> Tokyo is in a literal housing price bubble in a country with a _shrinking_ population.

No, this is wrong. (1) There is no housing price bubble in Tokyo. Yes, some very central "ku's" (Shibuya-ku and Minato-ku) are seeing a rise in home prices, but it is nothing ridiculous. It is no where near a repeat of the late 1980s. You can easily select a neighborhood just ten minutes away and it will have sharply lower prices. Also, Japan effectively has zero NIMBYism due to a national building code. New housing is constantly being built in Tokyo. (2) Yes, overall, the population is shrinking in Japan. However, the population of Tokyo continues to rise.