Meeting People in Hostels

Hey I've had the experience of living in Japan for a year in the past, but will probably travel around this Summer and stay at hostels. However, I'll most likely be traveling alone and am wondering what type of experiences you've had with Japanese Hostels and if it will be easy to find fun people to hit the clubs and bars with. I'm looking to do this long trip to really immerse myself in the culture, boost language skills, meet a lot of interesting people, catch up with friends, and maybe even extend it into a gap year.

http://www.jyh.or.jp/english/
Will answer most of your questions.

Every Hostel / every day will offer you different opportunities to meet people.

In the early 90's when I first arrived in Japan I spent 6 months alternating between camping and hosteling while I was interviewing for work and getting set up.

Some hostels have regulations regarding the number of consecutive nights you can stay (I found them to be flexible depending on how busy they were) and you usually have to be out by 10am and then can come back after 3pm, many also had a comfortable lounge that they would let you stay in during that time if the weather was bad.

One word of warning however, most have large hot baths and once you get used to enjoying this in the mornings and or evenings every day, it's hard to give up when you go back to an apartment!

Enjoy and travel well...