Bungbox Tokyo Metro Colors Hibiya and Yurakucho Lines

8/3/2019

There has been a delay between reviews but here we are with review number 4 of the Tokyo Metro Colors and this will be brief. The two colours today were so insipid and uninspiring I couldn’t bring myself to ink a pen but I am including them here for the sake of completeness of the set of 9 inks.

Hibiya Line

The Hibiya or number 2 line was the fourth subway line in Tokyo. Work began in 1959 with the first section opening in 1961. It was the first line to fully use narrow gauge track. This line was also one of the lines targeted in the 1995 Aum sarin gas attack. On March 8, 2000, five people were killed and 63 were injured when a derailed Hibiya Line train was sideswiped by a second train near Naka-Meguro Station.
The colour chosen for the line is silver – it is supposed to represent a pre-painted aluminium colour.

Yūrakuchō Line

The Yurachuko or number 8 line was named after the Yūrakuchō business district in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It is the 5th most crowded line sometimes running at 173% capacity. The first section opened in 1974 and on the 31st of October 2005 the line introduced women only cars.
The colour gold was chosen to ‘refresh the customers’. The colour represents a brilliant office building area and the young people who gather there.

Both the Hibiya and Yurachuko colours are boring, I suspect it is hard to recreate a good gold and silver colour. Some hope was held for the Yurachuko line as the blot on absorbent paper revealed a number of brighter colours had been used to achieve the gold. The Hibiya line looked industrial.