Tashirojima

The ferry from Ishinomaki crosses to Nitoda port in under an hour, and on arrival the pace of the island rearranges itself around the cats. Tashirojima sits on the western side of the Oshika Peninsula, two small settlements — Nitoda and Ōdomari — connected by a coastal path that can be walked in a single afternoon. Tabu trees grow thick along the slopes. The harbor smells of oyster shells and seaweed; coastal fishing and shallow-water aquaculture remain the working backbone, and hijiki dries near the houses where it has always dried.

The shrines — Mishi Kannon, Kashima, Dairokuten — are modest, the kind one passes almost without noticing until the same path returns one to them. A folktale lingers around the Mishi Kannon, of an image risen from the sea. The Hiratsuka Hachidayū storehouse still stands, a reminder that the island once traded actively in the Edo period, when it also served as a place of exile for the Sendai domain. The Nitoda shell midden pushes the human record back further, into the Jōmon.

Manga Island, with its lodges designed by manga artists, brings a different layer — drawings of cats, signatures, a workshop quietness. The population has thinned from roughly a thousand in the Shōwa years to a few dozen now, and that thinning is audible. Within the Sanriku Fukkō National Park boundary, the island carries the weight of the 2011 earthquake without dramatizing it. What remains is wind, water, the lion dance held by those who stay, and the slow circuit of a coastline one can finish before the last ferry.