Tama was a female calico cat who gained fame for being a station master and operating officer at Kishi Station on the Kishigawa Line in Kinokawa, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan.

Tama was born in Kinokawa, Wakayama, and was raised with a group of stray cats that used to live close to Kishi Station. They were regularly fed by passengers and by Toshiko Koyama, the informal station manager at the time.

In January 5, 2007, railway officials decided to officially award Tama the title of station master. As station master, her primary duty was to greet passengers.

The station was near closure in 2004 because of financial problems on the rail line. The publicity from Tama's appointment led to an increase in passengers by 17% for that month as compared to January 2006; ridership statistics for March 2007 showed a 10% increase over the previous financial year. A study estimated that the publicity surrounding Tama has contributed 1.1 billion yen to the local economy.

Nitama

On January 5, 2012, Tama's official apprentice, named "Nitama" ("Second Tama") was revealed. Born in Okayama City in 2010, Nitama was rescued from under a train car and adopted by Okayama Electric Tramway. Nitama trained at Idakiso Station (five stops away on the same line as Kishi Station) before being chosen as Tama's apprentice.

Nitama is a medium-hair calico cat and is easily distinguished from both Tama and Yontama in pictures by her coat length. She is often drawn as endearingly fluffy on promotional materials.

After Tama's enshrinement in August 2015, Nitama was taken to the shrine to pay her respects and then formally installed as the new stationmaster.

Sun-tama-tama

"Sun-tama-tama" (a pun on "Santama", lit. "third Tama") was a calico cat sent for training in Okayama. Sun-tama-tama was considered as a candidate for Tama's successor, but the Okayama Public Relations representative who had been caring for Sun-tama-tama refused to give the cat up, writing, "I will not let go of this child, she will stay in Okayama."

As of September 2018, Sun-tama-tama is working as the stationmaster in Naka-ku, Okayama and appears occasionally on Tama's Twitter account.

Yontama

On January 6, 2017, the tenth anniversary of Tama's installment as stationmaster, Yontama ("Fourth Tama"), an eight-month-old calico, was introduced as Nitama's subordinate and the new stationmaster of Idakiso Station, the station Nitama trained at, on Nitama's days off.

Tama appeared in a documentary about cats titled La Voie du chat in French and Katzenlektionen in German by Italian filmmaker Myriam Tonelotto, broadcast on European TV channel ARTE in April 2009.

Tama was also featured on the Animal Planet series Must Love Cats, where the host, John Fulton, honored her with a visit and a song.

On April 29, 2017, the 18th anniversary of her birth, Google honored Tama with a worldwide Google doodle.