Friday, October 31, 2008

Please do it at a pub


Who else thinks it is highly suspect that this "please do not make a commotion on the train" manner poster for November was conveniently unveiled today on Halloween? I have heard throughout the week that the attempted Yamanote Halloween train last weekend was a bust and there are also rumours circulating that the real one is either tonight or tomorrow night. After last year's debacle perhaps the Metro Suits are worried we might move the party underground, so to speak. I mean really, how many "commotions" have you seen on the train here? I've seen the run-of-the-mill loud salarymen groups and the high school students who take up half the carriage but apart from the odd lone salaryman enjoying a brewsky and a bag of smelly dried fish, I have never seen groups of people using the train as a bar (or "pub" as they say).

Again, creepy sweepy is on the outside looking in. Are they trying to foreshadow something here? Is the last manner poster going to urge passengers not to employ trains in their own suicides? Was that inappropriate of me to say? Well I think the faces on the train revellers above are inappropriate, who can tell whether they are nose less or faceless? And that woman on the far left is sporting a hitler moustache if I ever saw one! Ultimately though, Tokyo Metro needs to take a look around because I see a lot of commotion outside on the mean streets of Tokyo, particularly in salaryman hot spots like Shinbashi. Since when has causing a drunken commotion in Japan been limited to "pubs"? Oh well. If anyone would like to join me, I am considering setting up a photo series imitating each and every manner poster thus far-I think it could be very camp.

Before I wrote this I quickly googled the poster to see if there was anything else written on November's suggested manner and I found this fantastic spoof, which is much more visually effective don't you think? Geisha, Interrupted also had some fantastic ideas for keeping the pervs in check and her photos never cease to amuse me. Let's hope December's poster is also related to current events or at least Christmas-themed! ("Let's do it on the ferris-wheel in Odaiba" with a picture of a young couple making out after exchanging ridiculously expensive gifts??)

3 comments:

Doug said...

actually, this year wasn't so dead:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=v-jNaKHVnTw

I concur with you that the timing of that poster was no accident - Japanese passive-aggressive behavior at its finest. :P

Anonymous said...

"Creepy sweepy"! Awesome.

I often sip a can of fire water on the train when riding home. I do it quietly, bother no one, and do not remove my clothes and/or train light fixtures while doing so.

Green-Eyed Geisha said...

JT that all sounds very polite, I'm voting you the next poster boy for the Metro manner series!