Miyagi · Ishinomaki islandsNo.838★★Open in map →
Tashirojima Cat Island
An island of two small harbours off Ishinomaki, with a shrine to cats standing on the ridge between them. The cats live along the lanes of a fishing village that is still fishing.
- FromIshinomaki Station
- ~45–60 minAjishima Line ferry
- Get off atNitoda Port (Ajishima Line ferry)
- On foot
- Tashirojima Cat Island
The sweet spot
The name Cat Island travels much further than the island itself, so this is not an undiscovered place. What is easy to miss is that it is a working village first and a photograph second. There is no cat park and no laid-out route; the lanes are people's front doors, and the animals are simply at home in them.
Where it is
23 more notes in Miyagi · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Nitoda Portthe southern harbour, where the ferry ties up beside a cat-shaped welcome arch
- Nitoda village lanesthe working end of the island, nets and floats stacked between the houses
- Nekojinja cat shrinea small torii and stone steps on the wooded ridge at the island's centre
- Otomari Portthe northern harbour and the island's other ferry call
How to actually get there
- Sendai Station → Ishinomaki Station by JR.
- Ishinomaki Station → the Ishinomaki Chuo ferry terminal.
- Ajishima Line ferry to Nitoda Port on Tashirojima.
- Walk the village lanes, climb to the cat shrine, then cross to Otomari or return.
- Ajishima Line ferry from Ishinomaki
- Ishinomaki Station is the mainland gateway. The Ajishima Line sails from the Ishinomaki Chuo and Kadonowaki terminals near the old Kitakami river mouth, and the crossing runs somewhere between forty-five and sixty minutes depending on which terminal you leave from and which harbour is called first. Both island harbours, Nitoda and Otomari, are on the route.
- Return from Nitoda or Otomari
- The same service takes you back to the mainland. Sailings on this route are limited, so check the day's timetable with the operator before you leave Ishinomaki and again when you land. There is no bridge, so the boat is the only way off.
About the place
Tashirojima lies off the western side of the Oshika peninsula, southeast of the mouth of the old Kitakami river. It is 2.92 square kilometres of wooded ridge with 11.5 kilometres of coastline, and two harbours are cut into it: Nitoda in the south and Otomari in the north. Fewer than fifty people are on the resident register. Fishing is still the work of the place, with large set nets, gill nets and shallow-sea aquaculture. The cats are not something installed for visitors; they are what a fishing village accumulates over generations.
How to enjoy it
Sailings are few enough that the return boat is the thing to plan first rather than last. Landing at one harbour and leaving from the other turns the island into a single walk over the ridge instead of an out-and-back, and the shrine falls naturally in the middle of it. A campsite of lodges designed by manga artists sits inland if you would rather stay than catch the last departure.
Background & history
The shrine at the centre of the island is dedicated to Miyori Daimyojin and is kept as a guardian of the catch. The island tells its origin this way: a stone dislodged while the great set nets were being laid struck a cat and killed it, and the net owner buried the animal and enshrined it. Fishermen here watched the cats for signs of weather and of a good haul. In 2009 the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport listed the shrine and its setting among its hundred island treasures.
Before you go
- Cash
- The fare is the ferry fare; the shrine, the lanes and the harbours cost nothing. Provisioning on the island is minimal, so bring what you need for the day, in cash.
- Before you go
- Sailings can be cancelled in rough weather, and that is the real variable on this trip rather than opening hours. The island is a lived-in village: the lanes run past front doors, and the cats belong to the households and the boats rather than to visitors.
- Another way
- Kadonowaki is the second mainland terminal and gives a shorter crossing than Ishinomaki Chuo. Ajishima, the larger island on the same route, can be combined with Tashirojima on one run of the timetable if the sailings line up.
- After you get off
- Nitoda Port is the southern landing, marked by a cat-shaped welcome arch on the quay. The village lanes begin immediately behind it, and the track up to the cat shrine climbs from there toward the middle of the island. Otomari lies further north, over the ridge.