Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/16/fellow-keeps-impressive-stone.html
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Japan.
The only nation where lack personal responsibility (you know, waiting for the next train) is met not with derision from your fellow riders, scolding from operators, or generally being given the stink-eye, but instead with socially-acceptable gentlemen employed specifically to GET YOUR INCONSIDERATE ASS ON THE TRAIN.
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I’ve seen these types of videos before but i keep wondering how it can be justified. Seems like a public danger to have the car so jam packed.
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It’s a weird thing for sure. I’ve heard that there are male/female cars because of groping. Although, I didn’t see any of the gender-specific rail cars in my few visits to the Tokyo subways (I was told you have to go to the end cars to get segregated by gender). Once during rush hour, the car was so crammed full of people that I was lifted off of my feet by the crowd and I was moved down the train car a bit, away from my mom and my sister. I was fairly concerned but no one else seemed to think it was out of the ordinary in any way. I didn’t feel “unsafe” in there, just a bit claustrophobic. As an added wrinkle, I didn’t/don’t speak enough Japanese to fight my way out of a crowded train car without including a lot of "f*cking hell"s. My mom and my sister pretended to not know me.
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This seems like a pretty good argument for running more frequent trains.
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They might be at the carrying capacity of the lines.
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Is this real? It seems like a very bad policy in a variety of ways.
Never gunna happen in New York.
New Yorkers aren’t patient or friendly enough to let someone that close to their personal bubble 
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Being Japan, you’d think they’d have automated this kind of thing by now.
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Here’s the kicker; he was on his way to the public swimming pool.
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I saw a few on the JR lines last month, though I don’t recall seeing them on the private lines.
The trains were very, very regular. To the extent that it’d be no trouble to wait for the next one - though at peak rush hour, that’d be full too.
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Heck no. We cram together and exchange BO all the time. But we have practical limits. 
I just can’t. Here in Austin during the full swing of summer it’s not entirely uncommon to see a public bus completely full of people and hardly any standing room and i hate it. But thankfully my work location has changed over this past year so i don’t need to take that particular route anymore.
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I like how he claimed his spot by basically having his butt in the door.
I’ve visited Tokyo twice and generally avoided the subways during rush hour, but if I get to go again, I’m making some videos of this.
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It would be, if trains and tracks weren’t as meticulously run and maintained as they are. Japanese railway workers traditionally enjoy high social status and good salaries; couple that with a certain, er, Japanese attitude towards society and taking pride in one’s work, and you have an extremely safe and efficient transportation network.
… except occasionally things go pear-shaped anyway, and you get accidents like Shigaraki (42 dead, 600 wounded) and Amagasaki (100+ dead, 700+ wounded). Still, 2 significant accidents in more than 50 years is not a bad record.
(and yes, pretty much any woman will confirm that groping is a thing.)
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How can this really be how things work? This is crazy.
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It’s only really at peak times, at certain stations. It’s fairly easy for a visitor to avoid, and commuters know what to expect.
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Not excessively more crazy than driving your car during rush hour in/out a busy city and ending up in atraffic jam for hours.
Sure, you could avoid the rush by going in extra early or extra late, but somehow you don’t… and you accept the consequences.
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