Overview

The Den-en-toshi Line (DT) is Tokyu's suburban trunk line, and the first 大手私鉄 — major private railway — line in the game. Its 27 stations run 31.5 km from Shibuya to Chuo-rinkan at an average of just 1.2 km apart, which is dense even by Tokyo standards. The history is tangled: the name dates to 1963, when part of the Oimachi Line was renamed; the Shibuya–Futako-tamagawa section opened in 1977 as the separate Shin-tamagawa Line and was only absorbed in 2000; and the line reached its full length in 1984 with Tsukimino–Chuo-rinkan. Shibuya is not a terminus but a through-station — trains continue onto the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line and, past Oshiage, onto Tobu's Skytree and Nikko lines.

Along the route

The first stretch out of Shibuya is underground, running beneath the Setagaya suburbs through Ikejiri-ohashi, Sangen-jaya, Komazawa-daigaku, Sakura-shimmachi and Yoga. The line surfaces at Futako-tamagawa to cross the Tama River, and from there to Mizonokuchi it runs on four tracks shared with Oimachi Line services. Kajigaya, Miyazakidai, Miyamaedaira and Saginuma climb the hills of Kawasaki, and then come the garden suburbs Tokyu built for itself: Tama-plaza, Azamino, Eda, Ichigao, Fujigaoka, Aobadai. Tana and Nagatsuta bring the interchange with the JR Yokohama Line, Tsukushino, Suzukakedai and Minami-machida Grandberry Park cross back into Tokyo at Machida, and the line finishes over the Sakai River in Kanagawa at Tsukimino and Chuo-rinkan, where the Odakyu network takes over.

Why play it

The kana station names are the reason to play this one. Tama-plaza, Azamino, Tsukushino, Suzukakedai, Tsukimino — after a diet of kanji names, they land on the fingers as a different rhythm entirely, and Fujigaoka, Ichigao and Kajigaya stack three が in a row. Then there is Sangen-jaya, whose reading is さんげんぢゃや: the name comes from 三軒の茶屋, "three teahouses", so Tokyu's own signage uses ぢ even though it romanizes the station as "Sangen-jaya". The game accepts both dya and ja here, so neither habit is punished. The final boss is Minami-machida Grandberry Park — twelve characters, the longest station name in the game.