On a small island off Japan’s northeastern coast, visitors make offerings at a shrine for unlikely local guardians: cats. The “Neko Jinja,” or Cat Shrine, mythologizes cats as guardian angels of ...

Now, visitors make offerings at the shrine. A cat walks across the altar at Cat Shrine on Tashirojima island in Ishinomaki, northeastern Japan, Saturday, May 18, 2024. AP Photo/Hiro Komae ...

On a small island off Japan’s north-eastern coast, visitors make offerings at a shrine for unlikely local guardians: cats. The “Neko Jinja”, or Cat Shrine, mythologises cats as guardian ...

TASHIROJIMA, Japan — On a small island off Japan's northeastern coast, visitors make offerings at a shrine for unlikely local guardians: cats. The "Neko Jinja," or Cat Shrine, mythologizes cats ...

On a small island off Japan's northeastern coast, visitors make offerings at a shrine for unlikely local guardians: cats. The "Neko Jinja," or Cat Shrine, mythologizes cats as guardian angels of ...

By Hiro Komae | Associated Press TASHIROJIMA, Japan—On a small island off Japan’s northeastern coast, visitors make offerings at a shrine for unlikely local guardians: cats. The “Neko Jinja ...

On a small island off Japan's northeastern coast, visitors make offerings at a shrine for unlikely local guardians: cats. The "Neko Jinja," or Cat Shrine, mythologizes cats as guardian angels of ...

Japan's obsessive love of cats isn’t anything new for the island nation of 127 million people. The Japanese love for all things feline is exported throughout the world, thanks mostly to internet ...

The islanders have long coexisted with the cats. One day, however, a fisherman accidentally injured a cat while working. Feeling sorry for the injury, the islanders built the shrine for cats.