By far, my favorite flight from the US to Japan is NH105, which is currently the only "red eye" option. You can leave pretty much anywhere in the country on the last flight to LAX Sunday night, catch the departure to Tokyo in the wee hours of Monday morning, sleep on the plane, and get to Haneda just as the trains start running on Tuesday morning, wasting only one day. Every other option from the East Coast would have you leaving Monday morning and arriving at HND or NRT in the late afternoon on Tuesday, or leaving in the afternoon and arriving late at night, wasting most of two days.

And it's expensive. Looking ahead to the week of 8/20, it would cost over $9,500 to fly from DC to Tokyo round trip with the outbound via LAX on NH105 in business -- meanwhile, AC business class can be had on the same dates for <$4,000. The price difference is almost as bad out of NYC.

I wish DL or JL/AA could come up with a competing westbound red-eye to Japan to bring the price down. Of course HA has the only other pair of late night HND-US slots, so this is unlikely to happen any time soon.