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Number Eleven:
I used to be able to sleep so well on the Yamanote Line.
The Yamanote Line, don't you know, is the train that encloses Tokyo in a great diamond shape. This great diamond shape is represented on most rail map diagrams as a circle. And it might as well be represented by a circle -- the trains run on a loop. Get on the train at Ikebukuro and stay on it for fifty-seven minutes, and you're going to be back at Ikebukuro. From then the train will continue on and on, maybe until forever.
The Yamanote Line is a great place to rest when you don't have anywhere else to go. Sometimes, even today, even when I have a little money and a place to live, I'll board the Yamanote and joyride. If I have to meet my friend Chuck in Ueno at two in the afternoon, sometimes I'll board the Yamanote from Ikebukuro at ten in the morning, if I wake up early enough. It takes sixteen minutes to get to Ueno. When the train gets to Ueno, I don't get off. I stay on until the train comes back to Ueno again, and again, and again. I call this "Shooting Hoops." (Yes, like the final race from Ridge Racer 4.)
Shooting Hoops is a respectable hobby. While Shooting Hoops, all your time is belong to you -- read that book you've been meaning to read, play that Gameboy game you've been meaning to play, or simply enjoy the scenery and relax while the seat-warmers toast your cold winter ass. If there are good-looking people of the opposite sex, look at them. If you're hoop-shooting with a friend, feel free to talk about interesting things. If alone, feel free to think deep thoughts.
I meet all kinds of hoop-shooters in Tokyo. I've been meeting them for years now, since I was merely a lad. You spot a person looking at you the right way, and you note the most recent train stop (of which the Yamanote has twenty-nine), and then when that stop comes back around again, you look to see if that person's still around, and if they're looking at you -- then, and only then is one person on a Tokyo train permitted to speak to another and/or become that person's friend. I could extrapolate here, and mention a lovely woman who once offered me popcorn and then invited me to her house. You probably don't want to hear about that, however.
Once upon a time, my reason for Shooting Hoops was sleep. I needed a place to sleep, and the Yamanote is as safe as they get. Six hours, eight hours, or even just three -- the Yamanote is your prime middle-of-the-day hotel, with a charge of only 130 yen. What makes the Yamanote popular among leisure public-transit riders is its circular nature; the Tokaido Line, stretching all the way down as far as Osaka, while offering beautiful sea views around the Atami area, can be dangerous for sleepers -- nod off in Odawara, and you might wake up as the train terminates two hundred miles away from your home, in the middle of the night. If the Tokaido Line is a marathon, then, the Yamanote is a treadmill. No matter when you choose to stop, you're always within close access of a quick way home.
So it is that from the beginning, in theory, the Yamanote is a safe and reliable form of leisure-sleep transit. And it's quiet as a strong wind, which is soothing if you like sleeping during storms, as I do.
Only now, things have changed.
Not only have I become an adult with adult responsibilities that require me to stay at home screaming at my computer -- the Yamanote, too, has grown up. The rough felt-ish fecal brown seats with shiny metal rails are now smooth, with antiseptic plastic barrier-walls. The old plain framed route maps have been replaced with twin LCD monitors, one of which flashes maps and station names, the other of which shows a constant loop of Asahi Beer commercials and these cartoon-dog-hosted English "conversation" trivia lessons that are absolutely unusable to anyone living or dead.
And now, automated-like, the train talks like something out of a science-fiction movie from the early 1980s.
The announcement used to be only in Japanese. Only in Japanese, it used to whisper into the passengers' ears, "This is the [counter-]clockwise Yamanote Line train bound for _________. The next stop is _________." After leaving certain stations (Tokyo, Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Shinagawa) the train would remind passengers gently, "There are priority seats in all cars. Please observe other passengers' needs." With the advent of cellular technology, the announcement was annotated: please keep your cellular phones turned off. Near the priority seat, set them to manner mode. And don't talk on the phone.
Now imbued with LCD monitors and science-fiction seating, the Yamanote's announcement is as English-ized as "Blade Runner"'s Los Angeles was Chineseified. Not only that -- any town on the Yamanote Line (except, perhaps, the still-dinky Okachimachi, between Akihabara and Ueno) is now grown to a significant enough size to warrant the train's repeating the full announcement after each stop. So now, the full announcement is something like, for example, this:
"[(Japanese) Hello and welcome. This is the counter-clockwise Yamanote Line train bound for Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Shinagawa. The next stop is Ikebukuro. Please change here for the JR Saikyo Line, the Marunouchi Subway Line, the Yurakucho Subway Line, and the Tobu-Tojo Line. There are priority seats reserved for older passengers, passengers with injuries, and passengers accompanying small children. Please set your cellular phones to manner mode, turn off your cellular phones when close to the priority seat, and refrain from talking on the phone.] (English) This is the Yamanote Line train bound for Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Shinagawa. The next stop is Ikebukuro. Please change here for the JR Saikyo Line, the Marunouchi Subway Line, the Yurakucho Subway Line, and the Tobu-Tojo Line. There are priority seats reserved for older passengers, passengers with injuries, and passengers accompanying small children. Please set your cellular phones to manner mode, turn off your cellular phones when close to the priority seat, and refrain from talking on the phone. [The train is now arriving in Ikebukuro. The exit is on the left.] The train is now arriving in Ikebukuro. The doors will open on the left."
The train then stops immediately at the conclusion of this announcement. A loud melody plays from the platform loudspeakers, a different one for each station of the elite twenty-nine. As the Yamanote is a punctual beast, its doors stay open for a full ten seconds, the length of each melody. When the melody ends, the doors slam shut under loudspeakered screams from the platform patrollers. The announcement then begins again.
Before I board the Yamanote these days, I sit on a bench on the platform with closed fists and closed eyes, waiting for the train bound to where I'm going to arrive and take me away. When the train stops and I open my eyes, I pray it's one of the last remaining old-fashioned trains, one without the LCD screens and the ear-chewing announcements. My hope for one of those trains is something like a dream. Opening my eyes to see the sleek silver reality is a lot like waking up. Boarding that train is like going to a place where I can't be at peace, and I can't dream. I can enjoy the convenience of getting from one place to another, and that's it. I'd rather walk, though, and the tragedy of the moment is that walking wouldn't be nearly as fast or nearly as relaxing, even though the train has become not relaxing at all.
. . .
(The preceding has been a Tim Rogers unreview of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.)
[next: number ten: IKAPAN ATTACK]
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