Wednesday 5 November 2008

November Manners

As you may have guessed from last month's post, I'm getting bored by the Metro's monthly manners posters. They no longer seem fresh, amusuing, or cute. November's poster is about drunken rowdiness.



Although I'd agree with Greeneyed Geisha and Chris at Hitotoki that the problem isn't people partying on the train, but those taking the train home AFTER having partied!

I now use the Tobu line on a regular basis and am amused by their manners poster series. They are currently on the third in a fairy tale series. August was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, advocating for not taking up more space than necessary on the seat so that as many people as possible can sit.


September was Cinderella and a plea to stop running for trains about to close their doors.


And October was Little Red Riding Hood and a request to turn down your music and not annoy other passengers.



All of this creative attention being focused on manners? Only in Japan...

3 comments:

  1. I never take the Tobu line so I hadn't seen these ones! I love the one with Cinderella just managing to get through those doors with her dress!! Although it does beg the question, why are they treating us like children???

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  2. I loved all of these posters, perhaps especially the 7 dwarfs one. They are both clever or inventive (in their use of relevant story characters) and fascinating for what they say (or assume) about Japanese knowledge of the stories. Or, are the posters really only aimed at foreigners?

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  3. The Snow White and Cinderalla are definitely well known in Japan, if nothing else than for the photo opportunity at Disneyland. Little Red Ridinghood is known as Akazukin-chan, and while she may not be as well known as her Disney sisters, I think she is fairly widely known.

    Since the ads were entirely in Japanese, I am guessing that the target was not the foreign population.

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