Odoriba Station

Odoriba Station is one of the subway stations on the Blue Line, which runs across the city of Yokohama. The name could mean “staircase landing” but literally “dancing place,” and in this case it’s the latter. Not only that, it comes from a curious, obscure local legend.

A few centuries ago, the area was a post station called Totsuka-shuku where many travelers from Edo (Tokyo) stopped by on their way west. A family of three once ran an inn here with two servants and a black cat named Tora (“tiger”). One day, the owner noticed that his tenugui (hand towel) was lost, and blamed it on the younger servant.

The disgraced servant set out to find the true culprit, but came up with nothing except witnessing another tenugui crawling away from the house on its own. The next day, the inn-master came across a group of cats conspiring in the moonlight, speaking human language and wearing tenugui on their heads. One of the cats was none other than Tora.

The family and the servants went back to the cats’ gathering place the next night, to see the cats dancing on their hind legs. The family pretended to have seen nothing and left, but rumors grew and townsfolk started to visit the odoriba to watch the cats dance. In the end, Tora disappeared and cats stopped dancing altogether.

Today, Odoriba Station is filled with details inspired by the legend, from huge eyes on the walls to paw-prints on the floor, as well as silhouettes of dancing cats above the staircase landing. There is also a stele standing outside one of the station exits, dedicated to the spirits of cats in 1737.