European freelance SWE here. I worked in Japan in your field for a number of years in the past decade. Your idea is utterly crazy. You are making 170K EUR in a low cost european locale=you are in a great position, especially in the current market conditions. Japan is like no.26 on the list of best-paying countries for IT skills. Meaning: Japan does NOT pay. Your expectations are simply unrealistic (and let's not get started on the value of JPY, which is at its lowest in decades), and you will need to be prepeared to take a MASSIVE pay cut. The fact that you are considering moving there with your family without doing the necessary due diligence is worrying, as it adds a whole extra layer of complexity that is not to be underestimated. Japan is welcoming to visitors. It is NOT welcoming to foreigners who come to stay. Japanese companies are also something else, and if you don't have experience with them, I would certainly not jump head-first.
In short: as others have said, if you are interested in the "cultural aspects", travel there, do your freelance work remotely from there, but for the love of all that is good, don't move there with your wife and kids BEFORE you have tested out the waters exentisively. You will thank me later.
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