Shinkansen trains

[The Imperialist]

I see. Too bad Anno did not use more original names.

[UrsusArctos]

I get the impression Anno shared Kensuke Aida's sheer nerdiness and passion for all things military, which explains all the warship names. While those warships have passed into history, the train services are still around and widely used, which is why I find using all three names together stupid.

"Hikari" alone, to commemorate the original Hikari service, is nothing bad at all.

Akagi is supposed to be an actual surname, and Langley of course is a proper name, the ship Langley being named for aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley.

[Ornette]

Well, Nozomi and Kodama were only passing mentions. Hikari isn't exactly a rare name, but when all 3 sisters are mentioned in episode 17, it was enough for your average Japanese to say "Ahh, the trains, ok", and move on.

[Skullraper]

Why are so many public signs in Japan written in English or in English letters? It must be a necessity to cater to the foreign majority.

That’s interesting how they operate older trains along with the new ones. You’d think they’d replace them simultaneously.

[UrsusArctos]

Foreign majority? Peculiar choice of words. In any case, its a whole lot simpler to have some of the signs in English instead of Kanji, it saves a lot of trouble in some cases. Japanese know Romaji, so reading English isn't a problem.

And as for the Shinkansen, most of the trainsets are replaced within 15 years as opposed to 30 for other Japanese rolling stock. Only very few rare type 0 Shinkansen operate on the Kodama services, and those should be out in a year or two.

[Skullraper]

By foreign majority I mean that English is spoken by a majority of the world. I wasn’t suggesting that the majority of Japanese citizens are foreigners.