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When you look at Japan from the outside, maybe it looks something like this. A perfect advanced country where people study hard, get a good job, and work properly. Everyone has an easy goal, a purpose in life, and they work smoothly
A 23-year-old insider reveals the harsh realities behind Japan’s salaryman culture, exposing inefficiency, overwork, and societal pressures.
Key Takeaways
- Japanese salarymen work long hours due to inefficiency and cultural expectations, not high productivity.
- Social pressure and fear, rather than passion, drive workers to endure unhealthy work conditions.
- Seniority and lifetime employment myths persist, limiting mobility and reinforcing overwork.
- Workplace culture often prioritizes appearances and conformity over actual performance.
- Understanding Japan’s work culture reveals broader issues about labor practices and mental health.
Summary
- Japan’s image as an efficient, hardworking society is misleading; many companies are slow and inefficient, leading to long hours.
- Seniority systems and cultural expectations reward staying late over productivity, causing low motivation and overwork.
- Lifetime employment is largely outdated, but social stigma against quitting remains strong, trapping workers in unsuitable jobs.
- Japanese workers often endure long hours not out of passion but fear of being left behind or seen as weak.
- Labor laws exist but are overshadowed by workplace culture and peer pressure, making it hard to leave early or refuse overtime.
- Meetings are often inefficient with unclear agendas and unnecessary attendees, contributing to wasted time.
- The cultural concepts of honne and tatemae discourage open criticism of the broken system.
- Young workers face low pay and heavy workloads while older employees may do less but still earn well.
- Mental health issues like adjustment disorder are common but quitting is not seen as an option.
- The video challenges the romanticized view of Japanese work culture and invites viewers to compare with their own countries.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: The Outside Image of Japan
- 01:44Personal Experience of a 23-Year-Old Salaryman
- 03:23Reason 1: Japan’s Work Inefficiency
- 04:53Cultural Impact of Inefficiency and Seniority
- 05:50Reason 2: Company Loyalty and Stigma of Quitting
- 09:12Reason 3: Fear of Resting vs. Burnout
- 12:55Labor Laws vs. Workplace Atmosphere
- 16:21Mental Health and Lack of Alternatives
- 23:51Conclusion and Reflection on Work Culture
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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from morning till night. Trains are almost never late, the streets are clean, and crime feels low. Salarymen with samurai spirit quietly sacrifice their lives for the company [music] and keep the Japanese economy running.
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Japanese people just love working. They're so [music] disciplined. I think a lot of people still see Japan [music] through that kind of clean, beautiful story.
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But the reality behind that story is very different from what you probably imagine. At least for me, I'm definitely [music] not working this much because I love my job. My boss doesn't love his job. My friends [music] don't love their jobs.
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Even my parents, as far as I know, don't love their jobs either. What keeps us moving isn't passion. It's fear. Fear of being left behind. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of falling out of the circle and [music] becoming someone who
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never makes it back in. That's the scariest part. Hey, I'm 23, a first-year salaryman working in Shibuya, Tokyo.
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I take home about 170,000 yen a month. That's pretty average for a new grad in Japan. [music] On heavy days, I work around 15 hours. Recently, a doctor quietly told me, "It looks a bit like an adjustment disorder."
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Even so, I can't just quit. [music] So, tomorrow again, I'll crush myself into a rush hour train and walk into the office with [music] a straight face like nothing's wrong.
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In today's video, why Japanese salarymen work so much. Why do Japanese salarymen work at such an insanely [music] unhealthy level? I've boiled it down to seven main reasons, and I'll talk through them from my [music] point of view. 23 years old, working in
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Shibuya, first year out of university, some experience living abroad, trying to survive on a 170,000 yen paycheck. Think of this video as the underground manual to Japan, the advanced nation of overwork.
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The side you'll never see in [music] cute travel vlogs or feel-good Japan content. By the time you finish this video, I think you'll see two things differently.
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What it actually costs to work in Japan and how comfortable or messed up your own country's work culture is when you compare it to this one.
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First, [music] there's one thing I need to make clear. These seven reasons I'm about to share are not safe [music] facts I copied from the news or business books. They're hypotheses from someone inside the system. A 23-year-old commuting to an office in Shibuya every
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day. This is how I see things. [music] And this isn't just random complaining. It's a story about where I think the bugs are in Japanese society.
