Japan can be very cheap if you look around. Heck, you could stay at a 2000 yen/day internet cafe, snack on the free samples on the ground floor of a dept store and ride a bike everywhere. Some vacation that would be.
Of course it doesn't take much to run out of control either. My 3 week trip ended up costing me around 300,000 yen non including flight and JR Rail Pass. Sadly enough, that doesn't include accommodations (since I was staying with friends/relatives), dinner (since they treated me) and the only thing I bought for myself was a kanji-jiten.
But damn did I ever have fun! I guess most of my money went into the night life... and the taxi rides home at 4am.
