The musical rhythm games that are fixtures at Japanese arcades blur the line between video games and public performance. Even those who don’t see what’s so special about a 10-hit Tekken combo or one-credit shooter play-through can find themselves enthralled with tempo-perfect drumming or dancing, and expert rhythm gamers often garner a crowd of impressed onlookers watching them play.

The audience for this arcade dancer, though, didn’t consist of a throng of people, though, but instead a single kitty.

Japanese Twitter user @gamebetty_nanao recently stopped by the arcade to drop a hundred yen into rhythm game pioneer Konami’s DanceEvolution. The unit’s monitor displays a series of dance moves which the player imitates in time to the music being pumped out by the speakers.

In order for the motion sensors to pick up the player’s movements, he has to stand a few steps back from the machine. Obviously, onlookers are supposed to keep this area clear, and most arcades put out a mat or some other marker as a reminder. But when it came to the mat in front of the machine @gamebetty_nanao wanted to play, this cat didn’t interpret the message as “Keep out!” but as “Sleep here!”

Eventually the cat deigned to move over, but if it wasn’t getting a nap, then it at least wanted a show. Repositioning itself nearby, it stared back at @gamebetty_nanao.

▼ “I don’t mind having an audience, but it’s so close LOL.”

Dissatisfied with the lack of entertainment, the cat decided to reclaim the mat, likely feeling justified as the arcade had literally rolled out a red carpet. This didn’t do anything to ease @gamebetty_nanao’s self-consciousness, though.

▼ “Hey, I’m too embarrassed to dance now!”

Then again, they say you’re supposed to dance like nobody’s watching, which we guess should include cats. Maybe the animal was just trying to help by giving @gamebetty_nanao a little special training in shutting out the rest of the world and unlocking the dancer within. Or maybe, given that we’ve now seen felines loitering in both convenience stores and arcades, there’s a witch in Japan going around turning teenagers into cats.

Source: Jin, Twitter/@gamebetty_nanao (1, 2)