r/interestingasfuck • u/Miserable-Zombie-121 • 19h ago
In 1989, a pelican named Katta-kun began going to a kindergarten in Japan where it played and interacted with the children as if it were one of them.
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u/RocZi 19h ago edited 19h ago
When you are not enrolled in primary school, you can't just waddle into their classroom
But a pelican
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u/cambiro 19h ago
Another bird also entered, because toucan play this game.
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u/shaft_of_lite 17h ago
From what I understand that's one of the cardinal rules.
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u/OverUnderAussie 18h ago
Just because you Pelican, doesn't mean you Pelishould
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u/BlueSoccerChicken 16h ago
My grandpa used to say “a funny bird is a pelican, its beak can hold more than its bellycan”
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u/davespark 15h ago
It can hold in its beak, enough food for a week, but I don’t know how in the hell he can
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u/BlueSoccerChicken 14h ago
Thank you. I knew there was more, but it’s been decades so I couldn’t remember
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u/Significant-Force671 19h ago
Damn what they feeding the pelicans in Japan?
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 19h ago
Kindergarteners
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u/CatTheKitten 13h ago
Regrettably, pelicans really are this big. I worked with American pelicans for a brief period and they were about 3.5' to 4' tall.
As someone who is 5'1, it is intimidating!
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u/BecauseMagnets 18h ago
It’s like I’m watching a live action Ghibli film
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u/PeanutButterSoda 15h ago
Japan had all the cool animals, there's some dog that gets fish from the market every morning, some dude has a penguin that visits every year, some old guy with a giant ass tortoise that he walks thru town. There's probably more I don't know about.
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u/tinythobbit 15h ago
The island of cats! Where the people who live in that island, they take care of the cats. I think there is more cats than people.
Another island, is the rabbit island! Tons and tons of wild rabbits, who are used to people. It is a beautiful tourist destination.
Deer island is the other one too! I think these deer are the ones that bow to you before taking the food you offer to them. Again, another tourist destination :)
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u/oxkwirhf 10h ago
Not an island, the deers you're referring to are from Nara. It's super popular as a tourist destination the deers are well fed indeed.
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u/crematory_dude 8h ago
Separately from the deer from Nara the deer on Miyajima island are not politely bowing before taking your food. They will in-fact rudely steal it from you and possibly headbutt you as well. They are cute about it though
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u/BecauseMagnets 15h ago
I saw that video of the penguin with a backpack! The neighbors would hose down the hot asphalt so it didn’t burn his feet. I want to visit Japan one day just to witness some of this stuff.
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u/K_Boloney 13h ago
Almost like cultures that respect wildlife gets all the cool benefits. I'm jealous, but I get it.
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u/NuuclearPasta 11h ago
Huhh but their zoos and animal cafes are infamous for poor conditions. Look it up, owls for example.
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u/24-7_DayDreamer 12h ago
On my last trip I met a woman walking her pet meerkats through the park, the year before that I saw an old dude with some cockatiels on little leashes hanging out
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u/BandwagonerSince95 12h ago
Cats that are train station managers and shibas that get arrested for breaking speed limits.
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u/track01dotwav 9h ago
all the animals that want to kill you are in Australia
all the animals that want to be your friend are in Japan
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u/cefriano 14h ago
My first thought was, "So this is definitely a spirit from a Myazaki movie that will turn back into a boy when he returns to his magical noodle cart or whatever."
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u/azad_ninja 18h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/F8MQwolVRPCiQ
The Pelican is a patient and selective hunter
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u/mpg111 17h ago
you can't trust them - trying to eat the chillest animal
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u/Melodic_Sail_6193 13h ago
my first thought was also that this pelican just came to the school to eat those kids.
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u/Humble-Reply228 18h ago
I like the angry goose or whatever it was at the end that hassled nonchalantly eating birds pelican
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u/Renbarre 18h ago
In the St James's park in London there was a rule, if a pelican ate other birds, especially chicks, they would be sent to the London zoo at the third meal.
