Chaos as Otaku Stop Trains to Photograph Asuka
- Categories: Japan, News
- Date: Feb 15, 2010 00:15 JST
- Tags: Asuka Langley, Bizarre, Crime, Otaku, Public Transport, Trains, Video Gallery
Frenzied otaku have brought dozens of trains to a standstill thanks to their desire to photograph Asuka, delaying 13,000 commuters and causing transport chaos.
Police had to eject the maniacal throng from the premises to avert further delays.
The chaos began as dozens of trainspotting otaku descended upon an Osaka area, intent on photographing the red belle of their dreams: “Asuka,” a rare locomotive outfitted for tourist usage, with the unusual distinction of having tatami flooring.
The excitement of seeing this train pay a rare visit to an urban station drove the gathered otaku into a frenzy, and some 50 of the assembled otaku crowded onto the tracks themselves so as to get better pictures, bringing all trains on the affected lines to a halt due to the obvious safety concerns to passengers and staff of running over so many otaku.
The assembled crowd ignored pleas from train drivers to vacate the lines, and station staff and police had to be summoned in order to disperse the mob; police are said to be considering pressing charges of disrupting the operation of trains, although no arrests were carried out at the time.
In total 19 services were completely suspended as a result of the track invasion, whilst 26 services suffered delays of up to 40 minutes, all of which affected an estimated total of 13,000 commuters.
The train company responsible for the lines affected, JR West, urges train fans to demonstrate their respect for the railways by observing simple manners, such as not blocking lines in order to get a better shot.
Recently an escalating series of incidents involving train-spotters have come to light in Japan, with throngs of camera waving otaku blocking platforms and attempting to eject non-trainspotters from carriages, but rarely have they had such a direct effect on services as in the case of Asuka.
Earlier in the year, a similarly disturbing incident was reported where trainspotters descended upon an unusually numbered (“209”) service on the Keihin-Touhoku line, filling the train after photographing it.
Standing on seats and roaring with the exultation of arriving at a (to them) particularly interesting station, the mass began screaming at ordinary passengers that “No commoners can board here!” and “This carriage is for tetsu-ota only!”
Here another group of “tetsu-ota” scream “Die!” at a farmer’s truck which had the temerity to drive around in a field whilst their favourite train passed by:
A group of trainspotters descend into frenzy whilst station staff stoically stand by:
To Love-Ru Darkness Totally Tentacular
Ano Hana Naruko Anjo Anal Dress Figure
Top 10 Most Followed Seiyuu
Wonder Festival 2012 Winter Wondrous As Ever
Ciel nosurge: “Your Date With Ion = $170″
Nisemonogatari – “Where Did All The Ero Go!?”
Police Hunt Ushijima for “Public Indecency”
Cops Bust Cop in Nude BDSM Club Raid
K-ON! “Causes Keionbu Girl Band Boom”
Vippers vs Vankers: 2ch Targets “Korean Propaganda”
Overflow Delays “Final” Game: “We Are Not Going Bankrupt!”
Ritsu Topless Manga Time – “She Has Boobs After All!”
Top 10 Most Boring Anime of Winter 2012
Behold: The ONACOUNTER
Future Diary Unveils Eye-Popping Scenes of Sex & Guro
K-ON! Pilgrims Invade London
Top 10 Essential Anime Elements
Lolicon Teacher Rapes Pupils 37 Times, Faces 30 Years
Strike Witches Movie Trailer Unveiled
China Menaced by Exploding Coins
Wonder Festival 2012 Winter Cosplay
“Post The Highest Level Cosplay Ever!”
“Share The Cutest Cosplay Ever”
“Dolls vs Figures – Which is Best?”
“Why Do Girls Always Have Such Cute Rooms!?”
Ranka Lee Wedding Dress Cosplay by Tomia
Shoko-tan’s Madoka & Ika-chan Cosplay “Excessively Cute”
Guilty Crown Yuzuriha Inori Cosplay by Sasa
IdolMaster G4U: “Who Needs 3D Idols Now?”
Anegasaki Nene Cosplay by Rinami
I know train otakus existed but never knew they're this crazy.
What is this I don't even...
exactly what I thought
They don't seem as bad as some of the anime otaku.
Seriously?
"Nice train! Nice train! Nice train!"
This just in, 50 train otaku turned into a fine bloody mist by a bullet train.
These otaku have gone too far, now they're ruining other people's lives and breaking the law just because they're obsessed with something.
