Overview

The Ginza Line (G), opened in 1927, links Asakusa and Shibuya over roughly 14.3 km and 19 stations — Asia's very first subway line, now nearly a century old. Its orange livery and famously narrow tunnel bore are a constant reminder that this is the original.

Everything about the line is smaller than what came after it. The tunnels were dug shallow and tight, so the trains are shorter and narrower than on any other Tokyo Metro line, the platforms are cramped, and at several stations one short flight of stairs puts you back on the street. It is also the only Tokyo Metro line running no through services onto suburban railways — it begins and ends inside the city, exactly as it did in 1927.

Along the route

From Asakusa's Kaminarimon gate the line runs through Ueno, Suehirocho (a short walk from Akihabara), Kanda, Nihombashi, and finally Ginza itself — the line that gave the district its subway-era fame — before threading Omotesando and arriving at the Shibuya scramble.

The original 1927 stretch was just Asakusa to Ueno: 2.2 km, five minutes, and queues around the block to ride it. The line reached Shibuya in 1939, and the western half still shows its age in the best possible way — at Shibuya the train bursts out of the tunnel onto an elevated platform three floors above the street, because in 1939 it was cheaper to build over that valley than under it. Arriving at a subway station above the ground floor is one of Tokyo's small pleasures.

Where the typing gets hard

Nineteen stations, 184 keystrokes, an average of 9.7 per stop — a higher average than the Yamanote despite the shorter run, because the Ginza Line is dense with long, formal place names.

Three stations sit at 14 keystrokes and they arrive back to back near the western end: Aoyama-itchome (aoyamaicchoume), Akasaka-mitsuke (akasakamitsuke) and Tameike-sanno (tameikesannnou). That is the hardest three-stop stretch on the line.

Aoyama-itchome is the one worth drilling. It is the line's only sokuon — the small っ in icchoume doubles the c — and it ends in a long vowel, so it stacks both common stumbling blocks into a single word. Tameike-sanno is the other trap: sannnou wants three n's in a row, because the ん and the sound that follows each need their own. Type two and nothing moves; the game is still waiting for the third.

The rest is gentle. Ueno (4 keystrokes), Ginza, Kanda and Asakusa are all short, and the eastern half from Nihombashi to Asakusa is the fastest continuous stretch on the line.

How to practise it

Run it from Asakusa toward Shibuya first. The short eastern names come first, difficulty rises steadily, and the three 14-keystroke monsters land at the end when your hands are warm — a well-shaped difficulty curve, which is a strange thing to say about a line nobody designed as a game.

Reverse it when you want the challenge. Starting at Shibuya throws Omotesando, Gaienmae, Aoyama-itchome, Akasaka-mitsuke and Tameike-sanno at you within the first five stops — the most demanding opening of any Tokyo Metro line in this game.

Because this is not a loop, a run always covers all 19 stations terminal to terminal whichever start you choose; the direction you pick simply decides which end you set off from.

Why play it

Short on stations but rich in history — a compact, brisk run whose tight station spacing makes for a fast, continuous typing rhythm.