Our stay was a bit of a mixed bag.
The upsides:
the distance to and from two major train lines was superb. Having access to the Chuo Sobu line and the Yamanote line were invaluable for getting to virtually anywhere in or or across the city. Having Shinjuku station also close by meant that getting on lines for more distant locations like Yokohama was a snap.
Shinjuku proper is also within walking distance as long as you don’t mind a 20 minute walk or so.
The major streets both north and south of this location are littered with restaurants and grocery stores as well as konbinis. If you do frequent cooking, having a close grocery store can’t be understated.
Free Wi-Fi! And it was quick too.
There is a TV, but we basically didn’t ever use it.
The hosts are also friendly and helpful. Our clothing rack broke half way through our stay and we mentioned this. They had a new one to our door in about a day and a half (which is quick! I know they have day jobs). I have nothing negative to say about our hosts. They were communicative, and direct. Easy to work with.
Neither up nor downsides:
Okubo is a bit of a foreigner town. It has people from all over the world that live here. Things like Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Indian food is common here. While that is all awesome, the reason they all live here is because it’s inexpensive. Which, the less nice way of saying that is “cheap”. Some will see this place as a ghetto. Others will see it as a vibrant place where immigrant life thrives.
I personally thought it was fine. My mother hated it. Just something to be aware of. Local Japanese people think of Okubo as being sketchy. It all comes down to your perspective about foreign people.
The downsides:
The apartment itself is small, which is expected, but we paid 2/3 this price in Taito for a location that was bigger and had a more usable kitchen and bathroom space. While location matters (Shinjuku is a major central hub), it was hard to justify this cost as being near any major train line in the city means that you can get virtually anywhere in 40 minutes or less.
The kitchen is really hard to use, bordering on unusable. No cutting space, one burner, very limited tools. We had to use an instant pot to double the cooking capacity on the floor of one of the rooms. Having your own rice maker goes a long way too.
The bathroom is also tiny. I couldn’t bathe without banging into the walls at least once or twice. And although it is a bath too, you won’t be able to stretch your legs out unless you’re incredibly small. The toilet itself is so close to the wall that I could rest my head on the wall while using it and my legs also felt cramped in that space.
There was also no AC in the “second room”. In parenthesis because really it’s just one room that’s separated in half by a screen door. This made it hard for the other person to ever get cool air. We had to leave the screen open in the middle and side to get air to circulate through. Despite this, there was probably a 5-10F temperature difference between the rooms.
The beds were sunken in the middle, likely never having been changed since this place turned into a rental property, offering no support.
Having a washing machine was nice, but because of how it was installed there is basically no access to the rest of the balcony. Which of course isn’t big, but it was a waste. Sometimes you just want to sip coffee and be outdoors, and this didn’t really allow for that.
This is all somewhat normal for a small Japanese apartment. Again, however multiple other airbnbs I’ve been to in Japan were more spacious for similar or less cost with the trade off of perhaps being further away from major hubs (you can look for places in East Tokyo like: Sumida, Taito, Asakusa, Minowa, etc).
The bottom line:
Location location location. If that’s your major focus and you’re going to spend a lot of time in West Tokyo visiting places like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Harajuku, Yoyogi, Tokyo Station (etc), you need easy access to the Shinkansen (at Tokyo station, Ueda, or Shinjuku) then this place is for you.
If you spend more of your time out of the apartment than in, this place is for you.
If you just need a place to crash, this will be sufficient.
However the place itself left a lot to be desired. While I’ll look upon my memories of staying there fondly (I’m a pretty relaxed traveler), I won’t stay here again, opting for something a little more spacious,
with a more usable kitchen, and perhaps in a bit more quiet neighborhood; further away from West Tokyo’s major hubs but at a cheaper cost.