About smashing onto crowded Tokyo trains - accurate enough, except that the bullet trains (Shinkansen) are usually not crowded. On a typical 18-car train, only about three of the cars are open seating. The rest of the cars are reserved seating only, so either there's a seat or there isn't, but no one is standing and no one is pushing and shoving to get on.
One exception is when something goes wrong with the schedule during either the Obon or Shogatsu (Lantern Festival or New Years) holidays and then - in order to get people home, they sometimes suspend the reserved seating and people smash onto them, but that is very definitely the exception, not the rule.
Crowded Trains
One exception is when something goes wrong with the schedule during either the Obon or Shogatsu (Lantern Festival or New Years) holidays and then - in order to get people home, they sometimes suspend the reserved seating and people smash onto them, but that is very definitely the exception, not the rule.
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/