Watch: Japan Mourns Tama The Stationmaster Cat

Mourners broke down in tears at a funeral for a stationmaster cat, who died of heart failure last week.

Tama was the feline star of a a struggling local railway in Kishi, Japan, after being appointed stationmaster in 2007.

The kitty wore a custom-made stationmaster’s cap for her job and she soon became a world-famous icon of the station, contributing to the railway company and local economy.

After she died at the age of 16, Tama was given at the Shinto-style funeral at the station where she served for nine years - and she was made a goddess.

The Shinto religion, indigenous to Japan and practiced by many Japanese, has a variety of gods including animals.

In one of several portraits decorating the altar, Tama posed in a stationmaster’s hat and a dark blue cape.

Sake, as well as watermelon, apples, cabbage and other fruits and vegetables were presented to the cat, while a stand outside the station was heaped with bouquets, canned tuna and other gifts left by thousands of Tama fans who came to pray from around the country.

Emotional mourners were filmed breaking down at the funeral for Tama, who will be enshrined at a nearby cat shrine in August.

Wakayama Electric Railway President Mitsunobu Kojima thanked the cat for her achievement - before her arrival the local Kishigawa Line was near-bankrupt; and the station was unmanned as it had lost its last staff.

Kojima said appointing Tama as stationmaster was initially an excuse to keep the cat at the station.

He said: “Tama-chan really emerged like a savior, a goddess.

“It was truly my honour to have been able to work with her.”

During her tenure, Tama had contributed an estimated 1.1 billion yen (£5.7million) to the local economy, according to Kojima.

He said that when he visited Tama at an animal hospital the day before she died, the cat woke up and reached out to him with her paws, as if asking for a hug, and looked straight into his eyes.

He said he told Tama to get well so they can celebrate the cat’s upcoming 10th anniversary as a stationmaster, and said the cat responded with a “meow.”

The cat had climbed the corporate ladder from stationmaster to “ultra-stationmaster” and vice president of the company before receiving the additional title Sunday of “honorable eternal stationmaster.”

Tama will be succeeded by another calico cat, Nitama, now an apprentice stationmaster.

She has a lot to live up to.