I’m writing this after fifteen years in Japan. I’ve built businesses here, raised cats, lost friends, gained others, lived through two imperial eras, watched Tokyo change three times. I’m often asked: “Would you recommend that someone move here?” The honest answer is neither yes nor no. It’s: it depends, and there’s a lot to know before deciding.
This guide isn’t an argument. It’s a map of both sides. I love this country deeply, otherwise I would’ve left long ago. But I don’t tell stories: there are aspects that wear on you, aspects that delight, and it all depends on who you are and what you’re looking for.
What kept me here (and still does)
The density of daily experience
Japan offers a density of experience per square meter that I haven’t found anywhere else. In Tokyo, turning down an alley shifts the atmosphere completely within ten meters. An artisan shop behind a sliding door, a sento where retirees soak at 6pm, a six-seat izakaya where the owner recognizes you on your third visit. This density isn’t visible in two weeks of tourism. It reveals itself after six months, and after five years it keeps revealing layers.
The silence inside the noise
Tokyo is immense, but strangely silent. Cars have been electric or hybrid for a long time, people don’t yell in the street, the metro is calm, neighbors respect your walls. Living in a 38-million megalopolis without the noise that should come with it is a daily relief I’d never imagined before coming, and which I’d painfully miss if I went home. See my guide to lesser-known Tokyo neighborhoods for the spots where this silence is even sharper.
Safety, everywhere, all the time
A woman walks home alone at 3am without thinking about it. A 7-year-old takes the metro alone to school. You leave your laptop on a café table to go to the bathroom, it’s still there when you return. This safety has a cost (a pervasive state, strong social pressure), but it changes quality of life in a way that’s hard to measure before you’ve lived it.
The infrastructure
Trains on time to the second. Fiber internet everywhere. Very high quality hospitals accessible to all. Perfect roads down to the villages. Clean public toilets in every train station. At first, it impresses you. After fifteen years, it’s become invisible but it’s everywhere in daily life, and every trip back to the West makes me measure what it represents.
The food, really
Not the tourist sushi, not the Instagram ramen. The density of good restaurants per capita exceeds anything I’ve seen elsewhere. A small provincial town of 30,000 people typically has three or four genuinely good restaurants. Tokyo has 200,000, with a huge share of real quality. And the price-to-quality ratio has become very favorable since 2023 (weak yen). See my guide to what people actually eat in Japan.
Nature, 90 minutes away
Not just the distant nature of Hokkaido. Within 90 minutes of Tokyo, you’re in real mountains, hidden onsen, turquoise beaches, bamboo forests. The ability to switch from the metro to a snowy summit in two hours is an underrated luxury. My day trips from Tokyo and the tour of Japan’s most beautiful villages map it out.
The freedom of being a foreigner
Paradoxically, as a foreigner in Japan, you enjoy a freedom that Japanese people don’t have. Social expectations weigh less on you, your slip-ups are excused as a “cultural difference”, you’re partly outside the system. It’s comfortable, but also the trap: at some point, you may want to actually become part of it, and that’s harder (see below).
What wears on you over time (the other side)
Deep friendships stay rare
The most important observation in this guide. Japanese people are polite, welcoming, generous within social context. But deep friendship, the kind that survives years, resists distance, feeds on 2am discussions about what really matters, builds slowly and remains rare. Japanese social structure (colleagues, family, school) saturate the calendar and leave little room for new strong bonds beyond age 30.
The observation I make after fifteen years: my deepest Japanese friendships are, almost without exception, with Japanese who’ve lived abroad and kept a rare openness. The others, through social and family pressure, end up closing up. It’s not a criticism, it’s a reality of the social fabric here.
Foreign friends in Tokyo compensate in part, but they rotate: half of those who were close to me ten years ago have gone home. It’s one of the most melancholic aspects of long-term expat life.
The language is a wall, really
Without Japanese, you live a filtered version of the country. With conversational Japanese (N3-N2), you access 80% of things. To genuinely reach nuance, humor, cultural references, that’s 5-10 years of sustained effort, and many foreigners stop along the way. It’s an enormous investment, and you need to know that before coming.
Not making the effort means staying a permanent visitor. Making it changes your relationship with the country. See my guide to learning Japanese to start.
Work, if you enter it
Working in a classic Japanese company is a whole mode. Cultural overtime, marked hierarchy, long consensus meetings, little individuality valued. Many foreigners burn out after 2-3 years and switch to a foreign company, a startup, or freelance. If you come with the romantic image of the devoted salaryman, watch out for the shock.
My advice: if possible, start at a foreign subsidiary, an international startup, or build your own structure (Business Manager visa). See my work visas guide for the details.
Bureaucracy, the hidden cost
Everything goes through paper, hanko (seals), trips to the ward office. Many procedures are in Japanese only. Opening a bank account requires patience. Renewing a visa requires a thick file. Digitization is progressing but lags 10 years behind the West. If you come from a country where everything is settled on a smartphone, you’ll lose days to formalities. Also worth knowing: the “year-two tax bomb”, a classic trap for new arrivals. Year-2 residence tax and national health insurance are calculated on year-1 income, and the bill can be brutal if you earned decently in your first year. Set money aside.
