It wasn’t. It was Chinese without any ambiguity[2] because of the word order[1]. Also, Japanese equivalent would have been longer and used characters specific t

It wasn’t. It was Chinese without any ambiguity[2] because of the word order[1]. Also, Japanese equivalent would have been longer and used characters specific to Japanese (hiragana) to write flexion of the verb, and casual particles. [1] One could argue it may have been kanbun, that is Classical Chinese read with Japanese readings, but I think the character meaning cat was written in its simplified form (which is the same in Japanese and Simplified Chinese) so this rule this out. And someone which that much knowledge would state it if it was the case. [2] Edit: the choice of vocabulary, while existing in Chinese, leaned a bit towards Japanese. I'm asking native Chinese speaker for confirmation. So, it was a weird mix, but not real Japanese. PS: as far as I remember is was written 山猫求家族 but I may be wrong.