Generally they are kept very clean and the photo is not at all unrealistic. The cultural norm is to never litter, instead if necessary trash is taken home with you to dispose of for example.

That said, what might contribute to the cleanliness in the photo though is that it was possibly taken after the last train (all trains stop after around midnight), so it's not unlikely the stairs are exceptionally clean because they had just been cleaned before.

On a slightly unrelated note regarding having to be vacuumed constantly, the stairs being clean and the extremely low rate of unemployment in japan might not be unrelated, and on topic it might also not be unrelated to the prevalence of sleeping in situations that would be utterly unacceptable in other countries, such as meetings :)

You pretty much have to take your litter home. There's no such thing as a public trash can.

Convenience stores (which are everywhere) frequently have bins outside.

Most bins are exclusively for cans (sold by vending machine you can find literally everywhere).

When we were in Kyoto, we could see a homeless man with a sleeping bag from our window. He would smoke a cigarette and carefully shake the ash into a soda can, presumably for later disposal, rather than onto the sidewalk.

Japan is very clean. You should visit there once. It will change your standards of cleanliness for ever.

I used to think Toronto was a clean city. After visiting Tokyo, I see that very few areas in Toronto are actually clean.

The stairs are not clean or rather there are plenty of unclean stairs in Japan. Relative to other cities I'm not sure. None of the stations smell like piss like SF and Paris at least

Some are, some aren't. Busy exists in Shibuya (or other busy junctions) for instance will be clean-enough but not that clean. There's an insane amount of people passing through after all. Small stations even in central Tokyo -- yes, they will be this clean.

Someone from Germany please correct me, but aren't you required to keep the street in front of your house clean? I was amazed at how clean Germany was, then I went to Switzerland, even cleaner. Amazing.

Switzerland is pretty clean, and it's largely due to the Swiss culture, and the fact that there's plenty of bins which are regularly cleaned and emptied.

However

There's one class of people who believe that it's their God given right to litter wherever and whenever they want, and that's smokers.

You can especially see it around Tram stops where people are waiting around and will quite happily throw their cigarette butts on the ground or pavement when the tram approaches.

Well, in most parts of Germany, cleaning crews clean the sidewalk at least once a day, too.

Usually between 5 and 6am, that helps keep them clean, too.

(I’m a German who usually wakes up from the sound in the morning)

Only in terms of hazards like snow and ice.

Exactly. There is no cleanliness requirement, but if someone gets injured because of snow and ice on your part of the way, you are liable.

Japan is renowned for being clean, they're still stairs though.