Last November, I wrote a post about Japan Tobacco, Tokyo Metro, and Toei Subway‘s マナー・ポスター (manner posters). (Click here to see that post).
Well, yesterday I rode the 西武新宿線 (Seibu Shinjuku train line) and noticed their マナー・ポスター (manner posters).
I think I like these best. They’re pretty clever. Each one shows a different animal and says some good manner…using a play-on-words with the animal’s name.
They’re impossible to translate and get the same humorous play-on-words.
For example, one says 「乗車は順にならブーさん。」 (Line up when entering the train.)…and shows pigs lining up (pigs say 「ブー」). (See, it gets lost in translation.)
Or how about 「ボリュームちいサイさん。」 (Keep the (headphones) volume down.)…with a rhino listening to music quietly (“Rhino” = 「サイ」).
Or 「次の電車を待ちまヒョウさん。」 (Let’s wait for the next train (rather than run to board one))…with a leopard waiting nicely (“Leopard” = 「ヒョウ」). Actually, correct Japanese would be 「次の電車を待ちましょう。」 but it’s OK for the joke.
Another one says 「車内のゴミは持ちサルさん。」 (Carry your garbage off of the train.) and 「ホームではゴミ箱へ捨てるでごザルさん。」 (Throw your garbage in the garbage can on the platform.)…with one monkey carrying his garbage off the train and another throwing his in the bin. (“Monkey” = 「サル」).
And 「駅構内で煙草スワンさん。」 (Don’t smoke on train station premises.)…with a swan holding a “No Smoking” sign. (“Swan” = 「スワン」).
And at the bottom of all of them it says グッドマナーを、ありがとう。 (“Thank you for your good manners.“).
I think that these manner posters are clever. What do you think?
Click here if you want to see all of the 西武新宿線のマナー・ポスター (Seibu Shinjuku train line’s manner posters).
Tokyo Five 
Tom Arrison…
Yeah, you should put them on your blog.
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If I get a chance to look in the closet I’ll take some pictures of what I have now from the 80s.
I have some yakuza movie posters from the 70s I bought at this place the last time I was in Japan, spring 2005:
http://www.atwonder.co.jp/index.html
Those are framed and hanging on the wall of my spare bedroom.
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Tom Arrison…
I also have quite a few Japanese movie and band promotional posters and flyers.
What types of posters do you have besides the manner poster?
And that’s too bad that you can’t find the American manner posters. 😦
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Yes, I have at least one Toei manner poster from the late 80s. I know I had a couple at one point, but I gave things away. I have a number of posters I collected when I lived in Japan. They’re rolled up in the closet.
I took a quick look around the Web and couldn’t find the DC Metro ones. A number of them appeared together about 2-3 years ago. It’s not a regular thing like it is in Japan.
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Tom Arrison…
Really? Do you have Japanese subway manner posters at your house?
And do they have similar posters in Washington DC’s subways? I’d like to see them…do you know a website that shows them?
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Also, they occasionally have posters in the DC Metro that serve a similar purpose (telling people not to eat on the train, etc.) and they generally don’t get graffiti. That’s a function of the system, I think.
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I have a couple of the Toei posters from when I lived in Japan in the 80s. They generally have a few extras at the station management offices of the larger stations (like Otemachi) and a couple of times they gave me one when I asked nicely.
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Sir Pent…
>They get tagged pretty quickly, I think.
You mean, you think someone would spray-paint over them if those posters were in America?
That’s a difference between America and Japan. (Another is that you don’t find gum stuck to the bottoms of tables here!)
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They’re cute.
I wonder how long something like that would last in the USA? They get tagged pretty quickly, I think.
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