Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Group Living

Shared houses have been a common setting of reality TV in the US since the The Real World, and, perhaps, the creators of Terrace House were looking to the West as they started this series back in 2012. However, shared houses are not necessarily a common form of housing in general in Japan. In fact, Hansan and Arisa were interviewed for a short YouTube documentary about shared living after the show and Part 1 was thoughtfully translated by someone on reddit (the user name has since been deleted - I'd love to give them credit). And it's fairly clear from that interview and the tone of show that the produces would like to promote the idea that shared houses can be a stylish and enjoyable way of living which should become more popular in Japan.

As Hansan and Arisa say on the topic in this documentary:

H: It seems sharehouses used to be for foreigners who moved here for work to live together. It started as so-called ‘foreigner houses’. It was not stylish at all, it was just chosen because it was cheap. But now I believe it has this designer-thingy going on. Because it is stylish, people opts for a sharehouse, not just because it is cheap.

A: Because people can’t live by themselves, but they can live in a stylish sharehouse.

H: I thing their popularity will only expand. Now people assume it is just for people who would live alone, but it can form new families and provide interaction between different generations living together.

And, indeed, there is some indication that the show has sparked a trend towards shared houses in Japan.  See, for instance, this article from a month ago in which a journalist tries living in one.

I lived in shared houses in college through grad-school. This was my Terrace House:

It was a seven person house in Palo Alto. Three of us were in grad-school and the rest were twenty-somethings working in the early parts of their careers. Importantly, we all agreed to share the cooking which, I believe, is truly key to a quality shared house. We'd each take a night, and prepare the meal, and everyone had their own approach. Jim would go to a store and just pick whatever ingredients that struck him that day. He was a decent cook, and I never had a bad meal from him, but, apparently, a year or two before he tried to make a casserole with bananas and eggplant that was so bad that everyone immediately got up from the table and started making sandwiches. Susan said it was like eating snot.

Terrace House does not tend to organize itself to the same extent. We do see them sharing meals, and most cooking tends to be done by the women though the men do get brought into process over time. Both Uchi and Taishi seem to be fairly comfortable contributing in the kitchen, to be fair. But except for special occasions, there do not appear to regular shared meals in any permutations of the house. My impression is that Hana on B&GND may have cooked quite a bit more than most housemates - she seemed to enjoy it and was excellent at it.

The other constant issue that group houses have to address is keeping the house clean. I suspect that with all the white carpeting in the houses, that the show does provide some house keeping. But it's also clear in AS that the cast are in charge of their bathrooms, and in BxGND there is at least one house meeting around taking out the trash. The younger members of the house may have never had to deal with cleaning, and so, like all shared house, there has been some conflict around the general level of cleanliness.

The one real disadvantage that the members of Terrace House have in comparison to people living in similar situations in, shall we say, the real world is that they have no control over who gets to join the house. At my favorite house finding new housemates was a consensus process and everyone had to agree to a new housemate. In fact, if you planned to veto a member during an interview, you were to say, "I'm thirsty: can I get you some water" which was a signal to the rest of the members to wrap up the interview. Terrace House members know that they're likely to get someone attractive as a new housemate, but that's about it which much surely add some additional stress on top of the expectations for romantic story lines.

The various called house meetings on the show are very true to what happens in real life. Situations arise and need to be resolved (and almost no one gets to have a Hansan to artfully mediate disputes). Such meetings can be uncomfortable, but often they also pull people closer as group.

Terrace House is, to some extent, style-porn for shared living. The show is aspirational, and presents a cool way of life that some people may not realize is a possibility. Shared living can be occasionally contentious, but it also can be hugely rewarding. I like that one of the secret agendas of the show is bringing the advantages of shared houses to the attention of a wider audience.