Most of my last trip to Japan was: 1) leave hotel, 2) take local train / bus in City A to the Shinkansen station, 3) Take Shinkansen to city B, 4) take local train / bus, 5) walk to hotel.

So there wasn’t a lot of taxi usage but a lot of (busy) street walking and (busy) public transit use. Plenty of people did successfully haul their stuff themselves, but luggage forwarding saved us a lot of headache. Felt very worth the price.

e: There wasn’t a lot of waiting either. We shipped our stuff 1 full day ahead of time (so if we were checking into our next hotel Wednesday we sent our bags Monday afternoon-ish). Maybe it can seem annoying to keep a day or two of clothes with you in a backpack, but cramming into a packed bus in Kyoto with two roller bags seemed like a far worse bargain to us.