Are kotatsus a meme or is it worth importing one? Anyone actually

just buy an end table, overlay your favorite blanket, then lay a piece of plywood on top. Boom, kotatsu the filthy gaijin way.

In America we can afford to just turn a heater on and warm the whole room up

Seems like a fire hazard.

>>17601305
Unless you live in a drafty old wooden house or shitty apartment with no heating, it's a meme even in Japan.

>>17601728
It's terrible for hygiene if you're a NEET too. Just look at your floor and imagine.

They're incredibly comfy if you don't have central heating in your house. If you do have central heating, it's not worth it.

>importing
I bought a jp kotatsu heater from ebay and superglued it to under an ikea table a few years back. It's comfy (and my cat would be under there all the time) but really not worth it for other than increasing your weeb level.

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>>17601305
pretty sure u can order them off amazon

I built one a few years back. They're super comfy in the cooler weather. Even if you have a decent central heating system there's something nice about them.

The heater itself isnt expensive to import and if you have even basic woodworking skills you can do it for pretty cheap.

>>17603850
Does it have a specific type of heater that doesn't set fire to your socks?

I have one. They're great for cheap spot-heating in old houses, and the heaters are low enough draw where they work fine on slightly different US power or can get by with a really cheap converter if you don't want to risk it at all.

However, if you already have clearly defined work and play areas, it won't do you much good. The kotatsu next to the computer desk is a kotatsu that's a bulky and overpriced 500W space heater.

>>17601305
>a meme
Please.

>>17611387
This one was translated

I have bad posture so I don't think I could sit at one comfortably

>leaving my computer to sit under a table

yeah I don't think so

>>17617093
Get a laptop, bonehead.

>>17602054
That's a bit of an exaggeration. I wasn't able to find very official stats, but in a 2016 poll (N=237) of people in their 20s, 49% reported having a kotatsu at home, including 35% who said they use one. So the number is clearly going down, but not that much.
http://suumo.jp/journal/2016/02/25/106738/

It's also hard to find very official data on central heating, but various sources suggest less than 10% (outside Hokkaido) of homes in Japan have it. It'd be interesting to see if the percentage of newly built houses with central heating is increasing. These days there are decent heating alternatives: various types of air conditioner, FF heater, fan heater. I wasn't able to find any data.

As an aside, the lack of central heating is why Japanese toilets have heating.

>>17601305
Kotatsu are great and not just a Japanese thing.

They have it in Russia and Iran.

When we first immigrated to America my first shortened the legs of a kitchen table and put a portable heater under it.

I burnt my foot on that when I was child.

So for my own home Kotatsu I imported a Japanese heater that wont burn you and screwed it under a coffee table.

In Iran they have a holiday on the winter solstice where you have to stay under the kotatsu and eat red fruits to give power to the sun since it`s the longest night of the year.

>>17601441
could you tell my landlord to fix the fucking heater like he said he would...

It's more of a rural thing. Nowadays Japanese apartments don't have tatami, all tables and desk are chair-height, and they use bed frames.