The man who makes memes manifest makes his latest masked masterpiece known.

Twitter user @meetisai is a genius when it comes to figurines, a scientist of sculpture. There’s no other way to describe the content he puts out into the world: he takes things that do not exist, and arguably should not exist, and makes them corporeal.

▼ “I made a dog based on this dooooooooog photo taken in a panoramic shot.”

His work runs the gamut from adorable fluffy animals to terrifying monstrosities, and sometimes one figure encompasses both those properties. In fact, @meetisai is mostly known on the English-language web for one thing: his meme cats.

▼ “I made this cat that’s dancing to the Odoru Pompokolin.”

If there’s a popular photo of a cat making the rounds, there’s a pretty high chance @meetisai will turn it into a figure, which leads us to our latest star:

▼ “I never set out to make this…”

The source image on the left is a photograph that went viral a few days prior on the Chinese social media site Siina Weibo, and depicts a cat on a leash wearing a face mask. Face masks are currently in high demand due to the coronavirus outbreak, but this cat’s owner was willing to spare a mask for the sake of their pet.

@meetisai went right to work recreating the masked cat, and his eye for detail managed a faithful recreation of everything from the cat’s fur patterns to the snipped-out eyeholes on its tiny plastic face-mask.

▼ It’s a bit unnerving to have it look right at you. (translation below)

“You probably shouldn’t put masks on your cats outside of very specific emergency situations, like with this recent new strain of virus. Try not to copy this with your own pets…”

Unfortunately, @meetissai’s followers took this as an invitation to post lots of cute animals wearing face masks.

▼ Here’s another cat…

▼ A dog…

▼ And, er, is that an alpaca?

https://twitter.com/smokysky1/status/1227058950429794304

To be fair, though, @meetisai’s little sculpture has had a big impact across the web. Not only did it inspire a wave of photo edits in the replies, heralding from the post-apocalyptic manga-turned-anime Dorohedoro to the whacky pose-a-thon franchise JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure…

https://twitter.com/Doge3329/status/1227065410261942272

…but the figure itself became a viral hit in the Chinese corner of the web as well.

▼ “So cute! You’re trending in my native country, too!”

https://twitter.com/umi_kssm/status/1227069575956533248

Other comments from Chinese users in the thread thank Japan for providing aid during the outbreak and generally highlight how, at a time when relationships are especially tense between China and Japan, this cute little cat figure serves as a symbol of unity. Even during the roughest times, all of us can appreciate a very silly cat wearing a face mask that’s too big for its own head. Especially in plastic figurine form.

Source, featured image: Twitter/@meetissai
Related: Meetissai’s Gallery
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