Village in Thailand uses Doraemon plush to ask for rain

If you use Twitter, you probably saw the viral tweet showing people in Thailand placing a Doraemon doll inside a cage to ask for rain in the region, when in fact the tradition says a real cat should be used.

This story is actually true, and according to comments everyone finds it funny. There is just one issue: it dates back to 2024. The photos and videos are also from that year. I don’t know if this happened again in 2025 or this year.

Let’s get into the story.

Village in Thailand uses Doraemon plush to ask for rain

The situation happened in the village of Phayuha Khiri in 2024, where residents were facing months of severe drought. With no real cats available in the area, the community decided to use a plush toy of the Doraemon character in a symbolic parade through the streets, believing it could attract rain.

The belief comes from local traditions that associate cats with rain, since these animals usually avoid water. Because of that, the symbolic presence of a “cat” would be a way to encourage rainfall to return.

Watch below a video of what happened in 2024:

Although the event happened in 2024, the case gained traction again on social media in 2026, being shared as if it were recent. It started when the Japanese profile Tanatana5252 posted the news on June 15, reaching over 1 million views and going viral.

Shortly after, the Spanish page AnimeTrends copied the post, reaching an even larger audience of 2 million. Being thorough, I always check sources, and I found that the images and video circulating in these posts are from 2024.

To give you an idea, I found an article from the Extra website talking about it in 2024, which you can check here. Still, it’s an amusing story.

Above, you can see a photo showing the same ritual, but this time with a real cat