Kata Shrine, Shinto shrine in Japan

Kata Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Toba, Mie Prefecture, with a wooden honden in Shinmei-zukuri style, built of Japanese cypress. Its worship hall is also wooden. Since 1733 the shrine has received timber from the periodic rebuildings of Takamiya and Tsukiyomi-no-miya, the outer shrine's auxiliary shrines at Ise, and rebuilt its sanctuary with that reused wood.

Tradition dates the shrine's founding to 724, the first year of the Jingo era. In 1713 it appears in the Shiyo ryakushi as the Hachioji-sha, and in 1871 it was renamed Kata Shrine and ranked as a gosha. In 1907 it absorbed the Osugi-sha and a group of small shrines, including Iwasaki, Hachiman, Koyasu and Hiyoshi.

The shrine's name was changed from Yashiro no Miya to Kata Shrine in 1871, when it became a village shrine. Its annual festival features Noh, first performed in 1691 to drive out an epidemic; from 1707, Toba domain lords watched it annually through deputies. A scene in the 1954 film Godzilla showing kagura on the fictional Odo Island was filmed here.

Kata Shrine stands about 700 metres from JR and Kintetsu Toba Station, roughly a ten-minute walk. The grounds are compact, so the main hall, the assembly-style noh stage and the Toyosaka Inari shrine can be seen in one visit. Look for the single surviving pine of the Kuki Senbon-matsu planted after Kuki Yoshitaka's campaign.

The shrine's name was changed to Kata Shrine in 1871, when it also became a gōsha, a ranked local shrine. A theory holds that the site was once that of Akasaki Shrine. The shrine's crest is the hanabishi, a four-petalled diamond flower.