Go Tokyo Your Experience
I wonder if everyone has noticed the various advertising billboards in the station or on the platform while taking the train? In fact, renting out these advertising billboards is an important source of income for railway companies. However, when there are no advertisers willing to place ads, the vacant billboards can seem quite unsightly. To improve this situation, railway companies usually replace them with their own designed official billboards to promote riding etiquette or to advocate government policies.
Recently, a cute character-themed official billboard in Tokyo’s “Toei Subway” became a hot topic. However, as mentioned before, the premise for seeing such official billboards is that the advertising space has not been fully rented out. Thus, these characters have been jokingly referred to as “economic downturn fairies.” Next, let’s learn more about these economic downturn fairies!
The economic spirit of Hibiya Station has appeared… (a girl who only appears when the advertisements are not sold out)
Recently, a Japanese netizen with the nickname ‘Tokoroten’ saw a promotional billboard about riding etiquette while taking the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation subway at Hibiya Station.
Thank you for your longstanding adherence to riding etiquette.
This advertisement board depicts a lovely girl holding the two mascots of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, ‘Minkuru’ and ‘Toalan’.
According to netizens who frequently ride the Tokyo Metropolitan Subway, this girl has been appearing on these types of etiquette promotion boards for about 7 or 8 years, and she still has no official name or character setting. Since these official boards typically only appear when advertising space is not fully rented, some netizens jokingly refer to her as the “fairy of recession,” and it is not easy to catch a glimpse of her.
Even more surprising is that through investigations by Japanese netizens, it was discovered that voice actress Nakagami Ikumi revealed in 2019 that this cute girl was actually created by her younger sister!
On the way to the recording studio, I discovered my sister’s work (●゜ё゜●) (Tweet from July 19, 2019)
Nakaue Yumi’s notable works include Yukari Akiyama from ‘Girls und Panzer’
Another representative work of Nakagawa Ikumi is Yamato Maya from “BanG Dream!”.
Nakagawa Ikumi has three sisters at home. As the eldest daughter, she works as a voice actress, the second daughter is a graphic illustrator, who is the one that created the “economic downturn fairy.” As for the youngest daughter, she works as a designer at a game company.
Since the “Unfortunate Fairy” sparked discussions, Japanese netizens have been debating whether more and more companies are choosing to shift from traditional station advertisements to online ads. Many netizens have also voiced their grievances on behalf of the girl, believing that branding her with such a negative title is quite unfair.
By the way, according to publicly available information from the Tokyo Metropolitan Subway, the cost of advertising in these light boxes ranges from 16,000 yen to 208,000 yen, depending on the size and location of the advertisement, with significant variations.
For such a symbol of economic downturn, the little goblin does feel a bit wronged!
