I took the subway at 9 a.m. one day this week, and probably half the people in the car were asleep. Is it rude to photograph sleeping strangers? Oh well, I did it anyway.
I've heard that many Japanese are seriously sleep deprived because the office culture demands extraordinarily long hours, and many people commute for 1-2 hours. So they get up at 6, get to work by 8 or 9, stay for 12 hrs (or whatever), go out to dinner, ride home, get a bit of sleep and start over.
It can't hurt that Tokyo subway seats are cushy and covered in velvety fabric - nothing like the hard plastic, easy-to-clean seats on the NYC subway. Sometimes a person at the end of a row leans his/her head on the metal bar next to the door, too. That can't be comfortable, though the bar is at the right height for napping.
Of course no one here worries about crime on the subway, but lots of people must miss their stops because they are truly, deeply asleep.
You also often find people sleeping in comfy chairs at Starbucks, and Blaine went to a dept store and saw people sleeping in the massage chairs in the furniture showroom. (He has a WaPo story waiting for publication on that.) Someone also told me that exhausted office workers sometimes sleep at their desks, which certainly undermines the concept that more work hours=more productivity.
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