Evangeline Neo is a Singaporean comic artist who went to Tokyo to study for an MBA and ended up with a second career. The daily surprises of living in Japan, from talking toilets to silent trains and immaculate customer service, became short comic strips she posted online as Evacomics. Most of them follow the same simple format: one panel shows how something works “in Japan”, the other shows how it works in Singapore, the United States or “other countries”, and the joke lives in the gap.
The thirty strips below are a selection from the hundreds she drew while in and after Tokyo. She later collected her Japan comics in the books Eva, Kopi and Matcha and Eva, Kopi and Matcha 2.0 (kopi is the Singaporean word for local coffee; matcha is Japanese powdered green tea), and went on to publish other titles, including A Manga Lover's Tokyo Travel Guide with Tuttle. We have grouped the comics by theme and added a short note to each one on the real custom behind the joke, so you can tell which gags are exaggeration and which are surprisingly accurate.
Find the artist: her book on amazon.com | Instagram | Facebook
Toilets, trash and clean public spaces
Nothing seems to amaze visitors to Japan more than its bathrooms, and Neo returns to the subject again and again.
Amazing Clean Toilets
A grimy, graffiti-covered cubicle with a cockroach is set against a gleaming Japanese toilet labelled with a seat warmer, bidet controls, big and small flush buttons and a “waterfall sound” button. That sound feature is real: many Japanese public toilets play a flushing or running-water noise to mask other sounds, partly so users do not flush repeatedly and waste water. Neo even draws a butterfly floating above the clean version.
Picking Up Your Own (And Others) Trash
Japanese football fans tidy the stands, while in Singapore a litterbug runs past a “No littering, fine $1000” sign and leaves the sweeping to a cleaner. Japanese supporters have made headlines at World Cups for cleaning stadiums after matches, a habit that grows out of school routines where pupils clean their own classrooms. The joke about Singapore is that its famous fines make it clean, while Japan relies more on habit.
Toilets
Eva skips happily into a spotless Japanese restroom, then enters a Malaysian one dressed in a full yellow hazmat suit. It is an affectionate exaggeration rather than a survey, but it captures how high the bar is set in Japan, where even train stations and parks usually have free, well-kept public toilets.
Clean And State-Of-The-Art Japanese Toilets
Here the twist runs the other way: a shiny modern building in Singapore hides a filthy toilet, while a shabby old block in Japan reveals a sparkling one inside. The point is that in Japan you cannot judge the bathroom by the building. Shared cleaning standards matter more than how new the architecture looks.
Office Toilet
Visiting a Japanese office, Eva is impressed by lockers in the washroom and assumes they are for wallets, then learns they hold toothbrushes. Brushing teeth after lunch at work is a common habit in Japan, and many offices provide space for it. Her shocked final face makes this one of the funniest strips in the set.
Service, money and shopping
Customer service in Japan rests on the idea of omotenashi, wholehearted hospitality, and several strips show how that feels to a foreigner.
No Service Charge And Tips
In Japan, Eva is treated like royalty with no service charge. In Singapore, her receipt grows with a 10% service charge plus 7% tax, and in the US diners argue over whether the tip should be 10, 15 or 20 percent. Tipping is not customary in Japan and can cause confusion, while Singapore restaurants often add a service charge and GST to the bill. (Singapore's goods and services tax has since risen above the 7% shown in the comic.)
Japanese Service
A Japanese cashier announces the total, confirms the 2,000 yen she received, apologises for the wait and counts out the change before thanking Eva warmly. The Singapore version of the same transaction happens in total silence, ending with “Silence is golden”. Repeating the amount received is a standard practice in Japanese shops, meant to avoid any dispute over change.
Fruits
Neatly boxed Japanese fruit sits under price tags such as $150 for a melon and $200 for a square watermelon, while elsewhere shoppers grab “10 for $5” apples. Luxury fruit really is a gift culture in Japan: premium melons and specially grown square watermelons are sold as presents and can cost far more than everyday produce. Ordinary fruit is cheaper, but still pricier than many visitors expect.