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So, let me walk you through it. Reason one, Japan [music] isn't efficient and hardworking.
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It's slow, so nobody goes home from abroad. I think a lot of people assume something like this. Japan is so efficient. That's how they can work such long hours. Their productivity per hour must be really high. It's such a
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high-tech country. Let me be blunt. Most of that image is just wrong. In a huge number of Japanese companies, work is simply slow. Decision making is slow.
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Meetings drag on forever. There's way too much pointless documentation. And more than anything, there are too many people whose main skill is avoiding responsibility.
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So what happens? A decision that should take 30 minutes turns into a [music] 2-hour meeting and still gets taken back for further discussion. Something that could be handled with one email becomes a 10-slide deck that people read out
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loud. Things. Frontline staff should be able to decide on the spot, get sent up and down the ladder for stamps and approvals and everything gets stuck.
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In other words, Japanese salarymen don't work long hours because we are so efficient we can handle it. We work long hours because we are so inefficient that we can only cover it by throwing time at the problem.
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Japan is regularly near the bottom [music] group in labor productivity among OECD countries. That's not just a meme. That's the data.
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Here's how I see it. At the root of Japanese work culture, there's this habit. We value the person who stays late at the office more than the person who finishes fast and goes home. So, the person who wraps up quickly and leaves
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on time looks like they're not working hard enough. And the person who crawls along slowly but stays late looks like they're really dedicated. And on top of that, there's the famous seniority system. Nenko Joretsu. In many companies, your salary isn't really
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based on how good you are at your job, but how long you've been sitting in that company. The extreme version of this is what we call miwazoku.
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The window tribe. These are people who sit by the office window all day basically doing almost nothing but somehow still getting paid really well.
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There's an old joke about them. A guy sitting by the window earning 20 million yen a year was nicknamed Windows 2000.
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Like the old Microsoft OS. Now that remote work is more common, people who stay at home and still don't really do anything get called Windows 2000 Home Edition. And people like me who work basically 365 days a year like corporate
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livestock, we're called Office 365. Whoever came up with that, honestly, I think they're a genius. But seriously, if your company is full of people who do nothing and still get paid a lot, it kills your motivation.
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At some point, you start thinking, "Why am I the only one rushing to finish things?" It doesn't change anything.
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[music] And once that thought hits, it's easy to slide into, "Fine, I'll just stay here longer, too. That's what everyone else is doing anyway." On top of that, Japanese workplaces are built on things like reading the air and
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honne and tatemae. Your true feelings versus your social mask. Even when people think this system is clearly broken, they hold it back and say nothing. Because they don't want to upset their boss or co-workers.
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I think that's a pretty deep cultural bug. There's another twist. Labor laws are actually quite strong. On paper, employees are heavily protected, but evaluation systems are weak, so it's very hard to actually fire people who barely work, and all the tasks that
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somebody has to do quietly get dumped on the younger staff. In a lot of Western companies, at least in theory, meetings look more like 30 minutes, only the people who actually need to be there, clear agenda beforehand.
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In many Japanese companies, it's still everyone joins. No clear purpose. We just read [music] the slides together and watch the clock melt. That's the reality of this so-called overwork superpower.
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So, the first reason Japanese people work such long hours is simple. It's not that we're fast and therefore can handle long hours. We're slow, so we can't go home.
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Reason two, it's not my company [music] is my family. It's if I leave, I become the traitor.
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The next image a lot of foreigners seem to have is this. Japanese people treat their company like family. They have lifetime employment, so everyone feels safe staying in one place forever.
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Right? That image as an official system is already outdated. Lifetime employment has almost collapsed on paper. Even the president of Toyota has said that lifetime employment is hard to maintain.
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But what hasn't really changed is what's inside people's heads. In Japan, even now, there's this air. If you stay at the same company for a long time, you're solid and respectable.
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If you quit after a short time, you're weak, childish, and can't endure anything. That air is still stuck to the ceiling of a lot of offices. And that atmosphere does something dangerous. Even when people know this job doesn't fit me,
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even when they're thinking, "I seriously want to quit." More and more of them end up erasing quit from their own list of options.
