Although cats are popular in Japan, a cat cafe there has run afoul of animal cruelty laws, and has been closed:
The Cat’s Paw cafe in Tokyo’s Sumida district has fallen foul of the city authorities amid concern about neglect for the animals.
City authorities said the cafe had to close for a month for violating the animal welfare act. The 30sq metre cafe was home to 62 cats, many of them elderly and in bad health. In the cramped conditions, illness allegedly spread among the cats, leading customers to report the cafe for animal cruelty….
“The cafe breached animal welfare laws, so we took action,” Yachiyo Kurihara of the Tokyo Animal Welfare Centre told The Guardian. “We warned the cafe in January and told them how to treat their cats better, but the neglect continued.”
See, Japanese cat cafe closed down over neglect fears @ The Guardian.