Wow, Japanese Otaku are so pathetic and sad. It's a fucking train with the same name and color, whoop dee doo.
you stupid ignorant, they're not taking pics because of the Eva characters
they're just train-lover freaks
oh god ive been blind the whole time
What Eva character, what do you talking about ? :)
definitely not ramiel :)
It'll be so great to have a few of the Japan-worshipping weaboos here to be inside the train and get screamed at by a throng of otaku.
"Gaijin, GTFO our train!"
Hahaha
Misleading title is misleading.
Dont see the problem. its a rare engine making a rare appearance... they should have expected that. Its no different than spending 3 months in India just to see the trains. Best time of my life!
Damn annoying otaku making the rest of us look bad. They should show some common courtesy.
"due to the obvious safety concerns to passengers and staff of running over so many otaku"
This made me lol.
Hahaha, man that train staffperson in the last video actually bent to the will of the otaku and heeded their demands for him to sit down and not block their shots. I think one of them yelled "Die, moron!" at the end of it.
shut the hell up usa,japan awesome i want ride a train will girls ^^
cat calling....trains? a by-product of rule 34 i suppose
...OK, I fap to TGVs and the Z 20500 from Paris's RER commuter rail... but what the fuck is this shit?
Last time I heard, you don't stop an RER train to take a fucking picture...
OK... Anime-Otaku I can sympathise-with,
Likewise Electronics-Otaku, and Automobile-Otaku,
I can even understand a Gun-Otaku...
But a TRAIN-Otaku o.0 ...I mean WTF Man?
Why the Hell would Anyone drool over the sight of a Steam-Locomotive?
It's not like you can Collect THOSE!
I can understand the interest in trains. I mean i like machines too, but this? This is going too far - its just embarrassing. (-_-')
Train stalkers.
Combine this with Virgin Trains and you will control an otaku army.
I was used to call myself OTAKU, but one day i realized
that i wasn't an otaku. Loving japanese animation, culture or girls, doesn't makes you OTAKU.
but, I wish I had the passion of this guys about something. almost always, if you do what you really want, you'll be close to be hated.
I wouldn't even dare to call myself an otaku, because the term suggests that I have an unhealthy obsession over something. I don't.
ALL ABOARD THE COLE TRAIN BABY!
Good thing these morons are confined to Japan. The Japanese police must be utterly useless, since they can't even stop a bunch of camera-wielding maniacs from harassing passengers and disrupting train services for 40 minutes.
Such a soft bunch of weaklings now. How is it possible that this is the same Japan that caused so much mayhem in the last world war?
wow
those tetsu-ota are extreme indeed.
i've seen one sporting a \200000-lens equipped SLR just to photograph a train-on-a-bridge from TWO bridges away near the Ochanomizu station.
better yet, there's one japanese tetsu-ota documenting every electrified lines owned by KRL Jabotabek in Indonesia. even though those trains are ugly as hell.
Fucking Sad. I am willing to bet you that after you take pics of it you jerkoff to the train.
:|
I like trains
Maybe they are only train lovers but I bet if it wouldn't be red and called Asuka there would be only half of them :)
All otakus are the same each of them would do anything to get a ride on Asuka :D
Imagine yourselves as an otaku, a train otaku. So
1. it's a rare train
2. it's red and called Asuka
so I would call this a win-win situation :)
Maybe Anno could use it for Eva3.xx to bring even train otakus to the "dark side"...
While I find trains to be awesome, I can't relate to anyone taking such extreme measures to get a better view of the trains.
For example, the farmer in the first video doesn't really destroy the film, as it can be easily (I think) removed by a film editing program. If anything they destroyed the video them self by yelling at him, causing the soundtrack to be unusable
And all this took place on valentines? goes to show what not having a date will do to a fellow. at least they were able to spend it with their special other, in this case a train...
Train otaku are so crazy, lol. But arent we all?
they probably love the trains...inside, they're crying..
I don't really understand this. Is being a train otaku the Japanese equivalent of like... a fraternity? Or a gang? Like some kind of club to belong to, and then the mob mentality takes over as you "rail" against the establishment?
Or is this a self-depreciation thing? You love trains so much that HATE THEM TO THE POINT OF FIRE?
The train driver should just ran over them, crushing and slicing their fat ugly bodies with steel wheels.
They would probably be happy to die while being totally dominated by Asuka.
sounds like a win-win to me
....I was going to neg your comment, but then I realized how right you are.
All sorts of madness...
I'd say run 'em over and make the world a better place
But that'll dirty the train.
Mmmm... Dirty Asuka...
