Lilo, the advantage Lucy cat

Lilo, the advantage Lucy cat.

There’s a park in Suginami ward in Tokyo that’s notorious for the number of unwanted pets left behind there by delinquent owners. To find a home for these animals, the park has been giving them away during weekends to anyone who is interested.

It was on one of their trips to this park that rock band advantage Lucy’s Aiko and Ishizaka saw the kitten that they’d later name "Lilo" and fell in love with at first sight. The cat was being washed by kids, who rescued it after it fell of a cliff into an oily creek, Aiko writes in her Internet diary.

"The kitten was stiff and its eyes were wide-open after the accident, as many kids washed it and it became covered in bubbles. I couldn’t forget the sight of it, and went to adopt it the day after the last show," she says. They went to the park to see if it was still available, and it was.

Now advantage Lucy’s Internet diary is filled with stories about this kitten that has found a home. They seem to be a bit ambitious about the cat’s future though: they say they want to make it the band’s new keyboard player.

But it’s clear Lilo will at the least serve as a Muse for a new advantage Lucy song or two. One of their musician friends said it’s great to own a cat because thinking about the cat, you can write love songs without being embarrassed or self-conscious. (Japanese are generally sentimental people, but usually not very romantic, at least not publicly.)