The Choshi Electric Railway cat stationmaster has a CV that lists ‘pushing computer mouses off desks’ and ‘sleeping on paperwork’, and she earned it the hard way. Found thin, sick, and with eyes frozen shut near the platform at Nakanocho Station, the tabby now runs the place.
According to Japan Today, a staff member arriving for the early shift on 14 October 2025 first heard the faint meowing that would set this whole thing in motion. What followed was months of care by platform staff, who nursed the stray back to health before enrolling her as an ‘apprentice’ in January. By July, she had achieved the rank of stationmaster, receiving a neat cap and a medallion for her collar. Her name is Nakano-san, and she now features prominently in Choshi Electric Railway Co. public relations content.
A Railway With Something to Prove
The decision was not purely sentimental. Choshi sits in an awkward spot: close enough to Tokyo that it does not stand out, but far enough that a casual visit requires real effort. The railway felt it needed to do more to draw attention to the city’s historic temples, lighthouses, and waterfront area, and a four-legged stationmaster seemed worth trying.
Nakano-san’s July debut drew a swarm of reporters to Nakanocho Station, all there to catch a glimpse of the new boss. The coverage gave the Choshi Electric Railway cat stationmaster immediate visibility, and the railway is counting on that attention translating into passenger numbers and footfall in a city that has struggled to compete for tourists.
The Choshi Electric Railway Cat Stationmaster Joins a Longer Tradition
Choshi had good precedent to draw on. In 2007, Wakayama Electric Railway Co.’s Kishi Station in the city of Kinokawa appointed Japan’s first-ever cat stationmaster: Tama. The publicity surrounding that appointment led to a 17% increase in passengers for that month compared with the same period the previous year. A study estimated that Tama’s ongoing fame contributed 1.1 billion yen to the local economy, and she was widely credited with saving Kishi Station from closing.
Tama passed away in 2015 and was succeeded by Nitama (literally, ‘looks like Tama’). Nitama passed away last November. Wakayama Electric Railway Co. then welcomed Yontama (literally, ‘Fourth Tama’, the third having returned to private life) as the new stationmaster at Kishi Station in January, with a vow to ‘follow in Nitama’s pawprints’. In a further development reported by Japan Today, Gotama now serves as stationmaster at Idakiso Station, greeting travellers and continuing the railway’s feline tradition at that site.
The result is a loose network of cat stationmasters spread across rural Japanese railways, each one doing a job that is part mascot, part marketing strategy, and part genuine draw for visitors who might not otherwise make the trip.
What the Numbers Actually Show
The economics behind the Choshi Electric Railway cat stationmaster appointment are straightforward enough. A struggling rural line with modest budgets cannot easily compete with conventional advertising. A cat, on the other hand, generates press coverage, social media content, and repeat visitors at relatively low cost. The Tama model demonstrated that the formula can work at scale: a 17% monthly passenger uplift and a billion-yen contribution to a local economy are not figures most marketing campaigns can match.
Whether Nakano-san will reach those heights is an open question, but the structural logic holds. Choshi Electric Railway is not the first to run this calculation, and it is unlikely to be the last.
For now, Nakano-san is on duty at Nakanocho Station. Her schedule, one assumes, involves a great deal of the sleeping on paperwork she lists among her professional skills, and the reporters who showed up in July suggest the strategy is, at minimum, off to a solid start.
