Kodansha Tokyo Subway Guide: Including 40 Bilingual Station Maps

Features
* Handy lightweight size, perfect for travel.
* Names given in both English and Japanese.
* A comprehensive guide to the complicated metropolitan Tokyo transportation systems.
* Easy-to-understand guide to the twelve linked subway lines.
* Details of Tokyo's 59 main subway stations, their exit numbers, and surrounding areas.
* Invaluable to both residents and tourists.
* Quick-find index and useful information on hotels, inns, and airlines.

Pluses:
-Color pages for the individual subway line maps identified by actual subway line color (eg Ginza line is Orange, Marunouchi line is Red, etc). This makes it easy to see what stations are on which lines.
-Identifies station exits.
-Station maps show the area around the stations.
-Interesting notes on using the subway system.

Minuses:
-It only lists around 50 of the more than 300 stations on the system, so it's frequently a hit and miss proposition if the book has the station you are interested in.
-Lack of color on the station maps makes it hard to read. These maps are in black and white.
-The stations on the color subway line maps are not cross referenced to the station maps. This forces you to waste your time looking in the contents page to see if there is even a station map for the station you are interested in.
-There is no frame of reference as to where the stations are in relation to the city. The station maps only show the immediate area around the station.
-Perhaps I had a bad copy, but THERE ARE NO PAGE NUMBERS, even though the contents page has page numbers listed. A big error especially since the stations are not all in alphabetical order.
-As mentioned by another reviewer, there are no maps of the JR Rail system (JR Yamanote and JR Chuo lines). The station maps only show the JR stations as grey shaded blocks. The JR Yamanote line is probably the most important rail/subway line in Tokyo. For a book that claims to be a comprehensive guide to the complicated transportation systems, this is the biggest omission of all.

Conclusion:
Not recommended. This book had a good concept, but there are far too many minuses to recommend it. I would not use this book as your Tokyo travel guide. There are other better maps and books such as the excellent Tokyo City Atlas: A Bilingual Guide. Also note that Eidan was recently renamed Tokyo Metro and the subway stations are now also identified by a letter and number to help foreign visitors.


You can do better   March 17, 2004
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

`Although the information in this book is useful as far as it goes, I didn't buy it, based on the example page showing Toromon Station. Instead, I bought Kodansha's Tokyo City Atlas: A Bilingual Guide. It has the same maps, showing exits, plus:
1) It shows a much larger surrounding area served by the station, usually including neighboring/alternate stations, putting it in a more useful geographic context.
2) It's in color which makes it much easier to read.
3) VERY important: it shows all the`` banchi (block) numbers, which most maps are lacking, and without which it's almost impossible to find an address in Tokyo`


Not a totally complete guide   July 14, 2003
 17 out of 19 found this review helpful

This is a nice pocket-size book, with clear maps. However, it is not totally complete because although individual maps are given of Japan's main TRTA/Eidan and Toei subway lines, no maps at all are included of the JR lines.

As anyone who has ever rode the Tokyo subway knows, the JR lines are an intrinsic part the system, esp. the green Yamanote line that makes a continuous loop around all hubs of central Tokyo. The maps that are included show where the JR subway stations are, but not where the JR routes go. How this can be left out of a book that would be otherwise complete is beyond me.