When Web designer Soko Hirayama moved to Tokyo five months ago, she did not expect to be living solo.
Originally from Fukuoka in Kyushu Prefecture, the 26-year-old had spent the previous eight years in Washington D.C., living mostly in share houses, and hoped to do the same in Tokyo.
Instead, she is living alone for the first time in her life, after being unable to find a friend to share an apartment.