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Meanwhile, seniority is still alive and well. Young workers get low pay but carry a lot of the workload. Older employee
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that are expected to work long hours by default. In many countries the mindset is more like if it doesn't fit change jobs. If you perform well you can earn good money even in your 20s. That's considered normal in Japan. Even now,
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the moment you say, "I'm leaving," people react like traitor. You just can't handle [music] anything.
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Young people these days, in my company, too, people talk a lot of trash behind the backs [music] of co-workers who quit. That culture definitely exists.
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Here's how I see it. The second reason Japanese salarymen work so much isn't because they love their company. It's because leaving this painful place feels even scarier than staying in it. So, people keep enduring.
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If I just hold on a few more years, maybe my salary will finally go up. If I quit now, [music] maybe I'll never find another job. If I stay a bit longer, maybe I'll actually learn to like it.
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They keep negotiating [music] with themselves like that. Little by little, we get trained to prioritize the company's schedule over our own life's timeline.
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Reason three, it's not we are workaholics. It's saying I need rest is scarier than burning [music] out. From the outside, Japanese people often look like hardcore workaholics.
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They must really love their jobs. They must actually want to stay late. I'll say this clearly. Most Japanese people are not overworking because they love their job. [music] What we're addicted to isn't work itself. We're addicted to playing the
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role of the version of ourselves that never lets anyone down. Japan [music] even has a specific word kroshi, death from overwork. The fact that such a precise word exists [music] as a normal term already tells you a lot
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about this country. And still people push themselves. Why? The logic [music] is simple. In this society, saying, "I'm exhausted. I need to rest." Feels worse than saying, "I'm dying, but I'll come in." The second one makes you sound like
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a good person. So, we end up prioritizing [music] our boss's mood, our co-workers opinions, and one line on an evaluation sheet over our own body.
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I think this is Japan's real addiction. [music] We don't know how to step down from the role of the responsible [music] one who never causes trouble. We want to be good. We don't [music] want to disappoint anyone. We don't want to be a
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burden. Stack that mindset over years and long working hours become normal. Karoshi becomes something you [music] just see on the news sometimes, say that's sad, and then go back to work.
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In many countries, laws that limit working hours actually work in real life. Japan [music] has laws, too. But in this country, the atmosphere in the room is stronger than the law.
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So, reason number three is this. Japanese [music] people don't work this much just because of love for work or extra money. They work this much because in this culture it feels [music] safer to push yourself until you break than to
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simply say, "I need to stop." Reason four, it's not just polite culture. It's like working under invisible CCTV.
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A lot of foreigners describe Japanese people as polite, respectful, quiet, and that's true in many ways. But there's another side. In Japanese society, there's an invisible camera that's always on. Its name is other people's eyes. From a young age, we're taught,
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don't cause trouble. Read the air. Do what everyone else is doing. So, inside the office, things like this happen. Your work is finished, but nobody's leaving, so you stay, too.
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You're just taking paid leave you're legally entitled to, but you apologize over and over like you did something wrong. You don't want to go to the company drinking party, but you spend more time crafting a socially acceptable excuse than the party itself will
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actually take. This isn't about official orders from your boss. It's something stronger. Orders from the air in the room. Here's my theory. Every Japanese office has a boss more annoying than your actual boss. That boss's name is What will everyone think? As long as
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that invisible boss exists, it's extremely hard for Japanese people to choose their own way of working. You think, I'm pretty sure it's okay if I go home now. But then another thought pops up. Yeah, but what will everyone think?
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And your hand quietly moves away from the power button. Behind all that politeness, what exists isn't just beauty or harmony. There's constant pressure to erase yourself and match the room.
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So, reason number four is this. Japanese people don't stay [music] late just because someone explicitly tells them to. They stay late because they're trapped in a space where no one orders them directly, but everyone is always watching. Reason five, it's not we're
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crazy about work. It's we never had time to build a self outside of it.
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Japanese salary men are often seen as workaholics, married to the company. People assume they're just job obsessed.
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My view is a bit different. I think a lot of people simply can't clearly describe who they are outside of their job. In other words, they never had the chance to build an identity that lives inside them.
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Japanese school and society set the goal like this. Get into a good school. Get into a good company. Reaching that point is treated like game clear for life.
