The hilly residential district laid out by the founder of Tamagawa Gakuen, with Odakyu Tamagawagakuen-mae Station in the valley between the slopes
Tamagawagakuen is a residential area developed by a private school. The school bought up this hilly woodland, and while running the school, sold off residential lots on the side - the place name comes straight from the school's name. The station sits in a valley between hills to the east and west, and the surrounding residential area has plenty of steep slopes. To the northeast of the station lies Tamagawagakuen's large campus (not part of this neighbourhood), and trains coming from the Shinjuku direction actually pass right through the middle of the campus.
On both sides of the station there are shopping streets running parallel to the railway, and the station-front shopping complex at the south exit has an Odakyu OX supermarket and a drugstore. The community centre at the north exit is linked to the station building by a footbridge, which opened in 2021. This is an educational district, so there's no pachinko parlour in front of the station. Going by our street photos, greenery ranks 65th out of 174 neighbourhoods in Tokyo - middling for the city as a whole, but still the best-performing of the seven categories for this particular neighbourhood.
Odakyu's Rapid Express and Express trains both skip Tamagawagakuen-mae, so normally you'll need to take the Local; the Semi Express only stops for a handful of weekday morning and evening services. The streets round here are narrow with lots of slopes, so ordinary route buses can't get into the lanes - residents campaigned for years before the city finally got a community bus running in 2006. There used to also be a route bus from the north exit to Machida, but that was discontinued at the end of September 2025. Based on the street photos, sidewalks rank dead last out of 174 neighbourhoods, which fits with the narrow, steep terrain. Day-to-day shopping also ranks last - shops are mostly clustered on either side of the station, so anyone living up on the slopes has to walk up and down to pick up groceries.
The station opened in April 1929, built by Odakyu at the request of Obara Kuniyoshi, founder of Tamagawagakuen, who provided both the station building and the land. He borrowed money to buy up this hilly area, developed and sold off 80 percent of it as building plots, and used the proceeds to fund the school's buildings. Naming the station after the school was something he'd already done once before, at Seijogakuen in Setagaya, Tokyo. In 1967, a new address system came into effect, creating Tamagawagakuen 1-chome through 8-chome. Of these, 7-chome had originally belonged to Naruse, while 1-chome and 8-chome had originally belonged to Minami-Oya. The third-generation station building, which opened in 1970, trialled automatic ticket gates - at the time, it was the only station on the entire Odakyu line to have them. They broke down so often, though, that they were removed again a few years later.
Compared with the 174 Tokyo neighbourhoods in this guide (scores 0–10)
57 blocks · Curated boundary · Data version 2026-10-04
Compared against the Tokyo neighbourhoods in this guide; metrics without enough data are not ranked. Shopping counts convenience stores plus the nearer of a supermarket or a traditional market (public and private retail markets); night markets, vendor zones and shopping-street shops are not counted. Transit is rail-first with a lower weight for buses.
TidyMap rates the street environment and everyday convenience. It does not assess the home itself, safety, noise or actual living experience. About data limits
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How to read it: yellow = poor, blue = good; grey = not enough data
TidyMap rates the street environment and everyday convenience. It does not assess the home itself, safety, noise or actual living experience. Street environment scores use AI assessments of imagery; convenience scores use public facility data.
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