Renting an apartment in Tokyo is not a transaction. It is a campaign. You will need a party. You will need a save point. You will need, ideally, a Japanese co-signer who owes you a favour from a previous life.

The fourteen bosses

  1. The Listing. Beautifully photographed, suspiciously cheap. It is no longer available, and it never was.

  2. The Estate Agent. He will show you twelve other apartments, all of which face a car park.

  3. The Gaijin Filter. Many landlords have a quiet policy of not renting to foreigners. The agent will pretend this is not a thing while routing you around all the ones that have it.

  4. The Application Form. Ten pages. In Japanese. Asks for your blood type. (Yes, your blood type. They want to know if you are an A.)

  5. The Income Proof. Three years of tax returns, even though you have lived here for one.

  6. The Guarantor Company. A private company that, for a fee equal to half a month's rent, will agree to pay your rent if you don't. Yes, you still also need the deposit.

  7. The Reikin. "Key money." A non-refundable gift to the landlord. The rental equivalent of someone asking you to pay them, as a one-off, for the privilege of paying them every month forever.

  8. The Shikikin. The deposit. Refundable. (It is not refundable.)

  9. The Hoshou. The guarantor fee, again, because nobody believes in you.

  10. The Cleaning Fee. Paid up-front. The apartment is already clean. You will be cleaning it when you leave.

  11. The Insurance. Mandatory. Two years up front. From a company you have never heard of.

  12. The Interview. The landlord wants to meet you. To check, you know, the vibes.

  13. The Stamp Day. You will spend a full afternoon at a small table, stamping forty pieces of paper with the wooden cylinder.

  14. The Move-In. The lights don't work. There is no fridge. The previous tenant has left a plastic bag of mysterious noodles in the cupboard.

Welcome home.