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While you're running along that track, most people never really get time or space to seriously ask, "What do I actually like?
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When do I feel most alive? What do I actually want to do with my life?
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By the time they notice, the company name and job title on their business card have become almost their entire self introduction.
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This is just my hypothesis, but if we analyzed Instagram bios around the world, I'm pretty sure Japanese people would have an insanely high rate of listing their university and company name. So when work becomes painful, the question why don't you just quit isn't
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simple because the follow-up question is okay and then who are you? I don't think Japanese salarymen are people who love work too much. I think they're often people who grew up without enough time or space to build an identity that can
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support them outside of work. When that happens, losing your job doesn't [music] just mean losing income.
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It becomes the fear of losing your sense of self. That fear is stronger than overtime pay [music] or vacation days.
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It's a deeper, heavier hook. So, reason five isn't work is my passion. It's I was never really given the language or time to imagine who I'd be after letting go of my job. That to me is the core of
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it. Reason six. It's not. We're paid so well that we grind harder. It's wages are too low to slow down. Japan is still called an economic powerhouse. In GDP rankings, it's still up there. When people hear Tokyo, they imagine a city where money
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is flowing everywhere. So, a lot of people assume if you work in Tokyo, your salary must be pretty decent, right? Let me say this clearly. For young workers, the pay is brutally low. [music] So low that just living a normal life is tough.
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Take home 170,000 yen. That's about average for someone my age in their first year. Now drop that into real [music] life in Tokyo. take-home pay minus rent minus utilities minus food minus student loans [music] minus social expenses minus money for parents minus
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basic daily stuff equals basically zero. Sure, on paper there might be something you could [music] technically call savings, but it's not the kind of money that can change your life. [music] In my case, my monthly savings are around
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3,000 yen. I already have friends who are in debt. At that point, the statement, "You shouldn't overwork," almost loses all meaning. Because for us, working less can simply mean not [music] being able to survive. So, a lot of young workers think like this.
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Without overtime pay, I [music] can't pay rent. If I don't do some side job, I'll never save anything for the future.
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So, don't overwork starts to sound like advice only people with solid safety nets can afford to say. a kind of luxury line for people who are already safe.
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My view is this. For many young workers in Japan, the real choice isn't healthy balance versus ambition. It's overwork [music] or not being able to live at all. So, reason six is simple. Japanese people work long hours because behind
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the scenes there's a reality where no real skills yet, low pay, and weak safety nets leave us with only one practical option. Just keep selling our time.
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Reason seven, it's not global warriors, it's fear of falling out of a tiny domestic game.
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Finally, reason seven. From abroad, Japanese companies look like samurai corporations fighting on the global stage. Toyota, Sony, Nintendo, those are the brands that probably come to mind.
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But everyday life for most salarymen is not a global battlefield. The enemies we actually face every day are the office air, internal politics, our boss's mood, the invisible lines of seniority and hierarchy. In other words, it's a super local, super inward-facing
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little game. Here's how I see it. Most Japanese salarymen aren't playing in an open world global market. They're stuck inside a tiny arena called the Japanese corporate system. And the scariest thing isn't losing to global competitors. It's being kicked out of that small arena.
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Maybe I don't have skills the job market actually wants. I don't speak English. I can't go abroad.
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Outside Japan, maybe my value is zero. A lot of people keep those thoughts spinning in their head every day. So, people cling to the game they already know. They work harder and harder just to not fall out of that narrow ring.
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They try not to get on their boss's bad side. They try not to fall behind their peers. They [music] protect one tiny number on an evaluation sheet. They squeeze a little bit more out of a small paycheck.
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So reason seven is this. Japanese people don't work this much because of some noble samurai [music] spirit fighting the world.
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They work this much because the fear of falling out of a small domestic game keeps them running in circles.
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If I put all seven reasons together, this is the picture I see. We're living inside a slow system, carrying old values, feeling guilty for resting, surrounded by invisible surveillance with no solid identity outside work, bound by low wages, afraid of falling
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out of a narrow domestic arena. So, we end up tied to the same chair day after day.
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If you're watching this from outside Japan, I have one request. Please, just once throw away the idea that Japanese people just love working. My view is a lot simpler. It's not that Japanese people love working. It's that we were
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almost never given the freedom to choose a life where we don't [music] have to.
