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Hiro Arikawa (author), Allison Markin Powell (translator). The Passengers on the Hankyu Line, Penguin Random House, 2025. 256 pgs.

It seems fitting that I began reading The Passengers on the Hankyu Line while travelling home by train. Singapore’s North East Line, which I take each day, is a fully automated underground heavy rail rapid transit line. Unlike the Imazu Line, where the story unfolds, there is no breathtaking scenery awaiting me when I steal glances outside the window. Yet the underlying message of this cosy book still resonates: “the contents of each traveller’s heart is a mystery known only to themselves.”

The interconnected stories remind us that everyone carries their own tale, and that there is always a reason behind each bright smile or surly frown. A case in point is the disgruntled wedding guest, dressed in an eye-catching white gown in a deliberate attempt to upstage the bride, whose wedding she had just attended before boarding the train. One might be quick to condemn her thoughtless actions, but only by peeling back the layers, as other passengers did, can we truly understand her story.

Another theme that makes the book the warm embrace that it is lies in the notion that even the smallest of ripples can create vast waves of change. From the blurb we learn that one of the main characters is a young woman who “finally grows the courage to walk away from an abusive partner.” All it may take to make a life-changing decision is a fleeting encounter, perhaps even with a fellow passenger one happens to meet in the short span of time it takes to travel from one station to the next. Sometimes we already hold the answers we seek, and all that is required is a gentle nudge when deciding whether to follow one’s heart.

I often think of life as a train ride. Just as we meet different people in the various seasons of our lives, so too do we encounter different passengers during our journeys. Some may become familiar if we take the same route daily. Others we may only meet once, when we make a detour to explore somewhere new. Yet people come and go, and everyone must ultimately complete their own journeys alone. So although other passengers may spark the changes our characters needed, it was ultimately their own hearts that led them to the decisions they made.

Through Arikawa’s assured prose, the lives of these ordinary individuals are rendered extraordinary. The Passengers on the Hankyu Line offers as much comfort as it does delight through the characters’ serendipitous encounters. Even as the train departs and we leave Takarazuka station, their stories, as well as ours, continue, and the power of connection endures.

How to cite: Koay, Xinyi. “The Train Ride of Life: Hiro Arikawa’s The Passengers on the Hankyu Line.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 20 Sept. 2025, chajournal.blog/2025/09/20/hankyu-line.

Koay Xinyi is a writer and translator from Singapore. She is currently working on a collection of essays that reflect upon her journey to discover what truly matters in life. Her ideal afternoon is one spent in a library, a good book in hand.

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