How to Avoid Getting Lost in Japan

1. Get a Map
Get both a Japanese and an English version. The Japanese version is more likely to be up-to-date and accurate, plus it has the kanji, which will be what you actually see in the places you're going. The English, if it has romaji, will show you how to pronounce the kanji on the other map (but if it doesn't have phonetic versions of the place names and only has literal translations, it's basically useless for finding anything). Also try to get a map that shows your whole path, and then one that zooms in on the destination area (with a radius of several blocks), which is easy to do with Google maps, for example. Also, have hard copies in case Wifi or cell signal doesn't work.

2. Understand Japanese Addresses
Unlike America, street names, when they're available, will rarely help you. This is why a map is so important. A good way to approach Japanese address organization, from the American point of view, is to think of it this way:

Say we're looking for the University of Pittsburgh. Start with the United States. Divide it into 50 states. Choose Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is divided into counties. Find Allegheny County. Allegheny County is divided into cities and towns. Find the city of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is made up of several neighborhoods. Find the neighborhood called Oakland.

That's about as close as you would get using just place names.

In Japan, the numbers in an address represent areas (rather than houses along streets) that are arbitrarily numbered. So they offer little help, since they give no sense of direction.

3. Look for Landmarks
Now you make a mental list of traffic lights/big streets/buildings/companies/schools/etc that you can look for once you arrive in the general vicinity. That way, if you lose track of which nameless street you are on and what direction you're going, you can use one of these landmarks to reorient yourself. In addition, if you get directions from people, they will use such landmarks in their explanations.

Now I'll give you a detailed example of these steps, using JCMU.

We'll start big. Japan.

Courtesy of Google Maps. The address for JCMU is written in romaji above.

Next we'll zoom in to see the prefectures.

You can see Shiga Prefecture in gray, near Kyoto and Nagoya (major cities).

 We'll zoom in more to see the cities.

Now we can see Hikone.

 Now we zoom in more.

Here we can see the train station names. Because public transportation is so widely used, the names of stations are good guides for knowing where you are. If you get lost, you can follow the train tracks.

 Here I zoomed in more, so we can see not only the station names, but also names of landmarks, such as Hikone Castle and Hikone Prince Hotel.

Look for landmarks.

 If we zoom in further, we can actually see the names of the cho, which weren't visible before, for some reason. JCMU is in Matsubara-cho.

Look for Matsubara-cho and JCMU (the red bubble...)~ Btw, rivers and bridges are also useful landmarks.

And finally, it never hurts to use street view to familiarize yourself with either the landmarks or the place you're looking for.

Final tip:
Telephone poles often have the address of the area, so if you're lost, look at the nearest pole for a set of kanji and numbers, which will tell you which the name of the chome and which number section of  it you are in.

Happy searching!