Meet Japan’s new top cat

TOKYO — If you’re a cat lover, you might want to head Kishi train station in the Wakayama prefecture to take a snap of Nitama, Japan’s latest stationmaster cat. An exhaustive search and thorough selection process followed the June passing of the former cat in charge, the beloved Tama, who had been in the role since 2007, and now the station has found her replacement, Nitama.

The five-year-old, a graduate of Cat Stationmaster Training School, previously served as the stationmaster at Idakiso Station before being promoted to Tama’s deputy at Kishi in the rural neighbourhood of Kinokawa. The announcement of Nitama’s appointment came after the traditional Japanese mourning period of 50 days since Tama’s death in a statement from Wakayama Electric Railway president Mitsunobu Kokima, reported CNN.

“The reason I appointed Nitama as a successor to Tama is that she had teaching experience from Tama directly,” he said. “Tama was very mild and she seldom got angry, though she was strict with her subordinate Nitama.”

Nitama beat off a number of rival candidates to take the job, with Hitofumi Ino, a spokesperson for the Ryobi Group, which oversees the railways, praising the cat as a feline who “doesn’t dislike wearing a hat”. Ino also said that Nitama had a reputation as a “beauty cat” noted for her looks.

The young cat, born in Okayama City before being adopted by Okayama Electric Tramway after being found under a car on a rainy day, has big shoes to fill as Tama has been credited with saving the fortunes of an ailing railway line. Shortly after Tama’s appointment, she began to attract tourists to the station and was credited with bringing in ¥1.1 billion (S$12.8 million) in her first year and increasing passenger numbers by 17 per cent. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH