The first time I got off at and heard Komagome's tune I mistakenly thought it was some halloween special because it was late October at the time, and the song felt so distinct and unique.
Yes I was living in Tokyo in 2003 at the day when, according to the original comic, Atom was created. That's when they started to use this melody at Takadanobaba.
Unfortunately JR East has phasing out the custom melodies and have been standardizing the Yamanote line to always play the same tune. They are saying labor shortages are the reason since they need to press a physical button in the station in order to play the melody.
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.
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.
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
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.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 56.9 ms ] threadhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jqpFjsMtCb0
https://youtu.be/yFLYuKUKXoY
It stood very much in contrast with all the other jingles, and I simply loved it.
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 honestly need to pop up there to some Rust meetups. I always wind up discounting Tokyo, but I've met some smart people at the wrong times.
https://youtu.be/wpw1MWH0AZI?si=ELfOL6QdgYCxHRyU
https://youtu.be/4qFHVCMUrto?si=daYuWZWK_aQizbha
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.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYpdBcso3A
[2] https://g.co/gemini/share/d584c36b99ab
- https://w.atwiki.jp/trainmelody/pages/273.html
- https://www.te2do.jp/contents/category-n3/?attr=1&cid1=1&cid...
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
https://youtu.be/4V6Q5l2S7Co?si=k1M5F6WD3y05wIN2
He also has done live reproductions of SNES music which are well worth a view
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.