Japanese Smoking Posters

When we were in Japan last year, I got a kick out of the “smoking etiquette” posters that were on the trains (here’s a picture I took of one). Maria came across a couple more on the web the other day, and - looking at them again - I was a bit perplexed. Googling around, I found others describing them as anti-smoking posters, but they are not anti-smoking, they are anti rude smoking. Unlike the US, smoking never went out of style in Japan, but like the US, second-hand smoke and littering have become big issues. So it turns out these posters aren’t made by a government or non-profit organization - they’re actually ads by Japan Tobacco. The best US analogy would be beer companies running ads imploring folks to “drink responsibly.” I found the JT online gallery of all the posters in the series. These are my favorites: