I recently moved and only communicated with the real estate agent and the moving company by chat. Large trash reservation is online. Drivers license requires an application, but isn't that normal? Same with a lease; I think those are still paper in most countries.

I don't know of any ATMs that close anymore; maybe super rural banks still do?

It depends on the municipality, but the good ones have moved most of their paperwork online and allow you to digitally sign it with an actual signing certificate embedded on your My Number card and the NFC chip in your phone. If you're doing the paperwork on a computer, you scan the a QR code to complete only verification and signing with the phone.

Certainly not everything's cutting edge, but a lot of things are quite streamlined these days. Immigration paperwork, for example, is a cakewalk compared to the US, probably requiring about 100 times fewer pages at least in my past experience.

Edit: And as someone mentioned below, modern apartments are very soundproof, just not the old wooden ones.

We went through the whole dance a few months ago, and while most of the discussions were done by chat/mail, we still ended up snail mailing a ton of paper back and forth to close the deal.

Also most bank ATM still have closing hours, it can be way later than it was 10 or 20 years ago, but it still closes at night e.g. Mufg’s Kouenji branch: https://map.bk.mufg.jp/b/bk_mufg_s/info/BA592126/

Going further west and some will close at 18h or 20h without remorse.

For soundproofing, it’s less a matter of modernity than of price. Foreigners often will only get access the super low and middle-high offers, so there is a higher chance to land on a pretty well soundproofed building. Your random Leopalace built this year will still have paper thin walls, and so do cheaper appartments in general,

I don't have a stamp and haven't needed one for anything in many years living here. I understand it's basically required for purchasing real estate, but I haven't done that yet.

I think the ATMs just close if they're in a building that closes; it's not because the ATM itself can't function at night. It's been years since I personally saw an ATM that was physically accessible but unusable. But I typically just use conbini, so I can't claim to be an ATM expert. I just know it's never been a problem for me.

Good point on apartments; I've been fortunate to not have experience with those paper-thin homes, but I do hear a lot about them still on Japan-based forums and such.

Soundproofing would be still a problem if it's an cheaper apartments even if relatively new.

Not a big deal, it plays the same role as signatures do in the US. Only very recently did we stop having to sign credit card receipts here!

There are countries were this is a mundane thing, and you can go through the whole process digitally, including all the contracts signing. Sadly in Japan this is far from being the norm, and the stamping culture is one of the cause among many others.

There is a good 99pi episode on this, in extreme cases people need to physically go to the office just to stamp their papers.

(otherwise making a stamp is a matter of 30 min at any shopping mall, it isn’t a barrier in any way)

I also had never had problems with soundproofing. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised how super soundproof everything was compared to the places I lived in in the U.S. But I've only ever lived in newer apartment buildings, not the old ones.

One has to wonder if that paperwork is an essential cause of such a peaceful state. It might well be channeling (male) energies that could otherwise end up unsettling society.

When even criminal cartels are highly-formalized, one has to wonder if the acceptance of ritualistic forms of bureaucracy is a key to the "dynamic stillness" of Japanese culture.

Obviously nothing is permanent, and various economic crisis have significantly dented this model, but I reckon it still does a lot to placate the kind of unrest that we give for granted in the West - where bureaucracy is reviled by the individualistic "animal spirits" we exhalt since the times of Homer.

It could also have the opposite effect, if citizens uphold their end of the bargain and the government doesn't; this is why I think there is more to this wrt competency on the government side.

Just as a counterexample: Germany is also known for its love for bureaucracy, its tendency to submit to authority and for the constant, loud, bite-less protesting. No amount of bureaucracy has helped to "channel (male) energies" elsewhere.

> Japan was a very aggressive empire not even two generations ago

Aggressive externally but peaceful internally, which is really what we're talking about. Probably as a reaction to centuries of brutal internal warfare, since Meiji internal cohesion has been emphasized above most other things, and it has held in a way that we've not yet seen in Europe on a comparable scale.

