Yes, this is normal in Japan and is one of the main reasons why I left.

I don't know all the reasons. A few I imagine are

(a) they don't value programming

(b) they've got a captive workforce because Japanese is only useful in Japan so you can't go somewhere else unless you get fluent in another language and few do

(c) they still have the "one company for life" attitude. It's slowly changing but is still prevalent

(d) their education system doesn't produce people with experience. Most of the programmers I met said they had zer programming experience when they started their jobs. Instead they got the job because they had crammed for the right college in high school. They are then trained on the job

(e) they consider programming a job for youth. Many programming jobs will have an upper age limit of 35.

When I was there the two companies I worked for had an upper limit set by HR on programmer's salaries. It was 1/3 what I came home to.

I think your question should be: Why would I relocate for a horrible salary? You can get more than that by teaching English -- even without a teaching degree.

If you are doing web development in Tokyo, your salary is probably between ¥400,000 and ¥800,000 per month.

Really? That's ... Causing me to rethink some things.

It's hard to come up with concrete numbers, but here's a unscientific survey I did: http://www.tokyodev.com/2014/02/13/japanese-developer-salary...

I think actually worked at that company 15 years ago. They're a more traditional company that pays based on your age, marital status, and number of dependents. Lots of companies in the Aichi/Gifu area are like that.

Does anyone know the cost of living in ¥ at those locations?

For Gifu/Nagoya, it really depends on what kind of lifestyle you want, but I'd say anywhere from about ¥120,000 to ¥200,000 a month if you're single, or ¥200,000+ for a couple.

Approximately correct to my experience. Note that foreigners will blow past the low end if they are not willing to live like Japanese people, particularly with regards to food budgets (with some exceptions, food like you're used to is systematically more expensive than Japanese food) and rents (middle-class Americans would often not tolerate the kinds of housing arrangements young Japanese people do).

Lifestyle choices are the main variable in cost of living...

Expatsian has some interesting data points.

http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/san-fran...?