Purchase Japanese bath/shower in USA?

I am interested in putting in a typical Japanese bathroom, with deep tub, hand shower, drain, and waterproof ceiling and walls. In Japan, it looks like many of these are integrated units. I like the simple, minimalist, easy to clean Japanese design. Any recommendations or thoughts or concerns?

easy to clean Japanese design. Any recommendations or thoughts or concerns?

Concerns:

Well, as a Japanese resident in Japan, it's not really "easy to clean". It's only easy to clean because the space is small. What I mean is, it's easy because you only need to clean a small amount of space and not because it's a unit.

In particular, Japan is humid, and if you leave it alone wet, the "unit bath" (is what we call it) quickly catches mold. And if you leave the mold, it sticks there and you'd hardly be able to get rid of it. Also, it's typically installed with a caulk job, and that has to be renewed every decade or so, or else the bathroom can start leaking, ruining half the building you live in (been there).

If the unit includes a toilet, that means you're essentially bathing in a tiny toilet, which is fine unless you (again) leave it for a few humid days until the toilet bowl gets all black, red and yellow with mold.

To prevent that, residents here would either make sure you wipe off every drop of water before leaving the room at the end of the day, or clean it at least once in a few days if not daily, and then thoroughly clean it once a week, and make sure you leave the fan on 24/7 (which can annoy neighbors when the fan becomes old and noisy) or keep the bathroom window open if the unit can install one (which may attract a lot of tiny bugs even if you keep the wire screen closed at all times).

When you get to the point that you can't do anything about your rotten unit, then residents here would call one of the many professional cleaning people or carpenters in Japan who are very used to and good at taking care of Japanese unit baths because they've see a lot of them on a daily basis.

So, all in all, a concise Japanese plastic bathroom unit is effective only because, in Japan, a whole building is made to be rebuilt every three decades or so. It's also typical for residents to renew just the bathroom and/or toilet once a decade, because (A) they don't last and (B) better ones are being developed every day. And when that sort of construction begins at someone's very nice home, you can see from the streets a really dirty bath unit being uninstalled.

I hope it helps.

I looked into doing the same thing years ago and the general consensus/bad news was "no, you can't do this in America".

The first issue would be sourcing the parts/materials. AFAIK there is nowhere in the US that stocks, or would import, these Japanese-made components. The closest thing you can find is toilets and miscellaneous fixtures from TOTO USA, but none of those are really going to be "Japanese"... but rather just simple, elegant iterations of Western styles. Theoretically you could enlist the help of a general exporter in Japan that would be willing to purchase the components and then freight-ship them to you, but I'm certain that is cost-prohibitive to any non-millionaire.

Let's say you get the basic components (ie. a shower kit) somehow though... the next hurdle is that none of the fittings will work with US-standard plumbing sizes, and that the overall function/design is different. I heard this from a plumber on a message board and took his word for it, since I had no way of verifying it myself as a general consumer... but it makes sense.

I was pretty bummed out after hearing all this, but then thought that if I did manage to do this to my bathroom and then wanted to sell the house in the future, it might be go over well with any prospective buyers... just like how you shouldn't put stickers on your car unless you intend on driving it into the ground, haha.

Thank you. Disappointing that some exporter has not made a business of this. After all, we import so many Japanese items that have been sized for the US market. I really think that some Japanese manufacturer would score a home run if they could export these units as "plug and play". It would be so awesome!