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u/Daveinbelfast 16h ago
That is an awesome factoid! Pelican Jail!
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u/Isekaimerican 16h ago
Pelicans are a symbol of self-sacrifice in Catholicism, because it was believed that they would pull out their feathers to feed to their chicks their own blood in times of famine.
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u/SJane3384 17h ago
That is a Canada Goose. The angriest of geese.
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u/Zwischenzug32 17h ago
Know how making eye contact or smiling at an ape makes them flip their shit? Canada Geese have always that madness
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u/Phoenix__Wwrong 18h ago
I remember a post/comment about someone saying there's no bird that eats another bird.
I guess this is a counterexample
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u/Areshall 18h ago
That's the dumbest thing I've heard in a while. guy doesn't get out much I guess.
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u/Nervous-Salamander-7 17h ago
What are falcons supposed to eat, lol. For sure they don't dive at 300 km/h to catch prey on the ground, otherwise we'd have falcons hammering themselves into the ground all over the place...
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u/feioo 16h ago edited 16h ago
Fun fact, just because I like falcons: when they stoop (dive) to catch prey - birds on the wing, as you know - they're going so fast they can't just grab the birds without injuring their talons, so they hit the flying bird with both fists, often killing them on impact, or knocking them to the ground hard enough that that impact kills them. So, falcon punches are a real thing!
Also they have cool little bone plugs in their nostrils that close the airway when they stoop, so they don't have air rushing up their nose at 200mph. I just thought that was a cool thing people deserve to know
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u/Nervous-Salamander-7 16h ago
I do love falcons as well. We had a falcon cam up on my old office building every year because they nested up there. I think the local pigeons were their go-to.
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u/HappyGoat32 16h ago
We have a guy who brings falcons to my work to scare of the seagulls. I FUCKING LOVE IT. I always time my breaks so I can go watch them. My wife thinks I'm autistic.
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u/skonen_blades 17h ago
I remember witnessing my first bird on bird violence moment and being quite shocked. But it became clear after a little research that birds so in fact kill other birds all the time.
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u/you_looser 17h ago
Toucans are voracious nest predators and love to eat baby birds.
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u/skonen_blades 16h ago
I, like a silly goose, once let pigeons nest on my balcony because I'd never seen a baby pigeon. They hatched and I do have to say, baby pigeons are gross. But my point is that one day I came home and the babies were gone and there was blood on the balcony. I lived on the third floor. At first I was like "Jeez, how did a cat get all the way up to my balcony?!?" but then then I saw all the seagulls and crows around my building and did the math. Brutal.
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u/1HappyIsland 17h ago
I just pulled out of my driveway when a red tailed hawk exploded in midair a poor mockingbird right in front of the windshield. It was shockingly gory and extremely violent and I was utterly shocked!
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u/Direct_Cook_7690 17h ago
I witnessed a falcon tear apart a pigeon. It was amazing, and not surprising.
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u/natsumi_kins 17h ago
I have seen seagulls eating pigeons in the neighbour's back yard.
Poor pigeons...
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u/skonen_blades 16h ago edited 16h ago
I remember I came home once and there were white feathers on my sidewalk but no body. Another feather fluttered down so I looked up and there was a pigeon or smaller seagull on its back on a branch with its wings extended and a Cooper's hawk (I think) having a hearty meal of its insides. I was like "Oh my gosh. Right. They eat each other."
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u/Ohmec 14h ago
There's a red-tailed hawk that swings by my neighborhood for like 2 weeks every year and murders like 30% of the bird population while screaming bloody murder 24/7. It'll kill other birds just for funsies. I'd come out on my back patio and it would be in a tree, tearing a blue jay to shreds, blood and feathers flying everywhere, screaming its fucking head off while the blue jay's mate screams at it from another branch. Metal shit.
