There’s nothing complicated about it. It’s a mold that you can use to build shapes in the sand, much like a whole lot of plastic toys out there. For some reason, though, the fact that you can use the Neko Cup to build the likeness of a cat makes it so much more special.
Want to surround yourself with sand sculptures of cats in repose the next time you’re chilling at the beach? Sure, this thing will work for that. How about building a sand city with a cat lazily looking over it? Yes, that will work, too. Basically, if you like to build cat shapes with sand, this thing lets you do that without the need for elaborate sculpting work.
The Neko Cup is an erstwhile standard mold with a chamber shaped to resemble the likeness of a sleeping cat. It’s made from biomass plastic and has been designed to work with regular sand, although it should be functional enough to shape any grainy materials, so you can use soil if you’re making cat sculptures in the backyard garden, kinetic sand if you want to make one indoors without the mess, or even cat food, if you want to make your cat eat a cat because you have a weird sense of humor.
Basically, any small grainy or sticky material that you can gather plenty of should work with the mold. The product page, for instance, showcases a serving of cat-shaped fried rice, while a cat-shaped block of ice sounds like it’s going to make any cooler look way more fun than usual.
The Neko Cup comes in three colors, white, black, and beige. It’s available from Japan Trend Shop, priced at $47.