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In so many animes, I have noticed that middle- and high-school kids live by
themselves without any adults around to supervise. While this may serve as a
useful plot device, I noticed that it happens far too often. Arima Kousei of
_Your Lie in April_ lives alone because his father is always out on business
trips, Sakuta Azusagawa ( _Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai_ ) and
Kyon ( _Haruhi Suzumiya_ series) live with their younger sisters. Other
characters of _Haruhi Suzumiya_ like Yuki Nagato and Ryoko Asakura, both
functionally human to that society, also live by themselves. **Is that common
in Japanese society?**

[Having lived in multiple cities across multiple countries, I have never seen
school kids living alone in houses like that. The best I've seen within the
budget of older university students are single-room apartments or shared
houses.]

Ideally, I'm looking for answers from people who have first-hand experience of
school life in Japan. Answers based on studies and reports would be OK too, if
you can translate the relevant information to English.


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2020-08-25T11:18:17.957
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japan
Is it common for Japanese school kids to live alone IRL?


I wouldn't call it common, based on the data I've found, but the situation
commonly portrayed in anime, manga and light novels _are not unheard of in
real life_.

According to [this
study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6177267/), those aged
15-19 that live alone **comprises only about 5% of the population**. It's
worth nothing that the graph peaks at the age ranges of 20-24 and 80-84. **So
while there are indeed students living alone in real life, it's not as common
as anime, manga or light novels make it to be.**

There are also some discussion about this on different sites, some who've had
Japanese friends who live alone. Here are some links if you'd like to read
about their experiences. [Link 1](https://jref.com/threads/young-people-
living-alone-in-japan.37107/), [Link
2](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-01-16/.111067), [Link
3](https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/2i79j5/are_underaged_students_living_alone_really_a_thing/)


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