Originally Posted by
abmj-jr
With that luggage, you could make good use of the excellent takyubin luggage forwarding service several times to avoid carrying more than your backpacks on the train. Just arrange with the front desk a day or two before you need to leave for your next hotel and it will be taken there and likely be waiting when you arrive. Keep enough clothes and personal items in the backpacks and send everything else ahead. Cost is reasonable and you may well never have to carry the big cases on the shinkansen. That is how most Japanese tourists travel.
This. We traveled in Japan using Shinkansen four years ago, and we don't pack light - we each had one large bag, and each had a shoulder/backpack. We shipped our luggage ahead from one hotel to the next, and just had a change of clothes/toothbrush with us for overnight. Bags always showed up, didn't have to struggle with them on the train or in the stations. Hotels are used to assisting guests with this.