The human population of Tashirojima is roughly sixty, most of them elderly. The cat population is comparable. The cats arrived generations ago — fishermen kept them to protect nets from mice, and the cats stayed, multiplied, and eventually became the island's defining feature. There is a small cat shrine. Dogs are not permitted on the island. The cats were not significantly affected by the 2011 tsunami, which devastated much of the Sanriku coast. What is surprising about Tashirojima is not the number of cats but their disposition. They are not shy. They approach visitors, accept being petted, and recline in positions of moderate authority on the paths and steps of the island's small settlement. They have apparently concluded that humans are harmless and occasionally useful. The island is not large. The ferry from Ishinomaki takes about fifty minutes. There is not much to do in the conventional sense. This is the point. Tashirojima offers a morning or an afternoon of simply being somewhere where the cats have the upper hand, and where this seems, after a while, like the correct arrangement.