When I first traveled to Japan as a tourist, it was dirt cheap. The only expensive thing was the airfare, though the shinkansen tickets I guess weren't that cheap, but compared to rental car prices in the US they actually were. Everything else was really cheap. But I didn't travel like an entitled American, and certainly didn't hire a guide; how ridiculous. If you need a guide to get around a safe, highly-developed country in the age of Google Maps and Google Translate, then maybe you should stick to bus tours, but still that's not a horrible way to travel I think if you need hand-holding. They take you to all the best tourist spots and arrange things for you; the main problem is you're surrounded by people just like you and don't have to actually interact with the locals and figure out how to get around on your own, and end up going to the places the tour group wants to go instead of places you want to go.