Train Otaku For fans of locomotives, it’s full steam ahead

[Guest ___]

Train Otaku For fans of locomotives, it’s full steam ahead

 

http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/recent/pop.asp

 

The days when tetsudo otaku, or hardcore train fans, were the most ridiculed of the bunch in Akihabara have gone the way of the steam locomotive thanks to a spike in female interest and increasingly visible celebrity support.

 

Tetsudo otaku are one of the most venerable fan varieties, with subsections that include sharyotetsu (obsessed with vehicles), noritetsu (like to ride), rosen kenkyu (study lines), toritetsu (take pictures), mokeitetsu (build models), shushutetsu (collect goods), ototetsu (record sounds), ekibentetsu (like station box lunches), jikokuhyoutetsu (analyze schedules) and ekitetsu (like stations). There is even a category called soshikitetsu for those devoted to memorializing retired trains and lines. But there were only 20,000 train otaku in Japan in 2004, spending $40 million a year on their hobbies, and many believed rarefied knowledge was a dying fashion among aged men.

 

On the contrary: a new “Train Boom” started in 2007, when events such as the Great Railway Expo began to capture the popular imagination, and famous folk started to openly gush about love for trains. The Nomura Research Institute has suggested the number of train otaku today might be closer to 140,000. At any station in the Tokyo metropolitan area, there is inevitably a young man (or woman or family) at the end of the platform openly snapping shots of incoming trains.

 

The charismatic “train talent” Masumi Toyoka was among the first to embrace this trend, lending her voice to the wildly popular anime Tekko no Tabi (“Train Girl’s Journey”), which helped legitimize and bring train otaku into the mainstream in fall 2007. In fact, no longer are these fans included in the dark ranks of “otaku,” but rather as the much cuter tecchan (for males) and tekko (for females). Following Toyoka’s lead, Yuko Kimura based her entire idol persona on her love of trains, inventing her own category of tetsudoru, or “train idol.”

 

Another idol, Rina Akiyama (“beautiful backside Rina Moon” to fans), publicly came out as a tekko after taking the role of a train stewardess in the 2007 show Kamen Rider Deno, which had its superhero swapping his trademark motorcycle for a time-traveling train; Kenjiro Ishimaru, the narrator of the long-running TV Asahi show Sekai no Shaso Kara (“World Through the Train Window”), was the conductor. Surprisingly, Deno was the perennial franchise’s most popular ever with the ladies.

 

Likewise, DJ group SUPER BELL”Z remixed train sounds from Akihabara for an otaku audience in 1999, and in 2002 cut a track of the Yamanote line that became a surprising hit with women. While train doujinshi (amateur comic books) for men have withered away or turned into porn depicting anthropomorphized vehicles, inspiration has trickled down to the girls’ side. Train-boy homosexual romance was well represented at Comic City Tokyo 119 last June.

 

A microcosm of the diversifying train fandom is Saitama’s recently opened Train Museum. Symbolic of train fandom itself, the hallowed shrine to locomotives was uprooted from the shadowy corner of Akihabara it had occupied since 1936 and relocated to a 33,500-square-yard modern facility that cost $112 million to construct. It boasts Japan’s largest train diorama, a miniature train ride, Japan’s first steam locomotive and 35 other engines, including a snowplow model.

 

Sound geeky? Maybe, but 50,000 people agreed it was hip enough to make the hour-long commute from Tokyo and pay the ¥1,000 entrance fee during opening week in fall 2007. The museum quickly became a hot destination—for dates. For their part, otaku have been making pilgrimages to the Train Museum en masse, as in the “Go, go tetsudo!” excursion offered by the maids of Candy Fruits Optical eyewear shop. “The days when we had to hide are over,” said the organizer. “Why not show our passion and knowledge when it seems girls want to hear it?”

 

The Railway Museum is located 25 minutes from Ueno in Omiya, Saitama Prefecture. See exhibition listings (other areas) for details.

[Guest ___]

Personal note, the museum is worth a visit, but try to avoid the weekends as kids will run you out of the place as it is packed worse than Shinjuku on a Monday morning rush. Also note fro mthe Omiya trai nstation it is an 8 minteu ride via the New Shuttle, a rubber tired tram that rides next to the Shinkansen overlooking the mainline.

[CaptOblivious]

Not only was that an interesting article, but a search for "ototetsu", in the hopes of finding good sound effects for my mokeitetsu self, turned up this gem of a website: www.ototetsu.jp

 

Sadly, most of the RealMedia files won't play on my machine!

[Guest ___]

I want one of those Japanese densha fans, LOL. Sure beats the damn Death Note or Sailor Gundam chicks I know. But it does prove that I did see girls photographing trains at Omiya last year, though you wouldn't've guessed it by the fact that the guys completely ignore her, but creamed themselves when EF66 11 came through.

[bill937ca]

The author of that article is a wanna be otaku--a tour guide in Akihabara for tourists.   The study he is sighting (and I have a summary of) woefully under estimates the tetsudo otaku market as its focus is solely on tetsudo anime and manga.  Model railroad industry estimates put the number of modelers in the millions (about 9,000,000 and 95% nine mm gauge).

 

The level of activity at the final Hayabusa blue train station stops, the attendance at JAM, the number of train shops in major cities indicate that the number of participants is much greater than 140,000.

 

Japan's model / hobby market rose 2.6% in fiscal 2007 from fiscal 2006 to 48.8 billion Yen owing to the growing popularity of model railways.

[Martijn Meerts]

9,000,000? Wow ;)

 

Here in Europe, more and more train shops are closing down, I believe the same goes for the US.

