Sammendrag
This thesis explores the phenomenon of Tama the stationmaster, and how we can understand her popularity and story. Tama was a cat who was appointed stationmaster of a small train station, in the rural outskirts of Wakayama. Due to low ridership, the rural train line was on the brink of bankruptcy, an increasing problem for rural train lines in Japan. With the appointment of Tama the cat, however, revitalization quickly became a fact. Following the increase in visitors, the Wakayama Electric Railway company, owners of the train line, focused entirely on building their brand around Tama. During her eight years of service, the train station was redesigned to resemble a cat, as well as the trains themselves with various related themes. With her passing years after, she was enshrined and given the status of “spirit goddess”, with the title “Honourable Eternal Station Master”. In this thesis, I examine some of the prerequisites within Japanese culture that aid in explaining her national and international popularity. Through conducted field research and theoretical frameworks, I divide Tama into four sets of roles, to analyse her in different manners: 1) Her role as cat companion, 2) her role as tourist attraction, 3) her role as commodified being, and 4) her role as spirit goddess. By no means is Tama limited exclusively to these roles, and the constructed distinction between them is not necessarily realistic. In fact, during the course of the discussions in this thesis, it becomes clear that the myriad of roles Tama inhabits are all connected and intertwined. By the thorough exploration of these roles, however, I rule out Tama’s successful story as mere luck. I argue that her narrative skilfully plays on already well-established notions in Japan, concluding that Tama and her narrative functions as gateways to these.