This essay is a perennial HN favorite. And it does seem uniquely Japanese:
> When I started my own company, I was living in an apartment that I had first rented as an employee of a megacorp. The entirety of the credit investigation was me presenting my business card to them. Possessing it implies both sterling moral character, stable finances, and a responsible party to intercede with should there ever be an issue with me as a tenant. (Japanese landlords and lenders will, as a matter of policy, escalate any disagreement with you to your boss, as the social opprobrium you’ll suffer will get you to quickly cave.)
Speaking from experience renting in Tokyo both before that article was written and more recently, as well as in Paris, while they're indeed very different things have also been changing a lot in Japan, partly due to new regulation.
Back ~10y ago, the norm was very much that you needed a personal guarantor, and sometimes you could or had to additionally use an assigned guarantor company which may or may not have additional requirements.
These days, the norm is more that you need to provide a local 緊急連絡先 (emergency contact), and sign up with a guarantor company that acts as insurer and usually have a blanket check. One similarity with France is the general requirement of having a verifiable income of minimum 3x of the rent.
Many other points that the author brings up look very different today compared to in 2014.
> When I started my own company, I was living in an apartment that I had first rented as an employee of a megacorp. The entirety of the credit investigation was me presenting my business card to them. Possessing it implies both sterling moral character, stable finances, and a responsible party to intercede with should there ever be an issue with me as a tenant. (Japanese landlords and lenders will, as a matter of policy, escalate any disagreement with you to your boss, as the social opprobrium you’ll suffer will get you to quickly cave.)
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...