Japanese Slackers Sleep, Live In Cyber Cafes

news.yahoo.com — 26-year-old trendy Japanese guy has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job and his apartment.It's cheaper than a hotel, offers access to the Internet and hundreds of Manga comic books, and even has a microwave and a shower May 7, 2007 View in Crawl 4

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shadowsword232 May 8, 2007

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We did burn 83% of their cities to the ground with fire/cluster bombing in WWII. Then we nuked them. They have had to completely rebuild their infrastructure in a span of 60 years.

azzageddi May 8, 2007

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@totoro:That's the problem with so many articles written about Japan in foreign news sources--they make a big claim, and often as not they're totally guessing. I remember when some idiot wrote about the new pet-craze sweeping Japan: jellyfish! My mother back in the US was asking me whether I'd bought a jellyfish yet, and I was like, "...what?" There was no craze at all--probably just some American journalist got invited to a party where the host had a jellyfish in a tank, and believed him when he said, "Oh yeah, this is the new fad!"

gir53457 May 8, 2007

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Chinese are their Wetbacks.

stewieh May 8, 2007

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Pretty good story, except for the exaggeration of the cost of living in Tokyo:"Earning around 1,000 yen (4 pounds) per hour, they often struggle to pay the rent in Tokyo, one of the most expensive cities in the world where a modest 30 square meter flat in a central location can easily cost 150,000 yen a month"Well, that's like saying a part-time temp can't afford to live in Midtown or Upper Westside Manhattan. Of course they can't. Actually, most Tokyoites do what most people who work in Manhattan do: live in the equivalent of Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey, etc. Also, a freeter in the story would not need to work in central Tokyo where the rent is prohibitive. They can get jobs in the equivalent of Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey, etc. There a 30 sq meter apt is 95000 yen or so. You can get a one-room apt for 75-80,000 yen. Definitely feasible for a salaried worker (though probably difficult for a freeter).

max4077 May 8, 2007

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Had a problem with my bank account whilst a student in Tokyo. Couldn't even scrounge together the 4K yen for a coffin hotel. So, I chatted half the night with a cop in the nearby koban (police box) and then chilled out in one of these cafes. Lifesaver.

goodoldharris May 8, 2007

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brufleth:Japan is much smaller in area, and most of its population lives in a few huge dense urban centers. Population density in Japan is something like 300 people per square kilometer. In the US it's under 50. So the kind of infrastructure you find in Tokyo, like its hundreds of train lines, would be completely impractical or uneconomical in the US.That said, I agree with your point that the infrastructure in Japan's urban centers is pretty incredible.