English graffiti 'Hack' grounds bullet train

Tuesday 01st July, 09:03 AM JST

TOKYO —

The Tanigawa 401 bullet train, bound for Echigo Yuzawa on the Joetsu Shinkansen Line, was forced to cancel its departure from Tokyo Station Tuesday morning after the English word “Hack,” spelled out in red, white and blue colors, was found painted on the side of car No. 2 over 4-5 meters. Some 500 people were inconvenienced, according to media reports.

According to the Shizuoka Shimbun, the discovery was made around 5 a.m. at the JR marshalling yard in Tokyo’s Kita Ward while the train was undergoing a routine pre-run inspection. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police department is investigating it as a case of property damage.

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Latest 15 of 118 Total Comments Show All

DeepAir65 at 07:18 AM JST - 2nd July

I think they are right to ground the train and hunt down the twit whether he be foreign or local. Maybe they can't do much in the way of punishment but the days of interrogation may put people off in future.

Anything to ensure that Japanese trains do not end up the disgrace that they call trains back home in the UK.
Beelzebub at 08:41 AM JST - 2nd July

I suggest JR East follow the system used in some foreign country (the name escapes me at the moment) and unleash Dobermans or Rottweilers to patrol the signal yards between midnight and dawn. Any required cleanup will be easily done by two stretcher bearers instead of a paint-removal team.
zanza123 at 09:28 AM JST - 2nd July

It was done by a foreigner, the tags even had side writings written in English, something like 'Hack was here' or something or other. Don't exactly know how to comment on this issue...
Richard_III at 09:33 AM JST - 2nd July

The "artist" should really have learnt to paint better before seeking his "15 minutes of fame".
bamboohat at 12:44 PM JST - 2nd July

The print edition of the Daily Yomiuri English Version reported it as writing in "Roman Letters" and didn't mention English at all. Seemed to be a bit more professional with its reporting.
sabinuki at 01:15 PM JST - 2nd July

It was done by a foreigner, the tags even had side writings written in English

Case closed.

Don't exactly know how to comment on this issue...

Maybe you should have left it at that. The garbage written to the side of the main garbage was incorrect, any native speaker would see that instantly and would close the case by deeming it the work of a major loser who probably missed the salaryman train and decided to exact some sort of pathetic revenge.
asdfghjkl at 03:52 PM JST - 2nd July

It is possible that this moron probably was trying to spell Fack, which would also be a mispelling of another frequently used work.....
Apsara at 09:21 PM JST - 2nd July

NHK news just did a feature on the shinkansen graffiti, the Florence graffiti and graffiti on various national monuments all over Japan. Never was it suggested that any of it was the work of a foreigner, and much of the graffiti featured was written in Japanese anyway, so they would hardly claim that Japanese people don't commit such crimes. JT's use of the word "English" was provocative, possibly deliberately so, but it doesn't mean that all news media here take the same view.
miramira at 11:36 PM JST - 2nd July

I can prove he is japanese just by looking at the style of graffiti, and the type of paint he painted over the train. His style (including the excessive tags written around it) is not similar to any other style of graffiti from any other part of the world than current japanese style.

Graffiti on trains in japan happens often however it is rarely reported, the depots have little or no security compared to other countries (especially Europe), and as there is a growing "Train Graffiti Cult" within the global graffiti community that encourages copycat actions by other graffiti writers to be more "hardcore"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4029655.ece

This newspaper article explains hows organised and military these groups had become in the UK, and how the police had put them under surrviellance to catch them in the act.
buggerlugs at 10:01 AM JST - 3rd July

Just a moment, if there are 20,000 police wandering around tokyo station to stop all the "Terrorists" How the hell did someone slip past these amazingly trained olice and put graffiti on a train?? if they can do that then a bomb would be easy...
isthistheend at 11:50 PM JST - 3rd July

Hello? Hasn't anyone in the government seen the four letter word graffiti painted graphically along the walls for everyone to see as one rides the mono-rail from Hammamatsu-cho to Haneda? Take a look next time and then tell me the Shinkansen story is more newsworthy!
oneearth at 02:30 PM JST - 4th July

just a WORD
smithinjapan at 03:13 PM JST - 5th July

Zanza123: "It was done by a foreigner, the tags even had side writings written in English, something like 'Hack was here' or something or other. Don't exactly know how to comment on this issue..."

Pull your head out of the ground, man! So there was English... big deal! I see plenty of graffiti painted in English by little Japanese punks, and it's usually stupid English like someone calling him/herself (a) hack. Do you know any artists who want to be called 'hack'? I sure don't... and I'm not suggesting this graffiti is 'art', but I figure the painter probably fancies him/herself a bit of an artist.
seiosig at 07:27 PM JST - 6th July

Why was a train delayed from a scheduled departure over graffiti? Why not wait until the weekend or some other "down" period and just clean it off then? Just curious.
lipscombe at 07:47 PM JST - 6th July

because as buggerlugs suggests above they presumed if someone could sneak into the station and vandalise the train they could also have done something more serious to the train and probably panicked over the 'connotations' of the word 'hack'.