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All aboard Japan’s crazy pro wrestling and electronic dance music trains! 【Videos】

Casey Baseel Jul 7, 2015
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By many criteria, Japan’s trains are just about perfect. They’re clean, safe, reasonably priced, and almost always on time down to the exact minute.

It’s hard to find a better way to get from Point A to Point B, as long as you’ve got a book to read, music to listen to, or smartphone to play with. Actually, you might not even need something to pass the time with, since some train operators recently made their service not only punctual and reliable, but exciting, too, as they turned their trains into a wrestling ring and full-on dance club.

We’ve seen rail companies add a dash of entertainment to passengers’ journeys before, with the Penguin Train and Escape Game Train that our own Mr. Sato went for a ride on. But those are both positively tame offerings compared to the event organized by Yamagata Railway Company last weekend.

Yamagata Prefecutre’s Nagai City holds an annual Iris Festival, which took place on July 4. To help promote, it, Yamagata Railway Company wanted to do something special on the Flower Nagai Line, which connects Nagai and Akayu Stations, both of which service towns of only around 30,000 people. Given the rural setting and flower-inspired festivities, you might expect something similarly delicate and relaxing, but instead, the company decided to turn half of the two-car train into a long, narrow wrestling ring.

https://twitter.com/kokowa252/status/617379331375915008

The idea was originally suggested by Yosuke Kiso, the manager of an art-focused cram school in Yamagata. 10 wrestlers were recruited, chiefly from the Tohoku-based Michinoku Pro Wrestling association. Among the combatants was Ryoko Inoue, a native of Yamagata’s Nanyo City (where Akayu Station is located), who can be seen in the video in her trademark tasseled outfit in the video below.

▼ We have no idea where that dude with the mohawk found a folding chair on a train.

Even after years in the over-the-top world of pro wrestling world, Inoue was initially baffled by the situation, saying “This is crazy! I’ve got no idea how I should go at my opponent,” before the battle royal began. Still, as the video shows, she and the other wrestlers put on a show that left the 50 spectators enthralled during the 30 minutes of close quarters action, grappling and performing dropkicks while the announcer periodically informed the passengers, “If you look out the windows, you will see the region’s peaceful farmlands.”

For train travelers who were craving excitement but not necessarily violence, in June Seibu Railways held a unique event of its own to drum up publicity for the Seibu Ikebukuro train line and also the Seibu Yurakucho and Tokyo Metro Yurakucho subway lines. On the nights of July 5 and 6, a special train departed from Nerima Station around 8 p.m. Once the passengers got on, it was time to turn down the lights and turn up the music, as Seibu was collaborating with ageHa, one of Tokyo’s premiere night clubs.

After leaving Nerima, the train continued nonstop to Shin Kiba, the closest station to the ageHa club itself. Along the way, drinks were served, the CyberJapan dance unit performed, and DJs (Daishi Dance on the 5th, and Alisa Ueno on the 6th) kept the crowd of 240 passengers aboard the 10-car train amped up by blasting dance music from the specially installed speakers during the roughly three-hour ride.

After arriving at about 11 a.m., a gokon, or singles party was held for the participants, and then it was off to ageHa for even more partying. And as revolutionary as Yamagata Railway’s pro wrestling event was, you really have to respect the ingenuity of Seibu for organizing a promotion where it dropped hundreds of participants off on the outer edge of Tokyo in the middle of the night, knowing full well that they’d all need to buy train tickets home in the morning.

Sources: Naver Matome, Yamagata Keizai Shimbun, Ny Navi News, IT Media, Clubberia, Seibu Railways