JR TOONO STATION (IWATE PREFECTURE)

Station 'kappatalizes' on folklore

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Kanji Tada

By Kazuhiro Katayama

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

For many people, the name Toono conjures up an image of the Iwate Prefecture countryside, an area rich in folklore. But despite its mythical heritage, Toono Station on the JR Kamaishi Line is a modern-looking brick building, modeled after a station at a resort in southern Germany.

The city, which is surrounded by the mountains, rivers and rice paddies of the Toono basin, prospered as a trading post during the Edo Period (1603-1868), when it became the second largest city of the Nanbu domain, after Morioka, according to Hiroshi Hasegawa, a researcher at the Toono Municipal Museum.

Beginning in the 1970s, tourists started asking locals strange questions about how to find kappa water goblins and the zashiki warashi spirits, according to former station employee Ryoji Maekawa, 79.

"I didn't know what they were on about. We've only got mountains and rivers in Toono," he said.

The kappa and zashiki warashi in question were those spoken of in a book of Toono folktales and legends compiled by Kunio Yanagida.

Interest in the book had stemmed from a yearning for traditional rural villages following in the wake of the nation's rapid economic growth, during which many parts of the country were urbanized.

Toono, which had fallen from its position as a trading post with the spread of the railway, took this interest as an opportunity to promote the locality.

The city erected facilities for tourists throughout the city and placed statues of kappa and figures from other countries' fables in a square in front of the station.

The second floor of the station, which was built in 1950, was also transformed into a hotel.

Ayako Takahashi was trained at the hotel when she was a high school student. After graduating, she went to cooking and bartending school in Tokyo, and now at 22, she runs a bar in front of the station.

During her education, Takahashi had toyed with the idea of staying in big cities.

"It didn't take long for me to realize I wanted to live in Toono. I couldn't see the mountains from Tokyo, and the Tamagawa river just isn't the same as I remember," she said.

After finishing her studies, Takahashi returned to Toono and opened the bar.

Now, of course, no one believes that kappa really exist, but the locals still love living in their hometown, surrounded by beautiful mountains.