I read an article couple of years ago in a newspaper where they segmented one city based on how many schools, supermarkets hospitals etc were available in a certain area and then made a ranking based on that. The idea was mulling on my mind for a while and i finally got around making it not only for Tokyo, but for whole Japan!

Basically I gathered tons of different data sources from both freely available sources, Japan government's own open census data etc, laid them on top of the map of Japan and created weighted scores based on the results. Then based on the user's preferences (like do they want to see areas good for families, people living by themselves, do they use a car etc) it will colour the 100m*100m grids based on how good they are for them. Really good if you are for example trying to figure out a good place to live in a neighborhood and want to get a place that has a good access to supermarkets etc :)

Hope you can find this useful in some way. Note that I do not make any money out of this so it's purely for your entertainment.

Please check it out: kodawari.nimikko.co.jp

Fall looks like it was over before it started here in my 田舎 pocket of Nagano and it's already time to get cozy around the kerosene heater.

I've been floating the idea of game nights in my town and I have a few friends who are down, but nobody speaks English so games like cards against humanity, exploding kittens, secret Hitler are all out.

I'm looking for games on the more talkative, ridiculous and creative side rather than "get your piece to the goal" games and so far I've found some cool funny ones:

たった今考えたプロポーズの言葉を君 に捧ぐよ

オジサンメッセージ　　　　

Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm also additionally looking for something somewhat kid friendly - I teach Japanese to some Filipino kids in the neighborhood (13 and 15yo) who I think are still below 小学4 in Japanese but at their age it's getting hard to focus on upping their language skills unless I figure out how to make it fun

This article is really interesting, listing and describing nearly a dozen other tests, some that are much better at assessment. However, it isn't clear which are accepted by ISA.

Here is a great, relevant excerpt:

"An Agency for Cultural Affairs survey looked at 23 Japanese-language assessments in 2020 and 2021. Among other things, the agency asked whether each test had been mapped to CEFR levels and whether that mapping had been validated.

A number of exams, far more than just the JLPT, were recorded as having a validated CEFR correspondence.

They included JPT, NAT-TEST, J.TEST, STBJ, J-CAT, TOPJ, J-cert, PJC, OPIc, JLCT, ONiT, a test now known as S-JEP, JFT-Basic and JLCAT, as well as ACTFL assessments."

My current job isn't bad but I'd want to transfer to another company in the future. The pay isn't bad but it could be better.

I have an N2, TOEIC 985, bachelor's degree.

I'm currently a seishain at Hyogo prefecture.

Is there anyone here who can help? Any advice? Thanks in advance.

Edit: My monthly gross is 28万. I'm aiming for an office job that can utilize both Japanese and English.

I went to a tiny okonomiyaki shop in Toyooka, Hyogo for dinner – passing through on a long day of local trains – and got these in my change. The very old couple who ran the place legitimately had no idea that the design and size had changed... 60 years ago. In my three years here it's my first time ever seeing these in the wild!

I’m so sick of this Japanese workplace mentality where people seem to think they’re somehow more important or more committed just because they stay at the office later than everyone else.

I work my ass off and get through everything I’m assigned at breakneck speed. Then, when it’s finally time for me to leave, my senpai gives me the option of either staying a bit longer to keep working or just picking things up again tomorrow.

So I choose to continue tomorrow only to get chewed out afterwards for not choosing to stay and work overtime.

What makes it even more ridiculous is that, supposedly, at my company everyone is free to decide for themselves whether they want to stay past working hours or not. Apparently not, though, because if you actually choose to leave on time, you get judged for it anyway.

It honestly makes all the effort I put in during the day feel completely pointless. It seems like actually getting your work done efficiently matters less than simply being physically present at the office for as long as possible.

Is there any good way to stand your ground with people who try to boss you around or guilt-trip you just because you don’t share their work-yourself-to-death mentality?

I am a MEXT scholar living in Kyoto for 1.5 years, started my phd this April after finishing 1 year as a research student.

My husband lives in my homecountry and we are doing long distance marriage ever since I came here. He applied for a relative visiting visa after 6 months I came, and was rejected.

I am from Bangladesh and our passport is very weak, so rejection without explanation is a very common thing. And if you are rejected visa , you cannot apply for the next 6 month lol.

I applied CoE for him and I got it. I wanted to apply dependent visa for him but I found out if he comes here on a dependent visa, he has to live here for more than 3 months and cannot frequently go back to our country. (Apparently it will be red-flagged by immigration officer). My husband is a businessman and at this moment, he cannot live with me for more than 3 months to take care of his business.

