Otsuka

Known weekday departures: 1,125/day · Known Sat & holiday departures: 501/day

First / last known departure (weekday): 4:28 / 25:01 (01:01 next day)

Busiest hour (known departures): 14:00–15:00 (81)

0:00 ─ 23:00

Figures are the departures known from the timetable data, not a count of today's actual service.

Timetable data as of 3 May 2026 (retrieved in spring/summer 2026).

• JR Yamanote Line: Sugamo ⇄ Ikebukuro

Ōtsuka Station opened on 1 April 1903 on Nippon Railway's Yamanote shortcut linking Ikebukuro to Tabata, with both passenger and freight operations. It came into state ownership through the 1 November 1906 Railway Nationalisation Act and into the JR East network at the 1 April 1987 privatisation of Japanese National Railways. Freight handling was withdrawn on 1 October 1974 and parcel service on 1 November 1986. Automatic ticket gates entered service in October–December 1990, Suica acceptance began on 18 November 2001, and a north-south concourse opened on 17 October 2009. The wooden south-side station building was demolished in 2009; platform doors were activated on 20 April 2013, the on-site Atré Vie Ōtsuka complex opened on 12 September 2013, and the JR East ticket counter (Midori no Madoguchi) closed on 31 October 2021.

The station was originally to be called Miyanaka Station, after the small place-name (koaza) of its construction site in what was then Sugamo village; at opening it was named Ōtsuka instead, after the nearest place-name inside Tokyo City. The surrounding town later took the station's name, becoming Kita-Ōtsuka and Minami-Ōtsuka in the 1969 jūkyo-hyōji address reform.