Cost-of-living comparisons get complex, but I can give you my personal opinion.
Let's assume SF vs Tokyo.
To live the same lifestyle and have the same amount of disposable income as someone earning $170-230k in SF, you'd need to earn ¥12-18M or so in Tokyo.
You can live in a nice apartment in the center of Tokyo and still save a lot of money as a single person earning ¥12M a year.
Also the yen is super weak against the dollar right now (historically so). So converting to dollars doesn't give an accurate value imo. As long as you earn and spend yen, what matters is purchasing power parity. Not the exchange rate.
To me, living in Japan, ¥9M still "feels" roughly like $90k despite the exchange rate.
Let's assume SF vs Tokyo.
To live the same lifestyle and have the same amount of disposable income as someone earning $170-230k in SF, you'd need to earn ¥12-18M or so in Tokyo.
You can live in a nice apartment in the center of Tokyo and still save a lot of money as a single person earning ¥12M a year.
Also the yen is super weak against the dollar right now (historically so). So converting to dollars doesn't give an accurate value imo. As long as you earn and spend yen, what matters is purchasing power parity. Not the exchange rate.
To me, living in Japan, ¥9M still "feels" roughly like $90k despite the exchange rate.