Sometime in the mid-90s, my step-brother came home one evening and announced that he required a futon bed as it would serve his aspirations to be a professional footballer. The rest of us couldn’t see the appeal – who would want a mattress without springs? – but he persisted with it for the rest of our adolescence regardless.
Over time, however, I came to understand the beauty of the futon. The Western version was popularised by a furniture designer called Wiliam Brouwer from Massachusetts who patented the familiar fold-out futon bed in 1982. The Futon Company in the UK started up around the same time, and the futon became popular on both sides of the Atlantic particularly with younger people looking for relatively cheap and space-saving alternatives to traditional beds.
So far, so Marie Kondo. But the Japanese futon is actually a rather different deal altogether. As a Japanese ryokan regular and futon enthusiast (I slept on one for two years the first time I lived in Tokyo), the experience I’ve had is fundamentally different to my step-brother’s. In private homes and public ryokans, the futon is usually kept in an oshiire (futon cupboard) with fusama sliding doors and rolled out on the tatami mat floor each night. They are markedly more soft and comfortable than the Western sofabed version (except if you stay in a temple in which case the futon is about 3mm thick – no pain no gain as the Buddhists believe…)
The image above is more reminiscent of what you would find in a Japanese ryokan – I’ve had some of the best sleeps of my life in such places and would always recommend trying it even if only for a night, If in doubt, then there are numerous reputable ryokans with ottoman futon beds, and if the whole futon thing really doesn’t appeal then there are plenty of places which offer Western twin beds in otherwise traditional Japanese rooms these days.
Getting a Japan trip right requires this level of knowledge. Contact me at Tailored Journeys to plan your adventure down to the fine details.