Long-time Japan resident here. I agree. And public restrooms have been improving. While I still, very occasionally, encounter one that has old or broken equipme

Long-time Japan resident here. I agree. And public restrooms have been improving. While I still, very occasionally, encounter one that has old or broken equipment or that needs cleaning, overall they are much cleaner and more pleasant than they were forty-two years ago, when I moved here. Restrooms in train stations in particular have improved immensely. If I were asked to guess why restrooms in Japan are good and getting better, I would suggest a number of possible factors: public pressure on municipalities and businesses to create a positive experience for both residents and tourists; very little crime; large-scale homelessness being limited to a few parts of Tokyo, Osaka, Kawasaki, Yokohama, and one or two other large cities; and a widespread attitude that a lack of clean, available restrooms is abnormal and needs to be fixed. A boom in tourism since COVID may be creating a challenge, though. The only two times recently when I have had trouble finding a public restroom were when I happened to go to areas crowded again with tourists: Asakusa in Tokyo and Namba in Osaka. I saw shops in both places with signs up in Japanese, English, and Chinese saying they didn’t have restrooms, presumably to keep tourists from coming in just to use the facilities. I can’t remember ever seeing that in non-touristy areas.