> Germany

Interesting mention, because German practices and values were among the most significant ones "imported" under Meiji; Germany had recently made a massive social and technological leap forward, precisely the sort of thing the Japanese wanted to make (and did make), and Germans were extremely self-assured. However, Germany lies on a cultural bedrock of fundamental individualism, like the rest of Europe, and various factions were soon clashing in the streets in the name of various ideologies, with the result we all know. I think a lot of Germans would find your "bite-less protesting" as a mischaracterization: German movements have been very, very bitey, before and after the various recent conflicts, producing (and exporting) terrorists and disruptors pretty regularly.

Yet here you are, defending the idea that we would be better off by leaning heavier into bureaucracy and collective compliance as a way to "internal" peace.

> Germany lies on a cultural bedrock of fundamental individualism (...) a lot of Germans would find your "bite-less protesting" as a mischaracterization.

Great. Now try to explain Switzerland. They are not exactly known for a "love of bureaucracy" or "the (national) collective taking precedence over the individual", yet they managed to get peace (internal and external) through centuries.

Do you see my point? You are trying to attribute to "bureaucracy" something that can be attributed to a bunch of other things. It is a bad generalization and a basic fundamental attribution error. This is what smells of IYI crap.

I think you're projecting a lot, trying to put words in my mouth and being unnecessarily aggressive.

I've been very careful not to make any judgement of superiority of this or that system throughout this thread. I pointed out several times that the Japanese experience is very unique, and in many ways probably and fundamentally unaccessible to us in the West. "We" cannot be "better off" doing this or that because "we" are not Japan; they seem to have found a formula that works for them, and it's interesting to note how the various elements interconnect in such formula. One of those elements is the somewhat-ritualized bureaucracy, and my point is that it seems to contribute significantly to the success of that model in those circumstances. Obviously I'm not advocating mindlessly trying to replicate that elsewhere, nor am I stating that bureacracy is a necessary condition for social peace - this is just a strawman you are erecting for your own personal reasons.

> Great. Now try to explain Switzerland.

Did you even read my posts above? Scale is important when comparing such systems, and I was very careful to caveat my statements on this throughout, because I knew somebody would eventually bring up Denmark, Norway, or, well, Switzerland.

The Swiss Federation contains barely 9m people, with 211 p/sqm; Japan has 125m, with 333 p/sqm. Obviously we are talking about different orders of magnitude. It's not terribly difficult to get a block assembly to agree on something (still not easy!), but getting the whole city to agree on anything is a different ballgame.

> This is what smells of IYI crap.

Any chance you could drop the gratuitous insults?

Am I?

I remember past conversations with you where you claimed that EU's bureaucracy should get credit for changes that would've happened naturally on the market. Here as well you are arguing that bureaucracy is the reason to Japan's "peace", when there are plenty of possible alternative answers.

Just as an example, you could have at least try to attribute Japanese/Scandinavian/Swiss "peace" to the relative homogeneity of their populations and their cultural oikophilia (which gets often mistaken for xenophobia). It would be a much simpler explanation for the commonalities among different people, independently of scale and independently of any silly distinction between "external" and "internal" aggressiveness.

But instead of just considering Occam's razor, you start with a conclusion and then you try to build a narrative that gives some kind of support to it.

Don't know where I should start. These two sentences do not make any sense. France and the Soviet Union are/were highly bureaucratic states, they do not seem to be revolutionary-free or that successful. And that "male energy crap" doesn't really mean or exist anywhere beyond these "alpha-chad" forums.

Peace happens when a majority of people accept the status quo. This is usually coupled with a ruler (or a government) that has laws that are compatible with the social expectations of said population.

Japan is not a particular exception. During its history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan), it had its fair share of violence, revolts and internal conflicts. It also had periods of peace, like the one they are experiencing it right now.

> When even criminal cartels are highly-formalized, one has to wonder if the acceptance of ritualistic forms of bureaucracy is a key to the "dynamic stillness" of Japanese culture.

I think that if anything was to destabilize Japan it would be its inability to reform its bureaucracy. That being said, I don't think it's as bad as people think it is. You shouldn't look at bureaucracy as only government papers but the whole process of operating there. Japan is still a very efficient country and they do lots of things efficiently. Would you rather spend 30 minutes filling paper work and have fast public transport; or fill no paperwork and spend 1.5x250 hours on traffic jams?

> that "male energy crap" doesn't really mean or exist anywhere beyond

... beyond the global statistics on violence. http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/...

