As you might have heard, Japanese apartments are notoriously small; especially in Tokyo, where apartments you would not consider cheap are significantly smaller than bathrooms in great hotels. Living in Nagoya is a bit better, and my 18m/60ft “one room mansion,” or studio apartment, would be considered a palace and a bargain in Tokyo. Hooray for Nagoya!
To start with, apartments in Japan are measured in “Jo,” Jo uses the size of one tatami mat, the traditional looking bamboo flooring in Japanese homes, to express the size of rooms. The measurement is used whether tatami is present or not. 1 tatami, or Jyo, is equal to 1.53 meters square, or 5 square feet. My apartment, mentioned above, is 12 jyo.
Here is a conversion table:
See an interactive version of this conversion table
here.
In addition to being small, generally, they are also poorly insulated, and double glazed windows are rare. Generally, there will not be central heating. Each room will have a separate device that will heat, cool, and dehumidify that room. Because of this, you will find the room you are using is cozy, but other rooms are too cold. This is especially unpleasant when it’s the bathroom, and that is the primary reason for the popularity of toilets with warming seats.
Apartments come in many sizes of course, and they are usually expressed like this; 1LDK. A 1 LDK apartment includes 1 bedroom, Living room, Dining room, and a Kitchen.
1LDK; as you can see; the LD portions occupy the same space. This is common.
1LDK
2LDK
3LDK rooms will often have at one or more rooms with tatami flooring.
3LDK
My apartment is a "1 Room Mansion," or a studio apartment.
In general, pets are not permitted. When exceptions to this rule exist, you must get permission from the landlord, and then pay additional deposits or monthly fees. Fees could run from 3-10,000 yen per month. It is not cheap! In addition to pets, BBQs are not allowed on apartment balconies or in housing complexes. You must take it to the park!
You should also be aware that in addition to cleaning fees you will be expected to pay when vacating the property, if you damage the wallpaper, for example by hanging a painting, you will be expected to pay for the wallpaper to be replaced after you move out.
Rent and key money has been dealt with in a different article, so I will not detail it here. Please follow this link to see more on that topic.
Renting an Apartment in Japan
A few words on Japanese appliances; the first thing you need to know is, there will be nothing in the apartment when you move in; not even light fixtures. You will be buying a great deal of stuff when you first move in. When you do start buying things, you should be aware that Japanese washing machines usually wash only with cold water. Japanese clothes dryers are often combination machines and take hours to dry clothes fully, but in general clothes are usually dried outside on a line.
In the kitchen, you will find things are a bit different. Ovens are usually a microwave and standard oven combination, and are too small to roast a turkey. A lot of people use only a toaster oven in their apartments, as even a smaller “full size” oven will simply not fit. One item you may find I have never seen outside of Japan is a fish grill. Many gas ranges come with a small drawer below the burners for broiling fish. They work great! A really nice, modern apartment will have an IH, or Induction Heating cooking stove which will require special pans, but they are really nice! What is an IH Stove?
See
Induction Heating Stoves
In the bathroom you will find the abovementioned heated toilet seats, if you are lucky! These modern toilets will often have a wash-let/ bidet function, and not only the toilet seat, but the bidet water as well can be heated. It might sound odd to you to use one of these, but I promise you, you will never go back!
Showers and baths can be very different depending on the size of the apartment. Some, like mine, are small combined toilet shower rooms, bigger apartments will have separate bath and toilets facilities, and the biggest will have a shower area beside the tub, so the whole room can become wet. Great baths can be filled automatically, re-heated, and used again by other family members. You should shower before using a bath shared by others, which is why the shower will share space with the tub. Most shower heads in Japan are of the type you can pull off the wall, rather than permanently attached. My understanding is that Japanese people use the shower sitting down as a matter of habit, and this is why.
If you have any questions about Japanese Apartments feel free to ask them in the comments section below, or better yet you can join the conversation on the JIS page in Facebook, where the conversation is already in progress!
There are a million other things that could be covered by this article, but this will get you started on the road to a new place. If you are interested in seeing available, foreign friendly properties, please take a look at www.japanhomesearch.com. They have thousands of available properties, and the best service in Japan. Good luck!
You are not going to get many complaints from me about living in Japan. I am generally pretty happy here. But I still prefer to use products and eat foods I am familiar with from my own country; decent peanut butter, for one thing. There are lots of products from back home that I could do without, but prefer not to. My brand of bathroom soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and vitamins are hard to give up. As is the afore mentioned peanut butter, real pancake mix and syrup, granola bars, refried beans, salsa, and really big jars of mixed nuts… ok, now I am making myself hungry. 
