Station Departure Melodies

The idea of greeting departing trains with music predates the modern systems by decades. The custom is often traced to 1951, when, according to an account from that year, Bungo-Taketa Station on the Hōhi Main Line in Kyushu was playing "Kōjō no Tsuki" ("The Moon over the Ruined Castle") from a gramophone record as trains departed. Its composer, Rentarō Taki, was born in Taketa, which makes this an early form of the "local" or place-themed departure melody that later spread to stations across Japan.

By the 1970s some major private railways were already using departure melodies, and Keihan Electric Railway introduced departure music in August 1971 at the suggestion of its president, Shirō Muraoka. The melody, composed by Mutsurō Kimura, rose briskly through the scale and remained in service for decades. For most of the next two decades, however, the typical Japanese platform still relied on metallic bells and buzzers to mark a departure.

The turning point came at the end of the 1980s. After privatisation, JR East began experimenting with gentler signals: it first introduced a departure melody at Sendai Station on 22 November 1988, and on 11 March 1989 rolled out newly developed melodies — built around soft timbres such as piano, bells and harp, and produced with Yamaha — at Shinjuku and Shibuya Stations, which together served over 1.5 million passengers a day at the time. Public criticism of how noisy Japanese stations had become helped push the change along, and the warmly received Shinjuku and Shibuya melodies are widely seen as the moment the practice began spreading nationwide.

From there a small industry grew up around the seven-second tune. Production companies compose, arrange and supply the hundreds of melodies in use. Yamaha developed the pioneering Shinjuku and Shibuya pieces; Nihon Denon (Uni-Pex) produced widely heard standards; Toyo Media Links is associated with "Water Crown", among the most frequently used of JR East's departure melodies; Teichiku and its successor, the Sakurai Music Workshop, supplied melodies to many stations, mainly around Tokyo; and since the late 2000s the firm Switch has introduced a large number of new melodies. Composers became known for the genre too — notably Minoru Mukaiya, who wrote melodies for Keihan and for stations on the Kyushu Shinkansen, among others.

Many stations also choose a tune that nods to their own neighbourhood. Takadanobaba in Tokyo has played the theme to "Astro Boy" since 1 March 2003, honouring the nearby office of Tezuka Productions. Ebisu Station has used the "Third Man Theme" since 6 June 2005, echoing its long-running association with Yebisu Beer, whose advertisements featured the melody. Maihama, the gateway to Tokyo Disney Resort, plays Disney songs. Hachiōji uses the children's song "Yūyake Koyake"; Kamata plays the "Kamata March"; Chigasaki adopted "Kibō no Wadachi" by Southern All Stars, a band tied to the area; and Fuchinobe played the theme from "Galaxy Express 999" until 13 March 2026. The practice spread well beyond JR, with private and regional railways developing signature tunes of their own.

Recently, however, the trend has begun to reverse on the network that uses the most departure melodies. In 2025 JR East announced that it would phase out many of its distinctive local departure melodies, largely as broadcasting equipment is renewed and as more lines move to one-person operation in which a conductor is no longer present to trigger a station-specific tune. On lines including the Nambu Line, the familiar local melodies gave way to standardised ones on 15 March 2025. The melodies were never universal in any case: JR Central, citing the prevention of kakekomi-jōsha, the last-second dash through closing doors, has long declined to use departure melodies as a rule, permitting them only at Tokyo Station.

• 1951Bungo-Taketa Station plays "Kōjō no Tsuki" from a record — an early forerunner of the local departure melody.
• 1971Keihan Electric Railway introduces departure music (August), composed by Mutsurō Kimura at president Shirō Muraoka's suggestion.
• 1988JR East first introduces a departure melody at Sendai Station (22 November).
• 1989Newly developed melodies, produced with Yamaha, debut at Shinjuku and Shibuya Stations (11 March) — widely seen as the start of nationwide spread.
• 1997Kamata Station adopts the "Kamata March" as its melody.
• 2003Takadanobaba Station begins playing the "Astro Boy" theme (1 March), honouring nearby Tezuka Productions.
• 2005Ebisu Station begins using the "Third Man Theme" (6 June), tied to Yebisu Beer.
• 2005Hachiōji Station adopts the children's song "Yūyake Koyake" (25 December).
• 2014Fuchinobe Station adopts the "Galaxy Express 999" theme (14 June).
• 2014Chigasaki Station adopts "Kibō no Wadachi" by Southern All Stars, a band tied to the area (1 October).
• 2025JR East announces it will phase out many local departure melodies as equipment is renewed and one-person operation spreads; the Nambu Line switches to standardised melodies.