Vending Machines
A path in Singapore is dotted with rubbish bins; the same path in Japan is dotted with vending machines instead. Japan has one of the highest densities of vending machines in the world, while public bins are surprisingly scarce, so visitors often end up carrying their empty bottles until they find a recycling box beside a machine.
Impressive Customer Service
Titled “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, this three-part strip says the customer is king in Japan, the officer is king in the US, and in Singapore both think they are, so a grumpy customer meets a grumpy clerk. It is a gentle dig at Neo's own country as much as anyone else's, and it shows the self-mocking tone that runs through the whole collection.
Food, from noodles to Christmas chicken
Eating Noodles
A quiet candlelit dinner elsewhere is contrasted with a Japanese ramen shop full of loud “SLURP” sound effects. Slurping noodles is perfectly polite in Japan, and many people say it cools the hot noodles and brings out the flavour of the broth. Visitors who were raised not to make noise at the table often find it the hardest habit to adopt.
Celebrating Christmas
A roast turkey dinner in the US and Singapore is set against a bucket of KFC under the tree in Japan. Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan, but a successful KFC advertising campaign in the 1970s turned fried chicken into a seasonal custom, and many outlets take orders weeks in advance. Christmas cake, a strawberry and cream sponge, completes the Japanese table.
Curry
In Japan, Eva wonders whether the mild, sweet sauce on her rice is really curry; in Indonesia, one bite sets her face on fire. Japanese curry, introduced via British navy cooking in the 19th century, is usually thick, mild and slightly sweet, quite unlike the fiery curries of Southeast Asia and South Asia.
Sushi Rice
Japanese diners flip their nigiri to dip the fish side lightly in soy sauce, while in the rest of the world the rice ends up soaked and the piece falls apart. Dipping the fish rather than the rice is the commonly taught etiquette, because rice soaks up too much sauce and loses its shape. Eating nigiri with your fingers is also acceptable.
Trains, stations and getting around
Commuting fills a big part of daily life in Tokyo, so it is no surprise that trains inspire so many of Neo's jokes.
Station Masters
A human station master in a crowd elsewhere is set against a Japanese station master who is a cat, surrounded by adoring photographers. This one is true: Tama, a calico cat, was made station master of Kishi Station in Wakayama Prefecture in 2007 and is credited with boosting passenger numbers and the local economy. After her death in 2015, her apprentice Nitama took over the role.
The Last Stop
A sleeping Eva is politely woken at the last stop in Singapore and Japan, while in the US the figure looming over her holds a knife. It is the darkest joke in the set and plays on reputations rather than statistics. Falling asleep on the train is so common in Japan that it has its own word, inemuri, often translated as sleeping while present.
Getting Off The Train
In Japan, passengers stand aside so Eva can glide out on a red carpet; in Singapore a wall of people pushes in before anyone can get off. Japanese platforms usually mark where to queue on either side of the doors, which keeps a clear path for those leaving. Many other cities have the same rule, but it is not always followed so faithfully.
Train Etiquette
The Japanese carriage is so quiet that Eva can sleep, while in Singapore a fellow passenger watches a melodramatic drama out loud. Japanese rail companies ask passengers to keep phones on silent mode and avoid calls on trains, and most people comply. Neo's punchline, with Eva wishing the TV character would hurry up and die so she can rest, is pure commuter frustration.
Stairs
Singapore offers an escalator for Eva's heavy luggage, while in Japan she faces a towering staircase with flames and a skull. Many older Japanese stations have long flights of stairs and limited lifts, a real headache for travellers with suitcases, although many stations have been adding lifts and escalators.
Kids In Trains
Japanese children are drawn as small, well-behaved penguins sitting in a row, while Singapore's youngsters swing from the handrails like monkeys. It is also a nod to a real sight in Japan: young children often ride public transport alone to school, a sign of how safe and orderly the system is considered.
Bathing, beauty and the body
Baths
A US bathtub with a rubber duck and a quick Singapore shower are followed by a Japanese man soaking in an outdoor hot spring alongside snow monkeys. Wild Japanese macaques really do bathe in hot springs at Jigokudani Monkey Park in Nagano. At human onsen, bathers wash thoroughly before getting in, and swimsuits are usually not worn.
