4/3/2009

This month’s “Train Manner” (sic) awareness poster of the Tokyo Metro features an anti-newspaper campaign (official website).

The problem with the Metro’s anti-newspaper poster is that reading of newspapers (as well as manga and books) on commuter trains has dropped to almost nothing in the past five years. Whether it’s the middle of the day or rush hour, more often or not, when I look around train in Tokyo not one person is reading a paper—Everyone is fiddling with their keitai/cell phone.

April’s anti-newspaper poster above is one of the monthly series for the Tokyo Metro subways aimed at cajoling the so-called ‘rude’ Japanese public to have better train manners. In previous months, posters reminded riders to:
–‘Please refrain from snotty…’
–Tokyo Metro manners for Valentine gifts
–Please be considerate of passengers getting on and off
– The official start of the Japanese Vomiting Season
– Please party on the train!
– “Not torture eyeballs on jostling trains“,
– “Please do it like a Moose”
– “DON’T SWIM IN FRONT OF THE TRAINS“
—”Please no umbrella golf on the platform”

Japan’s railway companies try to keep passengers’ manners on track
Top News–Thu, 03/19/2009….This year, popular Japanese illustrator Bunpei Yorifugi was hired for the job. Takeshi Kuroda, who works for the Tokyo railway operator Tokyu Dentetsu, said he was convinced that such messages worked… “For the past two years, we've also had signs to meet the wishes of customers who complain….we get fewer calls from customers who complain about people with loud headphones.”