Thanks, will do that.

I don't think September is too busy of a period (doesn't appear in any of the guidebooks as a "must reserve your seat" period), but I agree it makes sense. I think we will reserve our Tokyo-Kyoto-Tokyo and return-to-Narita legs on arrival. The rest we will just wing it.

May I ask one other question - in searching threads I did not find an answer. The green car ticket is not that much more...is it worth paying $70 more for green car? Is it just a bigger seat, or do you get refreshments or any other perks? What do you folks recommend? This is for a party of two (I say this because it looks to me like the regular seating is 2x3 and the green car seating is 2x2 - in other words this seems to lessen the need for green car as you can reserve a set of two seats together in the regular car).