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The story
A post claiming “Tokyo’s food is bad, there are too many foreigners, the traffic is terrible, and rent is too high” set off a thread comparing quality of life in Tokyo versus the rest of Japan. On the food question, critics fired back that the original poster was “only going to chain restaurants” and “just eating thawed frozen food,” while defenders shot back with “have you never heard of the Michelin Guide?” The discussion gradually widened into a broader comparison of rent, salaries, public safety, staff attitudes, and the lack of jobs outside the big cities — with Osaka repeatedly singled out for praise as a place with “great food and cheap rent.”
What people said
Cars and trains. You need both to actually get by
Everyone talks about monster customers, but the Tokyo area's just as full of monster staff
Even out in the countryside, more staff are getting confrontational these days
It's rough when they just assume you're the monster complainer, though…
Re: #9
Most Tokyo restaurants just thaw out frozen food anyway, so you're basically thanking them for microwaved meals…
Plenty of great restaurants out there though — rent isn't crushing their margins and they're close to the producers
Every morning when I come up from the subway it hits me right in the nose
Nagoya, Osaka, and Tokyo were all expensive and bad, in my experience
Not really.
Only for some people
It's a fierce, crowded market with way more options than the countryside, where you've got nothing to choose from
Ever heard of the Michelin Guide?
All the ingredients for that delicious food are grown and caught out in the countryside, though
Food's great
Rent's cheap
Prices are low
Salaries are high
Streets are safe
People are warm-hearted
Plenty of jobs
Is eating literally their only hobby? Lots of fat people out there, so probably yeah
It's mainly cars out there, so people don't walk.
That's why they get fat
Since it's all about the tight-knit village mentality, the work itself is easy.
If you move there believing that and just wanting an easy job, the village mentality ends up being the hard part instead.
It suits people who actually like that close-knit community vibe
Social climbers like that are called "to-min" 😁 (slang for Tokyo transplants who act like they've always belonged)
That's why they get fat
What about the countless "pigs" hanging around Ramen Jiro? (Ramen Jiro: a Tokyo chain famous for its massive, calorie-bomb portions)
Background and key points of this discussion
The “Tokyo’s food is bad” argument is a recurring topic on 5ch, and the evidence usually cited is a reliance on chain restaurants and pre-frozen, reheated dishes. On the other hand, the Tokyo edition of the Michelin Guide has held one of the highest star counts in the world for years, and that became the main evidence for the “Tokyo has the best food” camp in the thread. The two sides largely talked past each other because they were comparing different things — one side was talking about cheap eateries, the other about starred restaurants — and the discussion broadened into a wider comparison of living costs, including jobs, public safety, and the closeness of community ties outside the big cities. Several posters singled out Osaka favorably, saying its food is great and its rent is cheap, which seemed to serve as an outlet for frustration with Tokyo’s overwhelming concentration of everything. It’s worth keeping in mind that none of this is backed by hard data or statistics — it’s purely a comparison of residents’ personal impressions.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Tokyo: “The food’s bad, there are too many foreigners, traffic’s awful, and rent’s too high”.”
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