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Japanese apartment listings in English: every fee explained, plus commutes in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka. Japanese apartment listings, explained in English, on the rental sites you already use. Japanese rental listings are hard to read, and no two rental sites lay them out the same way. Smoovin explains each listing in English, right where you're browsing it, in the same familiar layout on every site: every fee broken down, costs in yen and US dollars, the commute, and what's nearby. Two homes are easy to compare, and your shortlist is easy to hand to an agent. ON EVERY LISTING • Monthly: rent + management as one figure, with other monthly charges beside it, never added in. • Move-in: the one-time fees the listing states, added up, in yen with US dollars. Fees it leaves out are named, so you know what to ask the agent. • Every fee explained: shikikin (deposit), reikin (key money), hoshōkin (guarantee deposit), guarantor fees and the rest, each with a plain name and what it's for. • Getting there: station names in English, the walk, and direct trains to major hubs. No direct train? The closest station and a route link for Google Maps. • Nearby: convenience stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, parks and places to eat, with map links. • The home: the layout explained (1K, 1LDK…), sizes in m² and sq ft, and the features translated. SAVE AND COMPARE Save homes from any of the four sites to one dashboard. Sort and filter them, and compare two to four side by side. A saved home refreshes when you open its page again and is marked when the listing ends. HAND YOUR SHORTLIST TO AN AGENT Ready to contact an agent? Pick your favorite saved homes and put them in your order: #1, #2, #3. For each, tick what to ask: still available, foreigners accepted, a viewing, a move-in cost estimate, or similar homes if it's gone, and add a note. Add your move-in month, how many people and pets, and how to reach you, if you like. Then export it, written in Japanese and English so any agent can read it: • Print it or save it as a PDF, one home per page, with links to each listing. • Download a CSV file that opens in Excel with the Japanese intact. • Copy it as an email, with a subject line, ready to paste into your mail app. Each home comes with what the agent needs to find it, as the site shows it: the building name, address, floor and room, layout, rent and the site's listing code. The agent can reply by number: "#2 is gone, #1 and #3 can be viewed Saturday." NEW TO THESE SITES? On the sites' other pages (home, search, results), Smoovin's seal in the corner asks "Not sure where to start? Smoovin can help." Click it for a short guide: where you are, which Japanese button to look for and what it means, and links one step closer to a listing. Browsing with Chrome's translation? Smoovin still reads each listing's original Japanese. WHERE IT WORKS Japan's major rental sites, including GaijinPot Apartments, LIFULL HOME'S and at home. Smoovin is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by any rental site. Costs, maps and nearby places work for listings anywhere in Japan. Direct trains to hubs and English station names cover: • Greater Tokyo (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba): Shibuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo Station and more • The Fukuoka metro area: Tenjin and Hakata • Osaka Prefecture: Umeda and Namba • The Kyoto metro area: Kyoto Station and Shijō-Karasuma Fee warnings follow each region's customs: in Osaka and Kyoto, a guarantee deposit (hoshōkin) answers a missing deposit. NOTHING ESTIMATED Amounts are shown as the listing states them, and anything missing is said in words. Plain-English guides to renting in Japan: https://smoovin.app/learn PRIVACY Listings are read in your browser and saved on your computer, and so is your shortlist: it leaves only in the PDF, file or email you send. There's no account and no tracking. Smoovin uses three outside services, and none of them sees the listing page itself: • Frankfurter, a free exchange-rate service, for the yen to US dollar rate. It's told only the two currencies. • GSI address search, the Japanese government's address lookup, to find where a listing is when the site doesn't say. It gets the address as the site shows it, without the building name or room number. • Smoovin Places, Smoovin's own map of shops, parks and places to eat across Japan, built from public map data. It gets the map area, about 4 × 5 km, never the exact spot. Anonymous daily usage counts are sent only if you turn them on. Details: https://smoovin.app/privacy