-ji is probably Gotokuji, as linked above (another cat shrine).