TOKYO COMMUTE: Japanese Customs and Way of Life Viewed from the Odakyu Line, by A. Robert Lee. Renaissance Books, 2011, 214 pp., $22 (paper)

Arrive in Tokyo via airport train, as most travelers do, and it quickly becomes apparent that the city's lifeblood is its world-class railway network, each line an artery of the pulsating megalopolis.

All of the city's 13 million residents seemingly have their own personal local station on the "Tokyo Wonderground," a home away from home and base from which countless journeys begin.

For British academic and 14-year Tokyo resident A. Robert Lee, his "local" was Mukogaoka-yuen on the Odakyu Line, operated by Odakyu Electric Railway Co. and carrying half a million passengers daily.