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Apr 28, 2012

Yellow. Different. Better

I tried to upload this a few times this month, and it crashed my phone every time. Maybe it's because I was writing unfriendly things about the fluffy bunnies and cute kitties we've been subjected to in the Tokyo Metro Manners posters all this past year and the machine was trying to save me from looking like the kind of jerk who doesn't like cute widdle animals. I have nothing against cute animals! The fact is, for two years, the subway had the sometimes-befuddling but always bright and original yellow posters, and then suddenly they downshifted into boring stock photographs of animals with insipid slogans. Nothing original or interesting about them. A lot of people take issue with the scolding tone of the signs, but I was happy to see this guy up at the beginning of April (the beginning, of course, of the new subway poster fiscal year). The stylized guy, the oblique English that doesn't really match the Japanese, the tragicomically hapless teddy bear - it looks like Bunpei is back with an interrobang.

4 comments:

Holly said...

i agree. yay!

Dan Moeller said...

I really hate the drunken bear(?) posters that are everywhere. The bear had like a clear section of red across his face that somehow represents intoxication. I guess it's really just the style I don't like. And now that I search on the internet I can't find it. Maybe it was a Hiroshima ad.

Billy said...

People in Tokyo have a hard enough time looking away from the direction they're moving in without veering completely off course (whatever course that may be). I say, leave the past behind...

Soup Recipes said...

Hello matee great blog

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