I see what you did there... XD
Going too name my car Rei! brb
so your car will look like this ?:
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2008/12/16/rei-christmas-itasha/
I already named mine that bro, name yours hikari or misato :)
gosh next thing you'd know there'd be train bukake. sheesh
but bro seriously, name your car something else, my evo 8 is already named rei. hehehehe
Yeah bro, let's not copy bro bro here, bro, cuz like ya know, bro code and what, bro bro I got more popped collars than you bro riding in my bro-ed out bro car, bro, broseph bra bra bro bra ..
Can someone please explain the rather unnatural obsession with trains among train-otakus? Why not trucks/construction machines/cars? Why trains in particular?
They do. There are obsessed otaku for almost everything.
See the Physicist who spends the entire day in his laboratory obsessing over an equation? That's also an otaku.
looking things that, I guess we can say that it thanks to otaku, who prefered technologies and sciences over 'getting a life', that we have computers and all these things which make our life easier
but train-otaku get far more attention than the rest of the 'vehicular' otakus
Because they cause the most disruption.
what, doesn't everybody love Asuka?
If they would call a white/blue train Rei it would be even worse. In the future they should pay attention how they call their transportation vehicles and what color they have.
Everybody does, they're just being tsundere.
Wait, wait, wait.... all that for a train? There are dozens of red trains that look like the one in the first picture around where I live. What the hell,...
Dude it's Asuka, so she put on a little weight and turned into a train. I'd still hit it.
So, how's it like to be inside Asuka?
Warm? :]
It also has tatami flooring.
i-i-it's not like i want to stop at the boarding platform for you!
"I only stop at this station because I was told to!"
I wonder if a train can be tsundere?
But does this one come with a plug suit?
Asuka's a whore for letting so many people get inside her
"But does this one come with a plug suit?"
Just because she's in train form doesn't mean she can't still have one.
*nosebleed*
Does this mean we get mad at the conductor driving her?
Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one that wants to see inside Asuka... Seriously, though, tatami mat interior pictures where?
Please do not get mad at the conductor who DOES NOT DRIVE the train, he is a CONDUCTOR.
The person who drives a train is an 'engineer' or possibly a 'train driver'.
Additional technical terminology: annoying trainspotters are often referred to as 'assholes'.
Got any pictures of said tatami flooring?
We'll always be together, commuting like this, no matter the day of the week, twice every day. Just you and me, forever.
Ne, salaryman nii-san?
I've put on tatami flooring especially for you...
Since we're juggling jargon:
Can a train be yandere?
It's potentially colored a silly shade of red for a reason?
Hey.. you will board right...? RIGHT?
You were just looking at that other train right now weren't you?
Yea yea, okay okay.
Trains are nice and all but...
I would like some valentine news to feel more depressed right now.
Show some customary galleries on lonely otakus "celebrating" their valentine pls. And make it hardcore...
lol they speak just like in bleach <3 <3
You mean it would hit you.
ANTA BAKA!! *splatters*
[EDIT]
no...ANTA BAKA
there are such things as "train otakus" in japan
yes, otaku basically means someone who is extremely obsessed with some thing in particular ...like anime, games, computers, animals, cameras, basically anything including trains.
dosent really even make me think of Asuka IMO
makes me to be convince more that most people really have such a lonely, lonely life.
well its red isnt it?
Is train affection some sort of otaku meme?
train spotting originated in great britain actually. it's just otaku do this, like everything else, to an extreme.
Also trains are one of the great shared experiences of Japanese culture, and are very numerous. Would be be surprising if people didn't obsess over them really - just look at car culture in the USA.
nice word into it.
You've never heard of train otaku (tetsu ota) have you?
The one time I can't say 'I'd hit it!', This Asuka would hit ME!! Σ(°□°;)
If they saw a steam train from the old days, they would go nuts!!!!!!
Seriously Japan?
I mean really?
THAT AINT NO F40PH
of all the weird japanese obsesions there are out there, the train obsession is the one I get the least.
Seriously a mob over............. a train!
now that I think of it, loving trains isn't particularly more stupid than loving cars
I mean, trains are huge mechanics, tons of work and great invention, as much as cars. Though, loving trains is considered crazy for some reason...
Japanese people have always been crazy about factories, tanks, weapons, or every complicated mechs humans have created
But machines are so beautiful!
You know, give us another 40 thousand years or so, every machine otaku will be members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, where they can obsess over their machines without the prejudice of everyone else.
And i was going to say, "FOR THE EMPEROR!!!" and then realized that Japan DOES have an Emperor.
Goddamn it, anon!
Mmmmmm, mobs of Techpriest Enginseers wielding built-in cameras led by a Magi swarming over the Asuka train. Now this I must see.
Otakus... are fucking weird. Seriously. It's a train. Seriously.