I traveled as a single, non-smoking student to visit one of my friends in the Osaka-fu area. With price being of the most importance to me, I settled on Sunrise Hotel. It is in a great location - the Chuo and Sennichimae lines, which are incredibly useful and also connect to every other major line, are within 2 minutes walking distance. Definitely not a really lively area, but that was fine with me since Nanba, Shinsaibashi, Kyobashi, and a ton of other places are easily accessible by subway.
The staff was friendly. I speak pretty decent Japanese so I never experienced whether or not they spoke English, however.
My room was small but clean. There was always a faint scent of tobacco from rooms that allow smoking, but as long as you're in Japan, you're always gonna smell that since smoking is permitted pretty much everywhere.
A maid came in every day around 11 am to clean to room too.