Bakeneko

The bakeneko is a cat yokai in Japanese mythology. Known to be tricksters.

Information
When a feral or domestic cats reaches old age, it begins to develop supernatural powers and they become yokai. They begin their yokai life looking like regular cats, eventually gaining the power to stand on their hind legs and shapeshifting. Particularly disguising themselves as humans, sometimes even the cat's owner.

In regular form, they can eat things much larger than they are, even poisonous things without trouble at all. They can bring great misfortune and curses upon their owner, known to summon ghostly fires that can cause housefires to humans.

(Fun fact: Although rare, there can be bakeneko of big cats)

To me, this bakeneko girl hides away from humans entirely, with a small village of regular cats.

Backstory
Cats can become bakeneko be a thing for a few reasons, commonly;


 * Living a long life, at least 13-14 years old.


 * Growing to a particular size

Another superstition of becoming bakeneko, is growing a long tail. This led to humans bobbing cats' tails at an early age, to prevent it from becoming bakeneko. (Japanese Bobtail cats, for example.)
 * By licking up large quantities of lamp oil (Yeah it sounds weird to me too)