History
Tatsutaguchi Station opened on 21 June 1914 when the Japanese Government Railways inaugurated the Miyaji Light Rail Line eastwards from Kumamoto to Higo-Ōzu. The line was extended to meet the Inukai Line built west from Ōita, and on 2 December 1928 the through route from Kumamoto to Ōita was redesignated the Hōhi Main Line, with Tatsutaguchi as one of its intermediate stops 8.9 km from Kumamoto. Baggage handling ended in 1984 and the station passed to JR Kyushu at privatisation on 1 April 1987. SUGOCA IC card service began on 1 December 2012, and on 12 March 2022 the station became unstaffed.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
Despite its modest 557-passenger daily average, Tatsutaguchi is the closest JR station to Kumamoto University's Kurokami main campus, and was used as the heroine's hometown station in the 2024 anime Girls Band Cry.