Best Place to Live in Japan

[Tokyo]

Nice list

Our manshon ticks all these boxes already. I would add near family if possible (I'd be willing to move to remain close to my daughters/grandkids).

Yes, that was a major oversight. My wife has always advocated living near family for another, more practical retirement reason. If we ever move into an aged care facility, having children visiting regularly is a way to protect from the abuse or neglect problems that occasionally occur.

[eyeswideshut]

Interesting. The only trend that stands out so far is that no one wants to live on the West Coast. I wonder why?

It is a bit isolated and the entire left side of Japan suffers (or benefits) from intense snowfalls through the winter and is generally wetter than the east coast. Absolutely gorgeous country-side though.

I bailed out of Tokyo and currently live in Nagano (thanks remote work!) and love it but I tend to agree with others that Sendai, or more specifically up the Matsushima way, really hits the sweet spot of climate, nature and infrastructure. Not sure about the beef tongue fixation though .

[pfdsa]

Really surprised with the amount of people that prefer Sendai
So far I've lived in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Pref.), Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture), Yomitan (Okinawa Pref.) and moved to Sendai in the beginning of this year (Miyagino-ku). Have to admit that I'm not a big fan of it, and the same goes for Nagoya. Guess that I need to get out there and explore Sendai

[RetireJapan]

Really surprised with the amount of people that prefer Sendai
So far I've lived in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Pref.), Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture), Yomitan (Okinawa Pref.) and moved to Sendai in the beginning of this year (Miyagino-ku). Have to admit that I'm not a big fan of it, and the same goes for Nagoya. Guess that I need to get out there and explore Sendai

I've lived in Miyagino-ku for over ten years, and Sendai for twenty.

Spent some time in Kanazawa after the earthquake and it was okay. Nice but a bit too small for me (and horrible now with all the tourists from the new train line). Never had the pleasure of visiting Okinawa, but my wife loves it so I can imagine we might be spending more time there post-Covid.

[captainspoke]

Well, ...Kanazawa. "West coast", but but that's kind of a neologism. Most think of it as sea of japan side. Where we are, and have been for 30+ years. No plans to leave (wife's mother is 91 and now in a care home).

I'm pretty used to the selection of fish on this side (the pacific side is a little different range/availability), and what's available/good at different times of the year. And the quality is one of the pros for living here. While it's wetter than other places, that also means the tap water tastes fine, and there are no problems with dust blowing around (cf, when we were in tokyo). The AQI numbers are good here (air). There are mountains right next to us (we're on that side of town), the ocean is about a half hour drive, a little longer on a bike. There's some skiing (winter), but tho it's supposed to be snowy, it's not really snowy and cold enough for decent skiing (so I'm told, we're not skiers). I don't have 4wd, wife does, but it's not really necessary--maybe 2-3 years out of five there's enough snow for a day, maybe two, that that'd be nice to have.

There are no trains, only buses or driving to get around. (Is that a pro or con?) We're not central, but I can walk to downtown in 35-40min--or more importantly, walk home if I need to after staying out late. A taxi for that would be ~¥1800 or so. It's about 500,000, so not too big (prefecture is 1M). The shinkansen did finally arrive, and there were certainly more tourists for a while, but the crush that might have been expected these few weeks with the olympics is obviously not here. But our lives never revolved around the touristy areas. As with many places in japan, cycling is good here, so that's not really a differentiator, unless you're comparing larger and much larger cities (pacific side)--and personally, I would not choose something bigger.

It's big enough to have good medical care, a uni hospital and several others that are at least on par with that (depends some on your problems). Overall on the cheap side (I think) as cities and places in japan go. Thru the years I've been to a reasonable number of places in japan (JALT conferences, etc), and haven't really had the feeling like 'it would have been nice to have lived there'.

Edit: I'd add that there's a mission school here--primary thru HS. Not really an international school but kind of. It's where a returnee kid (or ones like ours) would go. And a mildly positive factor is that everyone self-selects in, which means that parents are attentive and involved more than in a local primary. The religion didn't stick--neither of our kids is now christian--but there's something to be said for having that value system as a halo. We used the primary for both our kids, class size was about 20-25, maybe a downside was only one section at each year. It wasn't too expensive, since they follow the standard curriculum, I think it was about ¥20k/month per kid. For middle they switched to public, and then tested for HS as usual.

[Gulliver]

"West coast", but but that's kind of a neologism. Most think of it as sea of japan side.

Yeah, it always puzzled me why the Japanese refer to the larger regions of Japan in terms of east-west when Japan’s territory clearly spans from north to south.

Then this theory dawned on me: Japanese geographers wanted to show Japan in an east-west orientation in order to make the country look bigger on maps.

I’m a bit of a map collector and I noticed that many maps of Japan (especially the older ones) show the country in this unusual east-west manner, as opposed to the standard north-south cartographic norm. Many of these east-west oriented Japanese maps also (perhaps purposefully) fail to include a compass rose.

Taking this into consideration, I think “Sea of Japan side”may be more of a neologism when viewed in the perspective of historical geography.

[JimNasium]

Interesting that when this question is asked on other sites Fukuoka is usually near the top, if not the top answer. But it hasn’t been mentioned here at all. I wonder if Fukuoka is great when you first get here, but its luster wears off once you want to settle down.

[captainspoke]

Interesting that when this question is asked on other sites Fukuoka is usually near the top, if not the top answer. But it hasn’t been mentioned here at all. I wonder if Fukuoka is great when you first get here, but its luster wears off once you want to settle down.

Good point! Fukuoka kind of opens up all of kyushu, but is still a good sized city (with those benefits). It's also supposed to be relatively 'international', comparatively laid back, and so on. Good air connections, too.

On the other hand, this air connections meant that, precovid, there were a lot of foreign tourists in and out. Here (kanazawa), they started coming with the new shinkansen--there, it was by air from china and korea.

[Yossarian]

Living in Osaka at the moment - really like it here and although rent is much cheaper than in Tokyo, I'm thinking of ways to reduce it.

One idea would be to move to Nara. Cheaper living costs, lots of nature, close access to Osaka, Kyoto and international airport.

My dream for years has been to live in Sapporo. Unfortunately, my wife feels cold even in Osaka so that's a no-go.

[beanhead]

Where is your dream house in Japan located- and why?
Mine would be somewhere with a mild climate Like San Francisco or London.

First time I have ever seen London linked to a dream place to live because of the climate

As others have discussed, climate may play a major role, especially for retirement. I have thought about moving somewhere warm in Japan, but Okinawa is too hot, I think, for old-man-me. Nagano has some beautiful places, but as I get older I don't fancy dealing with the snow.
So perhaps Shikoku or Kyushu. I am a big fan of Miyazaki and also Kochi.

The other factor is convenience. Can you walk or cycle around rather than having to drive everywhere?
If you are too far into the deep countryside and your kids/family are in cities, will you be able to see them regularly? And if you still have relatives 'back home' to visit, how many hours does it take you before you get to Haneda, Narita or KIX?