Help finding hostels/cheap hotel

hello, I'm a college student seeking a affordable place to stay. As my trip to Japan is just around the corner, I have yet to find some places to stay.
My plan is to get a shinkansen pass to be able to travel to the cities and prefectures i want to visit.
The place i want to hit are Tokyo (where i will be landing), Shinjuku, Akagi, Akhibara, Chiba, Kanagawa, Osaka, Yokohama, Kyoto, Okayama, Ebisu, etc.

which how much cheaper is the J-Rail than then shinkansen?

incase you all are wondering I will be there from June 1st to June 17th.

Your help and comments are greatly appreciated,

thanks,

Greg

Affordable and nearly guaranteed to find a room without a reservation is simply a Capsule Hotel.
In Tokyo I stayed a handful of times at the Capsule Inn Akhibara in Akhibara, your looking at $40 a night.

Shinjuku and Akhibara are just districts in Tokyo, so you can visit Shinjuku and just make a short trip back to Akhibara for the capsule inn.

All those cities you mention have hostels, capsule hotels or atleast business hotels that run less then $70 a night.


Kyoto,it the one place I see lots of hostels walking distance of the bus terminals, its shouldnt be too hard to find a room on short notice or no notice. They run around $20

The JR pass is a good deal with your traveling, plus it comes useful for Tokyo traveling.


You really need to do a bit more research, as its fairly easy to stay cheap in Japan.
This site has ads for various hostel reservation sites, I suggest looking into hostels.

Shinjuku, Akihabara, Ebisu are all districts of Tokyo located on the JR Yamanote loop line that goes all around Tokyo downtown (Google Yamanote and enlarge the map at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamanote_Line) Chiba and Yokohama are "suburbs" of Tokyo that can easily be visited from Tokyo during the day. Kanagawa is the prefecture (a political and administrative division of the country) where Yokohama and Kamakura are located. Osaka and Kyoto are in the Kansai region, about 550 km south of Tokyo. Okayama is further south from Osaka,about 180 km, and not far from Hiroshima. Can't find a place called Akagi.About the all Japan JR passes: www.japanrailpass.net/ read all the pages carefully. for hotels, including some cheap ones: www.japanhotel.net in Tokyo cheap ones are in the Asakusa district of Tokyo. For hostels pls google hostels in Japan. You need to learn a lot more about the county. Check all the tabs at the top of this page, to the right of Japan-guide.com then plan your trip in more details. Check allposts by clicking in the main questions page "view all .....questions".