Call it what you want, the reality is that violent action and unrest is a very male thing (and typically performed in summer, but that's another story). Look at videos of riots pretty much anywhere and you'll quickly see the overwhelming majority of actors (both among rioters and authorities) is invariably male.

History shows us we can have social systems where all women are effectively treated as slaves, lasting centuries; the other way around, eh, not so much. Surely there is a reason for that. (This does not mean society should indulge anyone's "appetite for destruction"; I'm just pointing out that shit-stirrers tend to be men, so if you can keep men busy, chances are that you can also keep the peace for longer.)

> Would you rather spend 30 minutes filling paper work and have fast public transport

Oh, absolutely - I never implied that bureaucracy has to be inefficient. Efficient bureaucracy can be tremendously effective, but typically it is efficient only when its cogs "believe" in the intrinsic value of having an efficient bureaucracy. My point was that such belief seems much stronger in modern Japan than in most other countries.

Beaches are also getting dirtier and dirtier with people having parties and just throwing plastic bottles, alcohol cans, food packets, etc wherever they please. Quiet places far from town I used to visit 2 years ago turned into absolute dumps this past year.

It's very different in locations where tourists aren't common, especially post-covid.

Kyoto and Takayama in particular were probably half tourists by population 2 years ago. Those towns are virtually ghost towns now that Chinese tourists are gone.

Visiting places with no foreign tourism and driven just by local industry, like Toyohashi or Yokkaichi or small islands, and you'll see considerably less cleanup efforts. Even going through Tokyo at 4 AM looks very different from Tokyo at 8 AM after some cleanup is done.

There are tradeoffs. Japan tends to have more entrenched bureaucracy, more stringent cultural norms, etc. But it is also far more safe, harmonious, and, in my opinion, pleasant, than the US.

This hasn't been true for over a decade. 24/7 ATMs can be found at any convenience store, which are plentiful.

> Japan has a serious problem with lack of sound proofing in most of the buildings you'll come across

In older or cheaper buildings this is true. However if you pay you can have better sound proofing. For example some Japanese mansions (residential low-rise condominiums) are built from reinforced concrete and isolate sound fairly well. You just have to be careful to read about the building and its construction. You also have to be willing to pay extra for better construction materials.

> as well as some discrimination (not necessarily racism) you might find while looking for housing

This is true for rentals. I also want to clarify Japanese also experience discrimination so it is not purely a non-Japanese thing. Generally landlords have freedom to put whatever restrictions they want on who they rent the unit to. But this is for good reason. A landlord cannot easily evict a tenant. So the landlord is taking a huge risk in trusting that the tenant will respect the contract and actually pay the rent.

I will say in buildings owned by corporations or businesses, they sometimes don't have any discrimination by nationality. They do tend to have higher requirements for income and may discriminate based on your current company employment contract. Also they may require a specific guarantor company which tends to be more expensive. The guarantor company is sort of a risk insurance for the landlord paid by the tenant.

However things are quite different if you buy the land outright. Here the only restriction is bank loans. If you do not have permanent residence, the number of banks willing to lend money are very few. If you have permanent residence then you have many more banks to choose from. Otherwise there is no restriction on who can buy land.

> Unless you have a company dealing with this stuff for you, you're going to have some headaches.

I think it is all about perspective and expectations. In Japan the Japanese are used to dealing with bureaucracy (though many Japanese also really dislike it). The information is readily available, you just have research yourself. Otherwise you have to accept that you are moving to a non-English speaking country and it is your responsibility to find a way to understand the local language or get someone to help you.

I do agree that there are still many headaches to adjust to Japanese business and culture. But I also don't understand why everyone has an expectation that Japan must change to meet their expectations. Japan is a first world country with many issues, but it isn't a place where you can expect to be free of first-world problems.

For example in the US nearly nobody bothers to complain about credit rating agencies. Maintaining your credit is seen as something you control. Which isn't necessarily true. Credit ratings greatly affect American lives. So everyone is in a way obligated to participate in a non-government created scheme yet nobody bats an eye. Just sign up for a credit card.

I would say hatred of credit agencies is probably one of the few issues left you could get wide support of across the political spectrum.