Odakyu's next Romancecar (80000 series) from March 2029: a giant round window, group booths and 600 mm-wide seats

Odakyu Electric Railway announced on 9 November 2026 that it has begun building its next limited-express Romancecar, the 80000 series. Three seven-car sets are being made; two are planned to enter service in March 2029 and the third later in fiscal 2029. Like today's Romancecars, the cars are built to run through onto the Hakone Tozan Line to Hakone-Yumoto.

Each train will have about 380 seats of four kinds. The famous observation seats stay at both ends (16 in each end car), with a wider front window and window frames placed so that the back rows see more of the view. Cars 2–6 have more than 280 standard seats.

Two seat types are new. In car 4, two four-person "observation group seats" (working name) curve around a round window about 1.8 m across that reaches from ceiling to near the floor. In cars 1 and 7, 27 seats each are laid out two-and-one, about 600 mm wide — Odakyu says among the widest on any Japanese train — with a shaped shell, a centre armrest and a seat-back table; Odakyu suggests them for people with lots of luggage or small children. Fares for the new seat types have not been announced.

The design theme is water: a clear blue-green body, vermilion orange at the car ends, side windows set lower so children can see out, and window-side counters. Odakyu says the new trains, together with the two GSE (70000 series) trains, will make five Romancecar sets with observation seats.