[Hatredcopter]

It's more expensive than America, yes. However, it's not that unreasonable depending where you go. Tokyo is pretty much always more expensive than most other places. The further you are away from the city center or from certain train stations, the cheaper accommodation gets. Many goods are a bit more expensive as well (bread, batteries, medicine, all sorts of generic stuff like that).

As for jobs, teaching English typically pays decent, and you can make a pretty good living depending on your experience, who you work for, and those kind of factors. Translation pays even better than teaching English, but its harder to get into than teaching, and you have to have to be very skilled in the Japanese language. Many foreigners are also finding jobs in Japan in IT, which pays roughly the same as it does in the US.