Top 10 Most Expensive Things in Japan

What? How about:
- A wife
- Another "wife"
- Children

Or maybe they can't bring themselves to admit it.

Some of you have no idea how expensive some of the listed items really are.

Things such as movies and pizza (not delivered) in Japan, you can expect to be double to quadriple the prices you pay, well in Australia anyway.

University fees are a joke over there - there is a common saying that for parents, there is a decision to either send their kids to university or to give them braces. One or the other

Highway tolls are also overpriced. To go from a local suburb in Osaka to the Kansai Airport, you'd pay approximately 15-20 dollars including the trip back.

Foreign Brands - Commoners in Japan, when it comes to luxury and brand goods, are as bad as otaku...

yeah here in asia, pizza is relatively cheap with promos going on and everything...probably the speedy delivery charge that goes with the pie makes it expensive in japan

I think a lot of you are misunderstanding what the list is saying.

Its not saying pizza is more expensive than going to a university, its saying that more people feel that they aren't getting there money's worth from a 3000 yen pizza(i.e. they would rather pay closer to 2000 yen or something) than feel that the prices to go to Japanese Universities are to high.

"3. Delivery pizza"

what the?? really? i don't think japan takes tip?(don't quote on me)

Pizza ABOVE University Fees???

I went by a pizza hut in Tokyo a few days ago and got an AMAZING pizza on take away, delivery with their cute scooters is same price. Best quality pizza i've had but yea it was Y2000 on a campaign, normally Y3500!

Other than that it's a pleasure living here(eating out, entertainment, shopping), coming from Sweden with the 2nd highest tax in the world. Unfortunately the YEN is unecessarily strong right now.

I noticed it reads "delivery pizza". Would it be cheaper if one went and picked it up? That's what I always do, why pay them extra to deliver a luke warm pie, 45 minutes after I ordered it?

Why the f*ck pizza is that expensive?! its even lots expensive than university fees o_O

Hmmmm pizza

it might not seems like it cost a lot to me now, but when i lived in asia i used to think pizza is bloody expensive.. until i came to england, where every fucking thing that you can put in your mouth is expensive and taste bad. in asia for the price of a pizza (which is similar to western price) u can get a lot more and arguably better stuff, that is why we think its expensive..i think

I am more surprised to see there are no sex service in the top 10 list.

I am in Osaka,Japan right now and a personal pan pizza at this restaurant i went to is like 10 dollars each, and I also went to the movies to see Biohazard/Resident Evil, and its 12 dollars a tickets!!

rating's wrong, fruit are the most expensive
how d'you like two bucks an apple?

I'm right outside San Francisco now (about an hour outside...close enough in America since an hour drive is nothing) and they property out there is outrageous just to rent. =/ I don't think Tokyo is near as bad as there and other places.

Also...pizza...dear Lord, I'd just never eat again. Then again Italian friend=free pizza if you bring the beer.

Sounds distressingly like Canada. (But I'm still going to go get pizza.)

"Foreign brands"?
WTF?! I thought they call it "gaijin brands"!

Fucking hypocritical Japs!

>:-/

Pizza hut always seems to find it's way into anime

Well land is everywhere expensive!!
Pizza delivery is 3rd oh my God... It shouldn't even be on that list is it sooo expensive..

i understand land and house...but pizza ey? i suppose they are in japan

I live in Chiba, about 40 minutes from Akihabara station.

I pay $700 a month for a 40 year old apartment that is two 7 tatami sized rooms and a bathroom... I don't even live in the more expensive, smaller apartments that are closer to the city. On top of that, in order to move in to a house, you pay 2 months rent as a bond, then 2 more months rent as a cash gift to the owner for them allowing you to live in their building. Oh and when you move out, you NEVER get your bond back.

A large pizza, picked up from the store is $30.

Plenty of friends are in university. They pay exorbitant fees.

I drove to Gunma for a holiday. A 4 hour trip. Tolls were \6800 each way. Don't ever drive in Japan.

Fuel is about the same as my home country (Australia).

Movies are \1800 for a regular session, \300 more for 3D. The last session of the evening is usually only about \1200, but they don't play most new movies that late.

Don't EVER use your phone to make calls. It costs too much. Everyone just emails unless they NEED to call. The rates are crazily high.

Foreign brands are a bit of a lucky dip. Some expensive things overseas just don't have brand recognition here, so they are pretty cheap. However, if you like the brands Japanese people like, go get a second job. Ed Hardy tshirts can go for over \20,000.

What they haven't mentioned is that to buy a crappy little table for your house is about \15,000. Furniture is so expensive, the companies selling it must have a massive cocaine habit. If you want a standard single bed, you can say goodbye to about \60,000 and then more for delivery. Tomatoes are \100 EACH. The cost of living in the greater Tokyo area is inflated at every turn by price gouging.

land = the same problem in every country

You guys are so funny.
128 yen/L is so fucking cheep...come to Germany, here you can pay 1,8555$/L

Yeah, pizza in Kyoto might be slightly high, but you have to take out a frickin' bank loan to buy fruit in Japan!

