Marco Giancotti , February 12, 2026 Cover image: The Four Seasons; Spring, Christopher R. W. Nevinson
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If you descend onto the Marunouchi Line platform in Ikebukuro Station on any weekday morning, you will witness an unusual train-boarding ritual. Like in any other Japanese station, people wait in line at the two sides of where each train's door will open. This is called seiretsu jousha (整列乗車, orderly boarding), and is a universal standard in Japan. Unlike most other stations in Tokyo, though, on Ikebukuro's Marunouchi platform people will form not one but two queues on each side. One of these queues, the one closest to the doors, is the senpatsu (先発, earlier departure) line, and will board the next train that comes; the other, shorter, queue, is called kouhatsu (後発, later departure) and is waiting to take the place of the senpatsu line: they'll skip the next train, and board the one after that instead.
When the new train arrives, first everyone waits for the passengers to get off (the "orderly boarding" common sense), then the people in the senpatsu queue all get in, and finally the people in the kouhatsu queue shift laterally on the platform to become the new senpatsu. A new kouhatsu queue immediately starts forming in its now-vacated place.
① People get off. ② Senpatsu line gets on. ③ Kouhatsu line becomes the new senpatsu line.
This is a rather strange way to do things. Why not simply form one kind of line, and use the age-old first-come-first-served approach? Why would anyone ever choose not to try boarding the next train? And why is this procedure used in the Marunouchi Line in Ikebukuro and not in the many other lines in the same station, or (for that matter) on most other lines and stations in Tokyo?
The key to it all is the observation that Ikebukuro Station is a terminal of the Marunouchi Line, so all trains always start empty on that platform. This double-queueing ritual gives passengers a tradeoff that would not be available in most other cases: speed vs comfort.
If you're in a hurry, you can directly join the senpatsu crowd and be (almost) guaranteed a spot on the very next train, but forget about sitting down—be ready to stand squeezed like a sardine. If, on the other hand, you have plenty of time, you may decide to get in the shorter kouhatsu queue—which will become the front of the senpatsu once the next train leaves—and you'll be (almost) guaranteed a comfy seat in your long commute.
For an Italian like me, this whole process is nothing short of a miracle. I grew up in a city where metro train boarding during rush hour feels like a prelude to the apocalypse.
① Go for it!!!
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