A question was posted on 5ch’s Hello! Project board: “People always talk about idols mixing up Aomi and Ome, but has anyone actually done it?” Aomi (Odaiba, Tokyo) and Ome (western Tokyo) are read completely differently and are nowhere near each other, yet they’re apparently often confused in location announcements for shoots or solo concerts. The thread cited Uemura Akari’s name as an example, along with an account of Onoda Karin allegedly mixing up Shin-Takashima and Shin-Takashimadaira, and a string of posters piled on with their own mix-ups of similar-sounding place names — Kawasaki and Kawaguchi, Machida and Tamachi, Sagamihara and Odakyu-Sagamihara, and more. Some pointed out that whichever of Aomi or Ome you heard first determines how the mix-up goes, and the thread ended up generating more discussion than a simple joke topic would suggest.
What people said
1AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:06
Uemura Akari
3AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:13
Yukanya mixed up Kawasaki and Kawaguchi
5AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:15
Wasn't Momochi's graduation concert around that area?
6AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:16
Mixing up Akabane and Akabanebashi is a classic old-school Hello! Project member thing
8AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:19
I once mixed up Machida and Tamachi as a meeting spot
Though that was over 20 years ago
26AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:07
Re: #8
There's a pro bowler who's actually done that
11AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:27
I've even mixed up Inagi in Tama with Inage Kaigan in Chiba, if you can believe it
12AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:29
Wasn't there a girl who mixed up Shin-Takashima and Takashimadaira?
13AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:31
When you're heading to Odaiba you take the Rinkai Line, so there's no way to mess it up
14AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:37
The classic story of falling asleep on the Keio Line and getting woken up by the conductor at Motoyawata or Hashimoto
16AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:45
Getting the time wrong, sure. But the place? No way.
17AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:49
Didn't Uemura Akari have an episode like this too?
19AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:50
If you already know Ome well and see "Aomi" for the first time and misread it as Ome right off the bat, sure, that mix-up makes sense — but once you've actually heard "Aomi" spoken, mixing it up after that is just a bit
21AnonymousNov 5, 2026 20:51
I mixed up Kamiyacho and Jimbocho the day before yesterday
24AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:04
There was a group that was supposed to be at Aomi and suddenly announced the event was actually in Ome
I still went though
25AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:05
Yamagishi, who mixed up Tama-Plaza Station and Tama Center Station
28AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:07
Nobody mixes up Shimokitazawa with the Shimokita Peninsula
30AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:09
Re: #28
There was actually a movie plot like that
You tell the taxi driver "Shimokita," fall asleep, and wake up hauled all the way out to the Shimokita Peninsula
33AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:12
I was heading from Chiba to Nakano to catch a Berryz Kobo concert and went to board the Sobu Rapid line
I misread "Choshi"-bound as "Momoko"-bound and almost got on
34AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:13
Re: #30
Must be "Overdrive," huh
38AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:17
Re: #34
Impressive that you even know that movie
35AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:13
Since Ome shows up right there on the destination display, I guess people end up boarding it without thinking
37AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:17
I've mixed up Tama Center and Tama Plaza before
40AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:20
Wasn't there a recent episode about mixing up Kasuga and Wakabayashi?
41AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:21
If you want to get to Tochomae and transfer at Shinjuku, I bet plenty of people end up boarding the Oedo Line train that's bound for Tochomae
43AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:23
Apparently Onoda Karin mixed up Shin-Takashima (Yokohama) and Shin-Takashimadaira (Itabashi) (according to her sister)
44AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:23
As a kid I used to mix up Otemachi and Oimachi all the time
47AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:24
Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo (read "Aomi")
Omi, Itoigawa City, Niigata Prefecture (also written 青海, read "Omi")
Ugh, what a pain!
49AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:26
I live in Itabashi Ward, and even I think Shin-Takashimadaira is asking for trouble
And by the way, there's also a Nishi-Takashimadaira
57AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:29
There's a Kasuga in Nerima too, you know
Nerima-Kasugacho on the Oedo Line
58AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:30
A Yokohama fan said he'd stop by Zenkoji on the way to a Nagano live show, and something seemed off since he was on the Chuo Line instead of the Shinkansen
Turned out he'd mixed it up with the Zenkoji in Yamanashi, and barely made it in time
60AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:31
Mixing up Kasuga and Wakabayashi — even knowing the joke, it cracks me up every single time
61AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:31
Apparently foreign tourists often end up accidentally at Fujiyama-shita Station in Gunma (despite the name, it has nothing to do with Mt. Fuji)
62AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:34
These days there's probably an idol out there who mixes up one Hulic Hall for a completely different Hulic Hall (the company Hulic slaps the same brand name on multiple venues)
63AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:35
Musashi-Koyama Station (Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo)
Musashi-Koganei Station (Koganei City, Tokyo)
Musashi-Kosugi Station (Kawasaki City, Kanagawa)
64AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:36
Koganei and Musashi-Koganei seem more likely to get mixed up
65AnonymousNov 5, 2026 21:36
I think Oimachi and Otemachi are pretty confusing too. But it's an easy mistake to recover from
Background and Discussion Points
Aomi is in the Odaiba area of Koto-ku, Tokyo, while Ome is a place name out in western Tokyo’s Tama region — the readings and the locations are both completely different. Even so, the mix-up joke persists because, as posters noted, “Ome” shows up constantly on JR Chuo Line destination signs and is familiar to the ear, while “Aomi” is barely known to anyone who isn’t a regular rider of the Rinkai Line or Yurikamome. In fact, most of the real examples raised in the thread weren’t actually mix-ups of Aomi and Ome at all, but rather other similar-sounding place names — Kawasaki and Kawaguchi, Machida and Tamachi, Shin-Takashima and Shin-Takashimadaira — so the topic drifted from “idols mixing up Aomi and Ome” to “confusing place names in general.” It’s also worth noting that the Onoda Karin anecdote doesn’t come from her or any official statement but is attributed to “her sister,” so it hasn’t actually been confirmed.
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