I moved to Japan in my twenties. That was over twenty years ago. In that time I’ve run a guesthouse, started a property business, built software, gotten married, had kids, dealt with immigration bureaucracy more times than I can count, and had roughly ten thousand conversations with people who want to know what it’s really like to live here. This is my honest answer.

The short version: Japan is an extraordinary place to live, and also a deeply frustrating one. Both of those things are true at the same time, and neither cancels the other out.

The Good

Let me start with what Japan gets right, because it gets a lot right.

Safety. I’ve lived in Tokyo for over two decades and I have never once felt unsafe walking home at night. My kids walk to school by themselves, like every other kid in the neighborhood. You leave your laptop on a cafe table to go to the bathroom and it’s still there when you get back. This isn’t naivety — the crime rate genuinely is that low. After a while you stop noticing it, which is perhaps the strongest endorsement of all.

Food. Not just the high-end stuff, though that’s world-class. The baseline quality of everyday food in Japan is staggeringly high. A random ramen shop, a convenience store bento, a neighborhood sushi counter — the floor is higher than the ceiling in most other countries. I’ve lived here long enough that going back to the UK for a visit is a mild food disappointment every single time.

Healthcare. Japan’s national health insurance covers 70% of costs, with low monthly premiums. I’ve had surgeries, ER visits, specialist consultations — all at a fraction of what they’d cost in the US, and with genuinely excellent care. The system isn’t perfect (mental healthcare is underdeveloped, and getting a referral can be bureaucratic), but the fundamentals are outstanding.

Convenience. Trains run on time. Convenience stores are actual stores, not gas station afterthoughts. Everything works. The postal system, the banking system (once you’re in it), package delivery, public infrastructure — there’s a precision to daily life in Japan that reduces friction in ways you don’t fully appreciate until you spend time somewhere less organized.

Seasons. Cherry blossom spring. Hot, dense, cicada-screaming summer. Crisp autumn with red and gold everywhere. Cold, clear winter. Japan does seasons properly, and they shape the rhythm of life in a way that feels grounding.

The Hard

Here’s where the YouTube vlogs and Instagram reels tend to go quiet.

Bureaucracy. Japanese bureaucracy is paper-based, in-person, and unforgiving. Changing your address? Go to the ward office with four forms and your residence card. Opening a bank account? Bring your seal, your residence card, proof of address, and hope the staff member has dealt with a foreigner before. Immigration procedures are a world unto themselves — renewals, status changes, permanent residency applications — and the system operates at its own pace regardless of how urgent your situation feels.

Nothing is impossible, but everything takes longer and requires more patience than you expect. After twenty years, I’m still surprised by the number of things that require a physical stamp on a physical piece of paper.

The language barrier. Japanese is hard. Not “French is hard” hard — structurally, fundamentally, different-writing-system hard. You can live in Tokyo without Japanese — many people do — but you’re operating at maybe 60% capacity. You miss nuance. You can’t read the fine print on your apartment lease. You default to the English-friendly doctor instead of the closer, better one. You smile and nod at neighborhood meetings.

Even with good Japanese, the language has layers of formality and indirectness that can make it hard to know what’s actually being communicated. “That might be a little difficult” means no. “We’ll consider it positively” means maybe, leaning toward no. These patterns become second nature eventually, but the learning curve is steep and never fully flattens.

Social isolation. This one is real and underreported. Japan is a deeply social country within its own networks — work colleagues, school parents, university friends, hobby circles. But those networks are largely closed systems. As a foreigner, you exist slightly outside them by default. People are unfailingly polite, often genuinely kind, and yet the wall between polite acquaintance and actual friend is high.

The expat community fills this gap for many people, which creates its own dynamic — a rotating cast of foreigners, some staying a year, some staying a decade, most somewhere in between. Long-term residents sometimes find themselves in a strange middle ground: not quite fitting into Japanese social structures, but having outgrown the transient expat scene.

Being the permanent outsider. Twenty-plus years, permanent residency, property ownership, kids in the local school system — and I’m still “the foreigner.” Not maliciously, usually. But consistently. The assumption at restaurants that I can’t read the menu. The slight surprise when I speak Japanese. The neighbor who has lived next door for years but still interacts with a formality usually reserved for strangers.

This is the thing that prospective expats find hardest to understand before they experience it: Japan doesn’t have a cultural framework for someone who isn’t ethnically Japanese becoming fully “Japanese.” You can be welcomed, respected, valued — but you won’t become invisible, and for some people that’s exhausting over a long enough timeline.

The Surprising

How affordable it can be. Tokyo is expensive by some measures, but compared to London, New York, Sydney, or San Francisco, it’s remarkably reasonable. Eating out is cheaper. Public transport is cheaper. Healthcare is cheaper. Real estate (especially outside the 23 wards) is dramatically cheaper. The weak yen has made Japan one of the best value propositions for location-independent workers earning in dollars or euros.

How much you change. Living in Japan long enough reshapes how you think. You become more attuned to unspoken context. You develop patience with process. You start appreciating things that annoyed you in year one. You also become slightly alien to your own home country — too Japanese for the West, too Western for Japan. Long-term expats sometimes call this “belonging to neither place,” and it’s neither as romantic nor as tragic as it sounds. It’s just different.

How ordinary it becomes. The temples, the cherry blossoms, the neon — it all becomes background. Your life in Japan is grocery shopping, taking the garbage out on the right day, sitting in traffic, dealing with your kid’s school schedule. The exotic becomes mundane, which is actually the point. When a place stops being a destination and starts being home, that’s when you know you live there.

Would I Do It Again?

Without hesitation. Japan’s frustrations are real, but they’re the frustrations of a functioning, safe, well-organized society that simply operates by a different logic than what I grew up with. The tradeoffs are heavily in its favor for the things I care about: safety, food, healthcare, the ability to build a business, and a culture that values precision and consideration even when it’s maddening.

These are the kinds of conversations that come up at BenTours, the craft beer meetup I host in Tokyo — prospective expats always have the same questions, and the honest answers aren’t in the guidebooks. But you don’t need a meetup to find them. Live here long enough, pay attention, and Japan will teach you everything you need to know — on its own terms, at its own pace.

This post reflects my personal experience as a long-term resident of Japan. Individual experiences vary significantly depending on language ability, visa status, location, and personal circumstances. This is not immigration or legal advice.