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u/--Sovereign-- 16h ago
Many birds of prey specifically feed on other birds to the point of specialization.
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u/charface1 18h ago
I dream of a future where we're all Japanese kids going to school with pelicans.
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u/Separate-Simple-5101 18h ago
The hardest part is convincing the pelicans, not the kids.
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u/AppropriateScience9 17h ago
I seriously think that humans could be wood elves if we wanted to.
We would just do it in a very human way. Like a bunch of Japanese kindergartners playing with a pelican, a middle aged lady caring for an orphaned baby beaver and calling them "stupid cute," or a dude with a banjo saranading a wild fox, or a team of dude bros rescuing seals caught in fishing nets. And I think it's absolutely glorious.
So guys, come on. Let's be wood elves. Y'all know you want to.
Wood elves! Wood elves! Wood elves!
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u/Prior-Stranger2738 19h ago
I could sometimes just watch any videos of a time before social media came out and they instantly lower my cortisol levels.
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u/Imanflow 19h ago
I was totally expecting that the pelican would try to eat a kid.
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u/Sweet_Bypass69 19h ago
why do you think its "hanging out" with them...lower their guards and when no one's looking...gulp
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u/Incompetencent 18h ago
thats probably the only reason its going there in the first place, like "surely there has to be one small enough to eat, they have to be somewhere"
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u/Carlos_Infierno 19h ago
Right? I didn't expect it to end well. Pelicans are dinosaurs.. or the descendents of pterodactyls. Yikes
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u/SlowlyDyingInAPit 18h ago
Must’ve been an extremely sad day when it stopped showing up
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u/Beholder_V 18h ago
I wish I had the confidence of a pelican. Those mfers just do whatever the fuck they feel like. Hey, I wonder if that dog will fit in my beak. It’s ok, if not no one will take me seriously.
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u/johnnyrollerball69 18h ago
This is the most Ghibli thing i've seen in quite some time.
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u/epabafree 19h ago
I feel sad that in a few more months, if something like this shows up, chances are high tht it is AI Generated.
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u/colin_dev 19h ago
I regret to inform you that Katta-kun is also insanely racist.
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u/Forever_Inspired 18h ago
But is Katta-Kun also homophobic and transphobic?
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u/FrenchFryCattaneo 17h ago
I saw Katta-kun at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
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u/Important-Basil-6612 19h ago
Its happening right now
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u/Icy_Agency923 18h ago
Not as often as Redditors think. I see AI claimed almost daily on Reddit and then I spend about 10 seconds googling for a source and find the video is several years old or more. These people can't be bothered to try and find a source, they just blindly claim AI like they are some sort of armchair expert.
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u/South-Capital6388 17h ago
Being able to just claim everything is AI (on top of using AI to cheat on every test) has finally given people the excuse they were looking for to stop thinking critically and just turn their brains off.
It's kind of a meme to rag on the new gens at this point, but kids these days are actually cooked. They either believe AI at face value or claim that everything is fake without further investigation.
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u/Caledor152 17h ago
Also keep in mind there is a shit ton of bots on all social media that will literally get confused from older footage and claim AI. But yes also idiots
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u/Califrisco 16h ago
Wikipedia adds this: "There are great white pelicans living in an enclosure at the park. "Katta-kun", a pelican named because his parents came from Kolkata in India, was born there in 1985 and became a mascot for the park after visiting schools nearby by himself. An anime film titled Katta-kun Monogatari was made about him in 1995. Katta-kun died in 2008."
19 years later!
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u/peacefighter 18h ago
I have been teaching at Japanese kindergartens for almost 20 years now and haven't had this happen yet. I am still waiting.
Although, now that I think of it, I think I might have been the pelican at the kindergartens the whole time. The kids have a very similar excitement and energy level when they see me.
