By the early 1980s, most of the rolling stock on the Ginza Line were showing signs of aging; some of the stock dated back to before the
Second World War, giving a dated image of the line to its passengers. The 01 series was introduced in 1984 with the design theme being "functionality, brightness and chicness". The prototype was completed in May 1983, delivered in September and commenced service on 31 December 1983. It was followed by the introduction of production units starting in 1984. Set number 38 entered service in 1997, being the last train to do so. The 01 series was awarded the
Laurel Prize from the Japan Railfan Club in 1985. The first 23 sets were not originally fitted with any air-conditioning system due to structure gauge restrictions caused by the small tunnel size of the line. In 1990, Mitsubishi Electric developed a thick compact air-conditioning unit with a capacity of 16.2 kW. A prototype air-conditioning unit was tested on set 16 in August and subsequent non-air conditioned sets were all retrofitted afterwards. The ceilings of the air-conditioned trains were lower than that of non-air conditioned trains to accommodate the unit. The trains which were built with air conditioning always had low ceilings. In November 1986, a practical test of a high-frequency shunt chopper control device that used a power transistor for the element of the field chopper device was conducted on this series for the
Tokyo Metro 02 series. In 2007, car 01-238 of set 38 was experimentally fitted with
permanent-magnet synchronous motors. In January 2011, the four intermediate cars of set 38 were experimentally fitted with
LED lighting. ==Formations==