East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, will renew the designs of the rubber stamps passengers can use at all 78 stations in the region covered by its Tokyo branch office on July 8 for the first time in 17 years, company officials said.
The new design for each station features an illustration depicting the station's distinctive characteristics.
"We hope users will learn about the attraction of each station by using the rubber stamp," said an official of JR East's Tokyo branch office.
The new rubber stamps are designed to look like traditional Japanese family emblems called kamon. Each design is made with one of four frame types: a hexagon, a circle, an octagon or four circles put together. The four frames and five colors -- red, vermillion, green, blue and purple -- are randomly combined for each stamp design, which is made up of one kanji character from the name of the station and an illustration of related items, such as something of historical relevance or a specialty food from the area.
For example, the new rubber stamp for JR Tokyo Station is designed with the kanji character for "to" from Tokyo and an illustration of its famed station building, while the one for JR Ueno Station features the kanji character "no" from Ueno, an illustration of a panda in the Ueno Zoo near the station and lotus leaves from the nearby Shinobazu Pond. Each design also includes a romanized notation of the station name so that non-Japanese people can also appreciate it.
A notebook for collecting the rubber stamp marks will go on sale on July 21. They will be available at convenience stores inside the stations and elsewhere.
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