Tohoku-ben + Slang? Is it understood?

Could there be a way of one person speaking very colliquial/slang-ish Tohoku-ben and have someone born and raised in Tokyo speaking pretty standard Japanese understand them well? I know Tohoku-ben sometimes needs subtitles because of the way people speak so if it was a young person speaking in slang would they be understood? Or would it be a lot of miscommunications?

If it's a real heavy Tohoku-ben, I'd say, no.

I don't know what kind of situations you are thinking of, but I've had instances where I went to certain areas in Tohoku region, and I could not understand (almost a word of) what the local guide was saying. Well, that guy was aged, so maybe his accent was VERY heavy. Young people all over Japan would likely know AND use close-to-standard Japanese, though.

My husband was born in Kanagawa so grew up speaking standard Tokyo dialect, but his mother came from Tohoku so he sometimes visited his grandparents there. He tells me he didn't like going because he was unable to understand his grandmother's Tohoku-ben.

People usually understand Osaka-ben and slang because the comedians use it on TV all the time, but Tohoku-ben seems to be halfway to being like a foreign language for people from other parts of the country.

You'd think old people have heavy accents. Well, everywhere you go on this planet, high school girls speak in the weirdest way you can think of.

I was once traveling on a local train in Tohoku, and the punk-ish high school girl sitting in front of me literally sounded like she was speaking in a foreign language to her school mate. Something like the "Sobu Line high school girl" gag that Kanako Yanagihara performs, or that "Vicky Pollard" punk character on the "Little Britain" comedy show.

But generally speaking you can understand what people there are trying to say to you, just like you can understand what New York cab drivers are trying to say to you even though a bit of subtitles might help.

I speak standard Japanese which is actually nearing a Tokushima dialect as my friend says but I have never encountered a person who spoke Tohoku-ben so I was curious.
The situation is like it's a teenager who speaks like an older person from the area but tends to chop the sentences in half. If I were to compare then I'd say a person from the South like Atlanta whose speech is almost unintelligible but still he chops his words up to make it shorter and easier to say but 10 times more difficult for the listener especially if they are from New York.

The closest possible situation I can show is,

Person from Atlanta would say "What it do?" (That already doesn't make sense, especially to someone from New York or just speaks English that makes sense) to imply "What are you doing?"
Now let's say for instince the Atl person completely shortened his sentence by saying "What do?" then we wouldn't have any clue what he is saying. Would that happen if I encountered a person like that speaking Tohoku-ben? I definitely wouldn't understand them, right?

You must not venture south much. Anyway, I grew up in Ohio and a school mate was from New York (Long Island). The first time I heard his mother talk, I thought she was from Hungary or Poland. Turns out it was a New York accent.

So, I can see how a different dialect with a heavy accent could sound foriegn to someone.

^I'm born in NY, currently living in Atlanta...and have lived her for quite a while actually.

There's different type of New York accents also. There is a Italian New York accent, Jewish, etc...so even to another person from New York there accent would sound funny. It just depend on your backgroud.

Kohoku-ben is not considered slang but a dialect spoken in the Yamagata and Aomori, which is then split into Southern and Northern Tohoku-ben respectively. It is somewhat difficult to understand, especially if you do not speak Japanese fluently.