 

I wonder if it'll turn around again within the foreseeable future, considering the whole environmental stuff going on, and train travel being fairly environmental-friendly (or at least, more so than most other forms of transport)

[bill937ca]

9,000,000? Wow ;)

 

Here in Europe, more and more train shops are closing down, I believe the same goes for the US.

 

I wonder if it'll turn around again within the foreseeable future, considering the whole environmental stuff going on, and train travel being fairly environmental-friendly (or at least, more so than most other forms of transport)

 

That is hard to say.  In Japan model railways are considered to be part of the toy industry.  In general toys are declining in sales because of Japan's low birth rate.  But sales of model trains are increasing.  Marketing is much better in Japan.

 

You can buy trains in department stores, in specialty train store chains like Models Imon, Tam Tam or Popondetta, at local 'mom and pop' stores or on the internet. 

 

Tomytec items are available by 50 week subscription through a major book seller.

 

http://shop.kodansha.jp/bc/tetsudomokei/

 

http://shop.kodansha.jp/bc/tetsudomokei/list.html

 

There is a company that operates train layouts for display in malls, apartment buildings and other public places for a very hefty fee.  Their layouts use Tomix controls and micro cameras to give a driving experience.

 

http://www.ressya-hiroba.com/video.html

 

I sometimes think the appeal of model trains in Japan on public displays has more to do with the high-tech wizardry like big-screen images from tiny cameras in cars and a big screen driving experience with a train simulator than the model trains themselves.

 

Almost all Japanese railways have a open house, many each year at the same time, with demonstrations of cranes, pantographs and other machinery.

 

When the Tokyu Corporation celebrated the 80th Anniversary of the opening of the Toyoko line, they held a week long train exhibition in a Tokyu department store at Shibuya with train simulators on big screen tvs, model trains, uniforms to pose in for photos, and offered Tokyu trains by Tomytec, Greenmax and Bandai for sale.

 

http://www.tokyu-dept.co.jp/toyoko/special/08gw_tetsu/index.html

 

Trains are often offered as premiums with food or sweets in supermarkets or vending machines but usually these trains are of the Tomy Plarail type, although in May 2007 Lawson Convenience stores did offer N gauge trams with the purchase of two bottles of green tea for about 2 weeks.  Within 48 hours bloggers had collected all 9 cars and posted them on the internet.

 

It's not just model trains that are big in Japan.  Plastic kits whether cars, gundam, other robots, ships are all big business. 

 

Children are taught to drive model trains at shows at an early age.  When its done on railway property a safety lesson often precedes the fun with the trains.  Trains are everywhere in Japan.

[CaptOblivious]

The author of that article is a wanna be otaku--a tour guide in Akihabara for tourists.   The study he is sighting (and I have a summary of) woefully under estimates the tetsudo otaku market as its focus is solely on tetsudo anime and manga.  Model railroad industry estimates put the number of modelers in the millions (about 9,000,000 and 95% nine mm gauge).

 

The level of activity at the final Hayabusa blue train station stops, the attendance at JAM, the number of train shops in major cities indicate that the number of participants is much greater than 140,000.

 

Japan's model / hobby market rose 2.6% in fiscal 2007 from fiscal 2006 to 48.8 billion Yen owing to the growing popularity of model railways.

 

I've heard this 9mil number used before, but I cannot find a source to verify it. Bill, would you mind sharing your sources with us? Not that I disbelieve you, but having them can be persuasive to others…

[bill937ca]

The author of that article is a wanna be otaku--a tour guide in Akihabara for tourists.   The study he is sighting (and I have a summary of) woefully under estimates the tetsudo otaku market as its focus is solely on tetsudo anime and manga.  Model railroad industry estimates put the number of modelers in the millions (about 9,000,000 and 95% nine mm gauge).

 

The level of activity at the final Hayabusa blue train station stops, the attendance at JAM, the number of train shops in major cities indicate that the number of participants is much greater than 140,000.

 

Japan's model / hobby market rose 2.6% in fiscal 2007 from fiscal 2006 to 48.8 billion Yen owing to the growing popularity of model railways.

 

 

I've heard this 9mil number used before, but I cannot find a source to verify it. Bill, would you mind sharing your sources with us? Not that I disbelieve you, but having them can be persuasive to others…

 

 

It's been quoted by a Kato dealer in the UK. Presumably the figure originated with Kato.

 

http://www.north-london-models.com/nlmkato.htm

 

That would be about 7% of the Japanese population which seems possible.

 

And the info on the toy market (and the hobby and train market) came from IBPC Osaka Network Center.

 

http://www.ibpcosaka.or.jp/network/e_trade_japanesemarket/index.html

[bill937ca]

Incidentally, there is at least one blog attacking the author of the article.

 

"What started this rant? Outside of getting fed up with reading puff pieces by idiots in the English press describing Akihabara tours put on by self-important gaijin wearing Goku costumes..."

 

http://threestepsoverjapan.blogspot.com/2008/12/akihabara.html

 

He runs tours of Akihabara for tourists who have no knowledge of otaku and if his tours are anything like most tourist traps they will be greatly overpriced.

[Guest ___]

And interestingly enough you should see the number of iPhone apps out now and manga guides in English for foreigners to tour the Akiba now.

[keitaro]

9,000,000? Wow ;)

 

Here in Europe, more and more train shops are closing down, I believe the same goes for the US.

 

I wonder if it'll turn around again within the foreseeable future, considering the whole environmental stuff going on, and train travel being fairly environmental-friendly (or at least, more so than most other forms of transport)

 

same in aus i think it's a combination of having crap boring passenger trains and no variety in japan and well over priced hobby gear.

 

I mean heck no one even does a nscale of the tangara or oscar etc. it's really hard to find em in H as well