Capsule Hotels

Nine Hours takes its name from its own arithmetic: an hour to wash, seven to sleep, an hour to get ready and leave. The Shinjuku-North property applies that logic without apology. Guests check in at a screen, take a locker on their assigned floor, change, and climb into a moulded white sleeping pod with a roller blind for a door. There is no clutter anywhere, because there is nowhere to put clutter.

The design is unusually confident for a budget format — everything in white, black and grey, pictograms instead of signage, showers that are genuinely good. Floors are separated by gender and the corridors are kept silent. It works best for exactly what it advertises: a clean, cheap, well-run night between a late arrival and an early train.

The Millennials stretches the capsule idea further than most. Each berth is a wide, slightly raised unit with a powered bed that reclines into a sofa, a projector aimed at the ceiling, and a control handset given out at check-in. It is a capsule hotel that behaves partly like a co-working floor, and the long communal table near the entrance is used all day by people with laptops.

Kyoto's central shopping arcades are a minute away, which matters, because guests here spend very little time horizontal during daylight. The free morning coffee and the evening drink hour are the social spine of the place. Anyone expecting the monastic silence of a classic Japanese capsule house will find this louder and considerably younger.

First Cabin borrows its vocabulary from aircraft rather than from spacecraft, and the difference is real. Cabins come in tiers — the larger ones give enough headroom to stand and dress, which removes the single most awkward part of staying in a capsule. Doors are still soft rather than locking, so valuables live in the lockers, but the sense of enclosure is closer to a small room than a berth.

The Karasuma location puts guests on a subway line and inside walking distance of Nishiki Market. Large shared bathing rooms are the other draw; they are the part regulars talk about. It suits travellers who want the price and footprint of a capsule without the claustrophobia that sometimes comes with it.

Anshin Oyado is the traditionalist of the group and openly aims at Japanese business travellers rather than tourists. The capsules are conventional in shape, the difference is in what surrounds them: a proper large bath, a dry sauna, a relaxation floor with reclining chairs, and free food and drink laid out through the evening. Slippers on, shoes in the locker, quiet after ten.

It is men-only at this branch, which is worth knowing before booking, and staff speak limited English. In exchange guests get one of the best-maintained capsule houses in Tokyo, a short walk from Shinjuku station's east side. The experience is less about design novelty than about how thoroughly the routine has been worked out.