If you ride the train or the subway, you’ve probably often seen those campaigns to respect “good manners” in public transports. Things such as “turn off your mobile phone”, and stuff like that. Tokyo is no exception, and a few months ago (maybe a year already?) Toyko Metro, the company in charge of Tokyo’s subway, started a quite aggressive campaign named “Ie de yarou” (Please do it at home). These posters show a bunch of people doing “bad” things on the train such as eating (please do it at home), being drunk (please do it at the bar), listening to loud music on their mp3 player (please do it at the night club), and so on…

I must admit that the latest one though is keeping me perplex…

What kind of message is it trying to convey? Please do not play video games on the train while sitting on your own luggage (instead of stealing old people’s seats) with your headphones in a place where you are not annoying anyone? This seriously doesn’t make sense. (They should rather focus on stupid salarymen who take the seats reserved for pregnant women and old people. Seriously, riding the train in any city is often similar to a jungle with nothing more than “animal” laws, but in Japan where people are usually so polite and nice, the shock is even bigger…)

So that’s it, I just think Tokyo Metro hates gamers. If you can explain to me how exactly that guy is a trouble to Tanaka-san (and his wife) sitting next to him, please comment!

Update: While I was writing this article, I finally understood what the issue was:  the guy’s partially blocking the door and prevents people from entering/leaving the train. Geez, they should hire a new designer…