I'll be living in Japan soon and I'm curious how I can keep watching western TV shows and anime.
In my current country I just used to torrent those as they weren't available on the TV and there was no service that would provide the same (similar to Netflix people have in the US).

I don't care about games (I buy from Steam/GoG usually) or software (I use legal/FLOSS stuff), and watching movies in the cinemas is all I need, but TV content has always been an issue.

I really wouldn't mind paying if there is an actual service that provides torrent-like quality of content for a 'reasonable' price:
1) Needs to have all the stuff I can get via torrents (currently popular Japanese Anime and Western TV shows)
2) Needs to be available on air time or just with a few days lag with no dubbing
3) Should ideally be watchable at the time of my choosing and without commercials (although seeing how Japanese commercials look like might be fun and recording it while I'm out would be OK too, if not incredibly difficult)

So can I get some suggestions regarding the possibilities (cable, torrenting, streaming)? How much does cable cost, and what does it offer? Any better alternatives?

I'm currently looking for legal stuff only (or things that are de-facto OK), so please don't post suggestions how to circumvent piracy prevention measures (I can probably figure that one myself if I choose to do so).

Thanks!

Paid VPN + Netflix/Hulu is the best legal option.

Unless you are huge on dramas and want raw anime, cable is mostly a novelty in Japan. You can get away without getting it. Some cable networks might not even have all the anime currently airing that season either.

For anime, if you don't mind watching it raw, there's Gyao: http://gyao.yahoo.co.jp/ct/anime/

If you don't mind watching shows a season or so after the original air date, Fox Japan on Sky Perfect TV has virtually every Western TV show. "Fox" is just a catch-all for every current sitcom, drama, reality series playing in the US (and some from the UK). I didn't handle the subscription myself, but you can select individual channels for about 700 yen each, instead of paying for the entire selection like in the US.

Thanks for the replies everyone! The situation does look pretty bad though, I'll try to figure something out when I get there.

Also, Tsukubu University has a free VPN called VPN Gate. Works great for me for the reverse, watching region-blocked content from Japan in the US.

I actually don't have cable anymore, but am not missing out on any of the US TV shows I watch thanks to the internet. With a VPN, it should pretty much be the same for you.

As for anime, you can also access Crunchyroll from Japan with a VPN as well.