The career (and salary) ceiling
True in big classic Japanese companies: there’s a ceiling for foreigners, few of whom reach genuine leadership positions. Rarer in foreign companies and startups, where talent dominates. If your ambition is to become CEO of a Japanese multinational, statistically very difficult. If your ambition is to build your own company, or to be senior at an international firm, the sky is open.
Geographic isolation
Japan is far from everything (except Korea and China). A round trip to Europe or North America is $2,000+ and 25 hours door to door. Seeing family and old friends becomes an effort. Many expats absorb that the first few years, then it weighs at moments of births, deaths, big life events you can’t be present for. Worth seriously considering before settling for 10 years.
The sometimes suffocating homogeneity
Japan is ethnically and culturally very homogeneous. As a Western foreigner, you’ll always be “gaijin” (outsider), even after 30 years. Your Japan-born children will be “hafu”, not quite Japanese. It’s subtle, never aggressive, but constant. For some, it’s freeing (you stay outside, therefore free). For others, alienating in the long run.
Emotional seasonality
Tokyo summers are brutal: 35-38 degrees Celsius, 80% humidity, six weeks straight. Many people (locals and foreigners) go through real climate depression every year. Winters are dry and bright but Japanese apartments are poorly insulated, you freeze at home in January. Magnificent seasons in spring and autumn, but the year has two rough seasons that weigh on you when you settle.
Who Japan is a good fit for
- You love productive solitude. You have a project (creative, entrepreneurial, intellectual) that feeds on calm and observation. Japan is one of the best countries in the world for that: silence, respect for space, perfect infrastructure.
- You’re ready to invest 5-10 years in the language. If yes, the country opens up. If you plan to live in an English-speaking bubble in Roppongi, you’ll only get a degraded version of the experience.
- You have international activity. Tech, design, creative, freelance with non-Japan clients: you earn in strong currency (USD, EUR) and live in yen, which is comfortable since 2023. If your income depends on a Japanese employer, it’s tougher.
- You travel little outside Asia. If you’ll miss home every month, the cost and distance will wear on you. If you’re rather curious about Asia (Korea, China, Vietnam, Taiwan), Tokyo is an excellent base.
- You’re in a solid relationship or single and happy with that. Japan is hard for Western singles looking to build a serious relationship quickly. The dating market is culturally different, the love codes too.
Who Japan probably isn’t right for
- You’re running from something more than running toward something. Japan isn’t an answer to the problems you carry. On the contrary, social isolation and distance amplify them after a few months. Sort it out before coming.
- You need a very dense, spontaneous social life. Japan doesn’t offer Mediterranean warmth, the spontaneous evening on a terrace with ten friends, the Latin openness. You’ll find other things, but not that.
- You want to be validated as a unique individual. Japan values the collective, self-effacement, modesty. An expansive, expressive personality will be uncomfortable long-term.
- You expect a meteoric career at a local company. See above. For foreigners, the ceiling exists.
- You have young children and want a Western education system. International schools in Tokyo are expensive ($20,000-40,000 per year per child) and concentrated in certain neighborhoods. Worth weighing.
The test to do before quitting everything
Before flipping your life, take this honest test: spend 1 to 3 months in Japan first, off tourist season. Not in April under the sakura, not in November under the momiji. In gray February or burning July. Live in a share-house or monthly Airbnb, not a hotel. Go to the same café every day, take the metro at rush hour, do your shopping at the konbini, visit a neighborhood sento, endure the administrative hell of opening an account. If after 2 months you still want to stay, it’s probably the right decision.
If by halfway through you’re counting days until return, listen to that signal. Japan as a tourist for 2 weeks in spring is a magical country. Japan lived day-to-day is something else, and some people love that something else, others don’t. No judgment, just a map before deciding.
For that real-life test, my guide to spending a week or month in a small Japanese town is an excellent starting point. A small town reveals daily texture faster than Tokyo. The new 2024 digital nomad visa lets you do a 6-month test if your income qualifies.
My own answer, after fifteen years
I stayed. I’ll probably stay much longer. The compromise that emerged for me: Tokyo as a base (the silence, the safety, the food, the infrastructure), an independent activity with international clients (career freedom), few but deep friendships among open-minded Japanese and long-term foreigners, regular trips to Europe and the Asian region to avoid sealing off.
It’s not everyone’s life. For some, moving to Japan was a perfect decision. For others, they went home after 18 months and that was the right decision too. There’s no wrong answer, just yours.
If you’re considering it seriously, my two pieces of advice: (1) do the real-life test before quitting everything, (2) start Japanese now, even if you don’t come. It’s a language that changes your relationship with thought, and the investment is worthwhile even if the project never materializes.
For concrete visa steps: the Japan Working Holiday for the young, the work visas guide for everyone else. To project yourself into daily life before coming, the guide to a week in a small town remains my best first-step recommendation.