February 22nd (2/22) is Neko no Hi ("Cat Day") in Japan. This was decided by the Japan Pet Food Association in 1987 due to the date's resemblance to a cat saying "nyan nyan nyan." We decided to share a couple cat videos to celebrate!

By coincidence (?), one of the themes of the ongoing 8th MikuMikuDance cup is...cats!! This entrant did a series of short animations, all featuring the same surprisingly realistic (for MMD?) cat. "Take-Out" (starting at about 1:54) is about the cat's owner requesting just that; however, it seems this Miku can't be brought anywhere beyond her MMD world:

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm16960702

If you wake up early enough and turn on NHK Educational TV, you can catch 0655 TV, a five minute wake-up show playing cute animations, good-morning songs, and sometimes..."The Cat Song!!" NHK collects picture submissions from viewers who want to show off their pets and edits them into a video. There is also a dog version, but since today is Cat Day, someone lovingly crafted a cover video and posted to YouTube:

Sample lyrics:

I'm a cat. x2

Here is my house. x2

This is my usual meal.

This is also a usual meal.

That's a toy I really like.

Happy Cat day 2012!

via Japanese Twitter Trending Topics (ネコの日、ねこの日）