[Sangetsu]

You won't have any difficulty "surviving" on an English teacher's salary. There are many families in Japan that live on less.

Unless the rules have changed, I believe that a working holiday visa is only good for 6 months. The good thing about this type of visa is that you can do pretty much any kind of work (cook, server, bartender), and there is no special paperwork required. On the other hand, these other jobs often pay rather poorly (1000 yen an hour) compared to teaching English (2500 to 3000 yen per hour), so you probably would have a difficult time "surviving".

Most teaching jobs will require a one-year contract, meaning that you might have trouble getting a job as a teacher with a 6 month visa. There are exceptions, another poster said that Interac offered him a 6 month contract, so that might be an option.

As for living near Tokyo, as long as you aren't too close to the city, you might find that living in Japan is not that expensive. I'm not that far from Tokyo myself (I spend my weekends there), but the cost of living where I am now is much less than the area where I lived in America. My gf's 2DK apartment in Tokyo costs about $3000 per month, my 2DK house (brand new) in the countryside runs about $700 a month, and a third of my rent is offset by the housing allowance I receive from my school.

Take your time and research your options before you come. Look for jobs/housing in the Saitama or Chiba areas, which border Tokyo, but are far enough from the metro area to be quiet and inexpensive.