>>283597665
So, yeah, in the Japanese, we had the term 猫鬼 used for both bubbles but with furigana clarifying which pronunciation to use. 猫鬼 can also be read as nekomata which is a whole other cat thing. Furinkan notes that: "Historically we see references made to the creatures in the court of Emperor Wen of the Sui dynasty (541-604 CE) when members of his extended court were supposedly worshipping and controlling a maogui cat demon in order to sicken court rivals." I googled it and yeah, in Book of Sui, a historical record talks about this.