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15 of 15 - Modern Compendium: Full Moon - Kishin Tama

Welcome to the last Kishin of the year, and the second to last member of the family! At this point, I’m pretty sure everyone knows who Stationmaster Tama is, given that the internet had a collective cat-gasm over her a couple moths ago. But for the people in those sad corners of the internet that get less cats than the rest of us, I’ll recount her story.

See, way back in 2006, the train station near Kinokawa, Japan was in dire financial straits. Their parent company actually completely de-staffed the stations on their line in order to stave off financial ruin, but bankruptcy was still imminent. Around about this time, the informal stationmaster of the line ended up adopting a stray cat named Tama. Though the Kinokawa station managed to stay open, things didn’t really improve until railway officials named Tama the official stationmaster of the Kinokawa station.

The publicity this brought caused an immediate jump in revenue, 17% in a single month. Over the next year, a study credited Tama with adding over a billion yen to the local economy, and in 2008, she was promoted to super stationmaster by the president of the Wakayama Electric Railway company. By the time of her death in 2015, Tama had been promoted to Operating Officer of the company, had two assistants, and appeared in several documentaries about cats.

After Tama’s death, she was elevated to Eternal Stationmaster, and even honored in a Shinto funeral. Tama’s history of assisting the people of Kinokawa has lead to her being enshrined as a sort of local deity, a protector of the region she helped bring out of financial trouble. All in all, it’s a remarkable story.

At first glance, Tama would be an unusual choice for inclusion in a Shin Megami Tensei game. What place does a tiny train cat have in a series about the end of the world? You wouldn’t expect Tama to stand up against a creature like The Harlot or Mot, after all. But Tama’s main ability has never been direct confrontation; she’s a supporter, and her presence and inspiration is what really counts. So Tama’s connection to and protection of a specific place lands her in the Kishin family, but instead of being an offensive presence like many Kishins, she’s a healer and a supporter. She gets a unique skill called Tama Densha, which grants the entire party a randomly-selected stat buff every turn, as well as other useful buff skills. Honestly, I see Tama as sort of the Modern Compendium’s version of the Fiend Daisojou, a demon whose usefulness vastly outstrips its actual level or raw power. And tell me it wouldn’t be awesome to bring a cat in a cape and train hat to the final boss fight. :D

For more info on this and every other demon in the Modern Compendium, have a look at our long-running Data File, right over (here).