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After this, I want to talk a bit more about work, about money, and about [music] how I personally want to live inside this system.
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I've talked about the seven reasons I think Japanese [music] people overwork. So, as a 23-year-old salary man stuck inside all of this, how do I want to live from here? Honestly, I don't have a perfect answer. Not even close. I don't
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have the courage yet to just leave Japan. I don't have the money or the skills. And it's not like I fully believe in Japan's future either. But even so, there's [music] one decision I've made. I refuse to choose a life
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where I change nothing and slowly fall apart. [music] I don't want to be some anime hero like Luffy from One Piece. I'm not trying to save the world. [music] My goal is much smaller and more selfish. Protect my body and mind, just
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enough to stay alive while slowly increasing the number of choices I have in life. That's really it.
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So for now instead of trying to find some perfect right answer I just want to choose four directions that really matter to me and start moving toward them. From here I'll walk you through those four one by one.
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Number one, stop giving 100% of myself to the company. Japanese society loves to say [music] run until your tank is empty. But I think at some point I have to draw a line. I don't want to cut my sleep down
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to zero. I don't want to ignore it when my heart is pounding [music] like it's going to explode. On days when I seriously think I really should rest today, I want to choose my own life over my guilt. I know I won't do it
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perfectly. I'll slip. I'll cave. I'll go to work when I shouldn't. But at the very least, I [music] want to keep one small rule. I will not hand over 100% of myself to the company. Number two, slowly build the power to choose a life
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outside this system. Right now, I don't [music] have much money. My skills aren't enough. My understanding of the world is still surface level. But I don't want to say, so there's nothing I can do. I can study English. I can [music] learn how people
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work and live in other countries. I can research side jobs, freelancing, [music] and different ways to earn. I can keep saving and investing, even tiny amounts.
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None of that will magically transform my life overnight. But that feeling of maybe I'm getting a little closer to a version of myself who could choose to leave Japan someday if I wanted to becomes a fragile but important support
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for my mental health. I don't have the courage to just [music] buy a one-way ticket and leave next week. I don't have the luxury to quit my job tomorrow. So, for now, the only strategy I have is to quietly stack
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knowledge, skills, and money in the background. Number three, use food and a camera as proof that I'm still alive. I have two big weapons, eating and capturing moments with a camera. Once in a while, using my tiny paycheck, [music]
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I buy myself a slightly better meal. Those moments remind me I'm still a human being, not just a machine. I turn on the camera in Shibuya [music] at night, on rush hour trains, in convenience stores, in front of cheap
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bentos, in front of my tired face. I film it and I put words on top of it.
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For me, those videos aren't just content for the algorithm. They're evidence that even inside this work culture, my ability to feel, think, and speak in [music] my own words hasn't been completely erased. That's why I want to keep this channel going. Yes, it's to
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show the reality of Japan to people outside, but more than that, it's so I don't abandon myself. This little story is [music] my way of not giving up on me. Number four, let the parts of the world I can't see appear in the
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comments. Finally, I have a favor to ask. I'm just [music] one person, 23 years old, living in a small apartment in Tokyo, commuting to Shibuya, trying to survive [music] on 170,000 yen. My view is extremely limited. So, I want the comment section
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of this video to become a place where the world's different work realities and experiences show up. If you work in another country, please tell me why do people in your country work so much?
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What's the biggest pressure? And what do you feel is at least better than Japan in your system?
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If you're older and you overworked in your [music] 20ies like I'm doing now, I really want to hear from you, too. What would you say to your 23-year-old self?
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What do you regret about the way you worked back then? What are you glad [music] you did looking back?
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If you leave that there, it's not just for me. Someone else watching this video somewhere in the world might find a hint they needed in your story.
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Thank you so much for watching my video all the way to the end. It really means a lot. If you want to help me keep this little story going, please [music] subscribe, leave a like, and if you'd like to support me even more, check out
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the [music] links in the description. All right, see you again in the next episode of Real Tokyo.
Topics:Japan salarymenJapanese work cultureoverwork in Japanlabor productivity Japansalaryman lifestylework-life balance JapanJapanese corporate cultureseniority systemmental health work Japanworkplace inefficiency
