In 2004, a small railway line in Wakayama, Japan, was about to be shut down. Local people fought to keep it. Then, in 2007, the little station at the end of the line got a new stationmaster: Tama, a calico cat from the station shop, paid in cat food. This is her true story, from a small shop in Akita.

Made by a small shop in Akita, Japan (UEK STORE)

Chapters

0:00 The New Stationmaster

0:52 The Line No One Wanted

2:03 The Cats by the Shop

2:59 A Cat with a Job

3:43 The Crowds

4:53 Goodbye, Stationmaster

5:40 The Shrine on the Platform

6:19 Kishi Station Today

Do you have a pet who acts like they run the place? What would their job title be? Tell us in the comments.

#tama #catstationmaster #wakayama #japan #truestory

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About this video

This is a true story. Dates, numbers and people are based on the English and Japanese Wikipedia articles on Tama, a case study by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on the Kishigawa Line, the Wakayama Electric Railway website, and news reports (CNN, AP, Kyodo News). The 1.1 billion yen figure is one study's estimate. We don't say what Tama felt, because no one can know.

Illustrations were made with AI image generation and animated for this video. They are not photographs, and the people are not drawn to look like the real people.

Narration: text-to-speech voice.

Music (CC BY 4.0, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Long Note One / Long Note Two / Thunderbird - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)