I was just in Japan a few months ago. It was my fourth visit, but the first for my partner, who found the different departure melodies notable and a really nice, cute, joyful thing. We made a point to listen to them whenever we were taking a train somewhere (which was of course very often, multiple times per day). In a way it feels like a funny thing to have near top-of-mind when it comes to memories of a trip that was packed with so many fun activities.
Noticed the Okachimachi and Uguisudani (and several other) melodies are the same... is that correct, or is that a mistake on the site? I imagine it's hard to have a unique melody for every single station, so I expect there are some repeats throughout the transit system, but those two stations are so close together, it's a surprise that they'd be the same.
Going off [0] where Okachimachi, Uguisudani, Nippori, Nishi-Nippori, Tabata, Sugamo, Otsuka, Mejiro, and Yoyogi are covered by the same lesson, I guess they must be?
There are multiple independent wiki sites on Japanese WWW documenting these things including historical changes and standard protocols as observed, for obvious reasons, in case anyone needs some data...
A couple of months ago, riding the subway through Ginza Station for the first time in a while, I noticed that the door-closing melody was from the 1949 song Ginza Kankan Musume [1, 2]. I’m normally not very familiar with Japanese pop music, but I happen to have the song on a playlist I listen to together with my five-year-old grandson. It brought a smile to my face, as it’s a cheerful, very slightly risqué song from the early postwar period, when Japanese popular culture was enjoying renewed freedom. It was fun to hear it in a subway station in 2025.
This probably has a philosophical underpinning in Animism, almost everything is anthropomorphized and given a "soul", personality. This has the affect of humanizing the most utilitarian parts of day-to-day life, commuting, a tax office, etc.
I made field recordings during my last stay in Tokyo. From those, I made a song for each station of the Yamanote line, using the Jingle in the prompt. The visuals were made similarly.
Thia give me PTSD flashback. My first job out of high school was bic camera. Those melodies are fun at station because they only play it when train is coming, but full blasting it 24/7 (including rest room) makes your brain go numb.
I go in to a trance state of corporate drone mode with a 営業スマイル(sales smile) and bendy-hip when I hear that tune
Seibu had nothing to do with it. BicCamera started in Ikebukuro and was influential in building up the area. The jingle change is a campaign as BicCamera is doing a cooperation with the ward to build it out more. See [1]
Ah, my mistake — Bic Camera didn’t acquire Seibu’s site.
Seibu Ikebukuro was actually sold to Fortress, and then the property was transferred to Yodobashi Holdings, which is now planning the redevelopment. Bic Camera started in Ikebukuro, so it’s influential locally, but it wasn’t part of the acquisition.
Why can't train operators in other countries take inspiration from things like this?
It takes very little effort to implement. You could hold melody competitions for local communities. It is a nice thing which sparks joy and it's also something that people would want to travel and experience. You could hold a competition with local schools every year to develop a little 5 second melody.
I just think of this from a UK point-of-view. It's like we completely forget what makes life interesting and everything has to be boring and mundane.
Nit: if you scroll down a lot, the stations at the top disappear (and get appended at the bottom, which makes sense – it’s a circular line after all!), but the space remains, so when you scroll back there’s a ton of empty space. Maybe remove that empty space after the scrolling has stopped? (Would be nice if you could scroll backwards, too!)
Naturally, it’s not as clean and sleek, but incorporating some elements of it might make this site look more authentic. Maybe something like this? https://files.catbox.moe/8cpp76.png
Not to create a boring back-and-forth but the page loads perfectly fine for me on safari (both mobile and macOS) and looks exactly the same as it does in Chrome.
Noticed the Okachimachi and Uguisudani (and several other) melodies are the same... is that correct, or is that a mistake on the site? I imagine it's hard to have a unique melody for every single station, so I expect there are some repeats throughout the transit system, but those two stations are so close together, it's a surprise that they'd be the same.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNs2Ka0C_w4
https://w.atwiki.jp/trainmelody/pages/273.html
https://wikiwiki.jp/sta_melodys/%E5%B1%B1%E6%89%8B%E7%B7%9A
https://atosmatome.wiki.fc2.com/wiki/%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E9%A...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYpdBcso3A
[2] https://g.co/gemini/share/d584c36b99ab
I made a psychedelic AI audio-visual collage inspired by it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwUSzUvShqcaa
I made field recordings during my last stay in Tokyo. From those, I made a song for each station of the Yamanote line, using the Jingle in the prompt. The visuals were made similarly.
Used mainly Suno, Udio, Runway and Ableton Live.
By the way, Ikebukuro’s melody isn’t this one anymore. Bic Camera, an electronics retailer, acquired Seibu, and now their song is played instead. https://youtu.be/9Emi-ZAnnlc?si=G8iazo945capvT5T&t=221
It’s fun, isn’t it?
I go in to a trance state of corporate drone mode with a 営業スマイル(sales smile) and bendy-hip when I hear that tune
When I worked at a gym, they played the same 10 or so songs all day every day. My heartrate rises when I hear them.
[1] https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1573062.html
Sources:
Wikipedia – Sogo & Seibu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogo_%26_Seibu SBbit – Seibu Ikebukuro redevelopment: https://www.sbbit.jp/article/cont1/144891
It takes very little effort to implement. You could hold melody competitions for local communities. It is a nice thing which sparks joy and it's also something that people would want to travel and experience. You could hold a competition with local schools every year to develop a little 5 second melody.
I just think of this from a UK point-of-view. It's like we completely forget what makes life interesting and everything has to be boring and mundane.
And just to throw in a wild idea, it might be nice if the UI was a variation of the in-train display interface: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Series-E131-500_Insi...
Naturally, it’s not as clean and sleek, but incorporating some elements of it might make this site look more authentic. Maybe something like this? https://files.catbox.moe/8cpp76.png
It stood very much in contrast with all the other jingles, and I simply loved it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jqpFjsMtCb0
There are possibly-recognizable tunes throughout the system. Vivaldi's Spring comes to mind. I think at Ooimachi.
I haven't done any website design since the early 2010s, what would a webdev even pull from the modern frameworks to achieve what this site is doing?