Having lived and worked in Japan a few years ago, I would readily agree with about half of this list. The other half, the Japanese are smoking crack.

high land and housing prices in Japan are a myth perpetuated from the 1980s, and this has fallen steadily since their property bubble burst in the early 1990s. Even now it is still the cause of the last decade of Japanese productivity - they have experienced the rough equivalent of our 2008-2009 recession for over 15 YEARS now. Land prices NOW in Japan are actually comparable (or even LESS) than many western cities. I can buy an apartment in any Tokyo suburb for less than in my Canadian city now!

University fees are also a myth. This may be different from a foreigner perspective too - as almost every western university also charges higher rates to foreign students whether they are private or public, the overall cost of going to university has gone up dramatically over the last 20 years EVERYWHERE.

Highway tolls? Hell yes. But this is a product of the Japanese government - toll highways were designed specifically to subsidize and support the Japan Rail network, and if you make a simple direct comparison tolls are almost uniformly applied to make driving your car 10-20% more expensive than taking the same journey cross-country by train.

Mobile phones and data charges? HA. Don't even talk to me - Canada has the highest average cellular rates in the developed world.

Foreign brands? I think that is in part the product of the government creating tariffs and barriers to foreign competition. You don't see this much in electronics because domestic products are so overwhelmingly dominant, but I never really paid much attention to clothing or other product pricing.
Grocery shopping was comparable but the selection of international brands and products was definitely more limited than your typical western supermarket.
Overall anyone who has visited Japan in the last 3-5 years will certainly say that thanks to stagflation, Japan is nowhere near as expensive as it used to be 20 years ago. Its prices for goods and services have stayed relatively static while everything else in the world has inflated in comparison. However this is all a matter of perspective - I couldn't really speak to the typical Japanese wage earner's salary. It's quite logical that their wages have not appreciated much in this same period too. I was lucky enough to be paid a western-scale salary by my employer so this issue wasn't visible to me.

"big dikku" in Japan is worth having, as it might make things bit cheeper.

pizza more expensive then university fees haha

whoa
delivery pizza is more expensive than university fee!?! and then gasoline!?

I will think, the most expensive thing???? Well it may be a payed scort, but maybe there's more cheap pay to have a funny night than eat a pizza in Japan?
Well, here a Familiar Pizza delivered in my house is around 250 Mexican Pesos so its like 1660 to 1680 Yens.
And a Call Girl its arround 2,500 to 3,000 Mexican Pesos, and that's a cheap and clean one.
So i will say the costs are not related.
Here in Mexico, the Entry Fee to an University its around 2,500 in a Public One, and the sky the limit in a Private One.
One Semester its like 300 Mexican Pesos in a Public University, and by working in a Private University i can say in promedium of 70,000 Mexican Pesos the semester in a "Good" Private University.
So how much its the Entry Fee in Todai? And the Semester? In Yens?
Dunno, the buying of housing here varies, from 50,000 mexican pesos for a empty lot in the middle of nowhere near a city, to 1,000,000 Mexican Pesos for a departament in the luxury area. So comment.
The movies here cost of rental for 24 hrs 1 DVD like 25 Mexican Pesos, the movie theater extreme quality like 150 Mexican Pesos, and buy a DVD movie like 250 Mexican Pesos. 1 Blue Ray Movie Rental it's like 50-75 Mexican Pesos, a cheap Movie theather like 35 Mexican Pesos, and buy a Blue Ray Movie like 450 Mexican Pesos. The most expensive thing here are the Taxes, like 80% of the tax money goes PUFF!!! Bribes, Private Partys, Land Owners, etc.
Plus the average salary of an employee its like 3500 Mexican Pesos to 5000 Mexican Pesos in a Month, so do the math.

Thinking in a neutral view, in Japan the unhealthy food costs more, not for the real monetary cost, but the real proportion of calories. I've seen the pizza deliveries websites and I'm amazed of how much calories they have. (Many times the fat that they have here in Chile, and I can ensure you, these ones are butter with mass.

Oh, don't even get me started with mobile phones, I was paying something like 10000 yen per month on my phone bills while I was there.

As for movies it depends as DVDs are expensive, but going to the cinema itself is more or less the same as where I live.

"3. Delivery pizza"

Dang, Britannia probably added some price drop when they turned Japan into Area-11.. or Lelouch was just too filthy rich.

C.C. must be lucky to be able to chow down on expensive pizza every episode.

No wonder most Japaneses are so slim.:)

Pizza?! wow!

maybe cheese-kun was the one delivering the pizza..
that's why so expensive..

Oh, Pizza Hut is sure a suprise.
But the rest is kinda normal.

Except maybe the mobile phone thing.
I thought they have more flatrate and such cheap stuff for that.

Pizza is expensive?

Wow...

no joke i thought some sort of electronic would be up there

I know Land and Housing was expensive due to Japan being a small island country, but why pizza? The ingredients most be why its so expensive.

These things are universally expensive.

I'm surprised they didn't mention anime. considering how expensive anime DVDs and BluRay are in Japan compared to the US.