Tattoos
A tattooed man is complimented at a pool abroad but turned away from a Japanese bath. Many onsen and pools have banned tattoos because of their association with the yakuza, and around 2015 more than half of onsen operators had such rules. The Japan Tourism Agency has since urged more flexibility for foreign visitors, and some baths now allow small tattoos if they are covered.
Hairdresser
A Japanese stylist is drawn as an angel asking about water pressure and temperature, while the Singapore version is a blue devil surrounded by flames. Japanese salons are known for careful shampoos and long head massages, often included in the price. The strip's message is simply that small courtesies change the whole experience.
Seven Wonders Of Japanese
Neo lists mysteries she noticed, such as spending two hours on a “natural” make-up look, never appearing sweaty in a suit in summer, drinking lots of beer without looking heavy, looking 30 in your 40s, and always queuing in perfect order. Some are playful stereotypes, but the summer suit point has a real background: since 2005 the Japanese government's Cool Biz campaign has encouraged lighter office clothing to save air-conditioning energy.
Language, manners and generations
Smartphones
A phone on silent mode in most countries takes photos quietly; a Japanese phone goes “SNAP SNAP” in a shop where photos are banned. The comic's footnote says the shutter sound cannot be turned off for privacy reasons. That is accurate in practice, though it comes from a long-standing voluntary practice by Japanese phone makers and carriers to discourage secret photography, rather than from a law.
Kids After Finishing Their Food
Japanese children wipe their table and clear their trays, while Singaporean kids run off and leave the mess for an elderly cleaner. Clearing up after yourself is taught early in Japan, where school lunch is served and tidied by the pupils themselves. In Singapore, a national campaign has since encouraged diners to return their trays at hawker centres.
Active Elderly
An older Singaporean grips a train pole only to claim a reserved seat, while a Japanese senior uses the same grip to climb to the summit of Mount Fuji. Japan has one of the world's oldest populations and one of the highest life expectancies, and hiking is a hugely popular pastime among retirees. Fuji's official climbing season runs for a few weeks in summer.
Sayonara
A Singaporean visitor cheerfully says “sayonara” at the end of a business meeting, and his Japanese hosts look stricken. Although textbooks teach sayonara as goodbye, it can carry a sense of finality, so in everyday and business situations people tend to use phrases such as shitsurei shimasu or mata ne (see you). The comic exaggerates, but the nuance is real.
Designated Smoking Area
Japanese smokers huddle inside a designated smoking booth on the pavement, while in Singapore and Indonesia smoke drifts freely along a park path. Many Japanese cities ban smoking while walking on the street but provide smoking spots, an approach that can surprise visitors who assume Japan has strict rules everywhere. Singapore has also tightened its outdoor smoking rules over the years.
Japanese Speak English
Struggling with a sushi menu, Eva gets cheerful English help from a man at the next table, who then collapses face first: he had been drinking. Her conclusion, that some Japanese speak English only when drunk, pokes fun at a real phenomenon. Many people in Japan study English for years at school but feel too shy to use it, and a drink or two can loosen that reserve.
Why these comics work
Comparison comics can easily slide into “my country good, your country bad”. Neo mostly avoids that trap because her own country, Singapore, is usually the butt of the joke, and because many strips quietly explain a custom rather than just mocking it. They work best read as one person's honest, exaggerated notes from abroad. Life in Japan varies by city, generation and person, and the “other countries” panels stand for experiences, not statistics.
If you are planning a trip to Japan, several of these strips double as practical tips: carry your rubbish, queue at the marked spots on platforms, keep your phone quiet on trains, dip the fish side of your sushi, and do not leave a tip.
Sources: Evacomics by Evangeline Neo (Facebook); Evacomics (Instagram); Candid Creation Publishing: Evangeline Neo; Tuttle Publishing: interview with Evangeline Neo; Wikipedia: Tama (cat); Wikipedia: Christmas in Japan; Wikipedia: Onsen.
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