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u/Consistent-Goat1267 18h ago
Maybe he never got the chance to go to kindergarten so he’s reliving his youth
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u/lowonstorage 18h ago
Lol at that one kid holding both of his arms up as if signaling he’s not a threat
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u/kuburas 10h ago
I grossly underestimated the size of pelicans, but at the same time i also grossly overestimated the size of kindergarten aged kids.
That mf is larger than those kids, but he's also half as large as some of those adults too. Big big birds.
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u/Wilsonrolandc 17h ago
🎶Doesn't wear a disguise,
Acts like a human child,
But you're not a kid,
You are Katta-Kun. 🎶
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u/TheWhyteMaN 16h ago
*In 1989, a pelican named Katta-kun began going to a kindergarten in Japan where it played and interacted with the children as if it were one of them searched for children that could fit in its mouth
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u/NoFunShogun 13h ago
Okay, I see that a film was already made about it, but this clearly needs to be turned into a 300+ episode slice of life anime following his journey all the way from kindergarten to graduating from high school with that class.
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u/violetjedi 18h ago
I was never the same when I saw a video of a pelican swallowing a rabbit.
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u/Caped-baldy32 16h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/BensXcEmnAkcXfwoar
They boutta eat the kids like they do with a Capybara.
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u/DRUGMUSIC_ 8h ago
that pelican can swallow one of those kids and disappear in a heartbeat, that's the game plan for it,i bet.
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u/BernardMatthewsNorf 8h ago
This is the most adorable thing I will see this week. And that's a good note to sign off on for the day. Good night Reddit.
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u/Meal__Team__Six 8h ago
In the US, teachers would have been stomping out the fun after 4.1 milliseconds. Whole school would’ve been in emergency lockdown and animal control called.
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u/Jupetaco 18h ago
Imagine you meet someone and they go “yeah I used to go to school with a pelican” 😵💫
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u/Uthor_ 19h ago
Only in japan i swear lmao 🤣 this is why they make anime so well cause of crazy shit like this happening to them. Katta-Kun Anime would be fire btw
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u/Mumbled_Jumbo 18h ago
That's simply magical. Those children have a memory and a story to tell the rest of their lives that not many could match.
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u/Caledor152 17h ago
" Katta-kun (カッタくん), the rosy pelican from Tokiwa Park in Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, died on July 16, 2008, at age 23.
ja.wikipedia.org
He was born on July 8, 1985, via Japan’s first successful artificial incubation of the species, and became famous in 1989 for regularly flying about 800 meters to Meiko Kindergarten, where he interacted with the children. He was found deceased around noon on Pelican Island in the park; he had been seen energetic the day before.
His story later inspired an anime film, and descendants of his lineage (including great-grandchildren) have since been born at the same park."
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u/TardisMaximus 15h ago
The pelican's thinking... "If only I had gone to a baby day care".
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u/kpingvin 15h ago
In 25 years these kids will tell this stories to their grandchildren and they'll be like, "Yeah, right..."
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u/fetal-attraction 7h ago
If I was a kid this would be dope as fuck 😂. The last time I went to the zoo it was okay, nothing special. Watching my cat was more fun than going to the zoo
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u/Effective_Olive6153 5h ago
there's no way this would work in a US school, either some kids would attack it or parents would sue the school for some made up safety reasons
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u/marty_regal 1h ago
Those kids are in their 40s now and either no one believes them or maybe they think it was just a dream. Lol
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u/Hitman3256 17h ago
"The most famous animal of this zoo by far is Katta-kun, the friendly white pelican. Katta-kun was a rescue pelican who became the zoo’s unofficial mascot after he started to regularly escape and visit locals schools during the day. He would always return and never endangered any residence so the zoo decided to give him free reign of the city. Japanese people use to travel just to see the friendly bird, and he even had his own animated film “Katta-kun Monogatari.” Katta-kun unfortunately passed away in 2008, but his memory lives on in memorials and merchandise found at the zoo."
https://travel.gaijinpot.com/tokiwa-park/