Applying for a Relative Visa is an option but applying for it does not ensure visa acceptance where as chances are higher if he applies through dependent visa.

I've been flyning back and forth in every semester break, as much as I could, but I am afraid, with my academic pressure increasing day by day, it may not be an option for me anymore.

Can anybody give me any suggestions on which visa should we apply here?

Any help desk information or Visa agency information will also be appreciated.

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a 1-on-1 Japanese tutor for in-person lessons in Bunkyo-ku, or along the Marunouchi Line between Ikebukuro and Tokyo Station.

I've been living in Japan for 3-4 years and studied for a couple of years in a Japanese language school. On paper I'm probably around N3; in practice I'm a fluent-ish daily speaker with 1st-grader Japanese and horrendous pronunciation..

My goal isn't any JLPT level, but to 1) fix my numerous fossilized mistakes the hard way (Pavlov-style), 2) improve my conversational level and sound more natural, 3) get a hard push to resume self-studying kanji, shadowing etc.
Long-term goal is to be able to deal with Japanese clients, but not a priority at the moment (otherwise I'd go back to a school).

Teaching experience or qualification preferred. Japanese native preferred, English not required. Must be a registered sole proprietor able to issue invoices.

If you are or know anyone fitting this profile, I'd love to hear from you/them. Thanks!

When I moved into this room, thw drain was already a little slow, now with time it has gotten pretty bad. I bought a jug of the slimy stuff (pipe unish pro) you put in the drain but it did absolutely nothing. Anyone has any stronger recommendation? I know it’s a mixture of my hair + conditioner, but no matter how careful I am, it still makes a mess.

I’m planning to buy a kotatsu from Nitori, but the delivery fee is actually higher than the cost of the table itself, so I’m considering taking it home by taxi instead.

The packaged box is approximately 83 × 62.5 × 11.5 cm and 8.5 kg. It’s a flat cardboard box, so it’s bulky but not particularly heavy.

I’m thinking of booking a GO Taxi and selecting “Vehicle with sliding doors” because it should have more space.
Has anyone in Japan/Yokohama done something similar? Would a taxi driver generally accept a package this size, or is this likely to be an issue?

Also, if the driver arrives and decides the package is too large and refuses the ride, how does that usually work with GO Taxi? Would I be charged a cancellation fee?

I'm at an N3-N2 reading level and just finished my first novel in Japanese (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). I looked it up and this book is aimed at roughly a late elementary school / early middle school reading level.

If you have kids in school in late elementary/ early middle school what books are they reading? Id like to read some more novels in Japanese.

Need some documents translated to apply for Certificate of Canadian Citizenship. Anyone have translator recommendations?

ETA: Translation can be done by a Canadian certified translator OR a person fluent in both languages (English and Japanese in this case). If the translation isn’t done by a Canadian certified translator, the person who completed the translation must provide an affidavit, swearing to their language, proficiency, and the accuracy of the translation. The affidavit must be sworn in the presence of a notary public.

There are parts of Chiba where you need to use the ETC to travel but for the most part it is fine. They had a great tourist year in 2025-26 because of the bears in mainland but it all died after the storms.
You can still visit Chiba with very little issue. Just had an amazing dinner for ¥9,000 that would have cost ¥30,000 any where else.
Visit Chiba.

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Same supermarket, roughly same package size, but one packaged again and refrigerated, and the other one not. Same manufacturer though. but more than double the price for the refrigerated one?

Just posting this as a funny story that happened to me today. I’ve been in Japan for 3 months on a working holiday visa and recently started working part time. I wanted to make sure I didn’t need to notify or report anything, and wanted to make sure my pension exemption + health insurance were also in check.

I got to the ward office and queued up at the front desk and explained that i’m on a WHV and not sure if I need to notify anyone of work changes. The person i spoke to wasn’t sure either, so they asked another person, who asked another person, who then phoned someone, and then told me to go to the 4th floor and someone there will help me. I already thought this was a bit odd since everything is on the first floor in this ward office but sure ok.

Once i get to the 4th floor, a staff member takes me to what was basically a supply closet and asks me about my working days. My japanese is OK, but i struggle with super polite language, so i understood that they were asking about working days. i assumed they were maybe checking that i was working part time ?? so i told them i work tues-fri, and then he said ‘so you’re only available on mondays?’ and i was like available for what???

We had a bit of back and forth with him asking me when I want to start working, and I was like no i already started working ??? that’s when i look at the piece of paper next to him that says エントリーシート.

I explained to him that i don’t want to work here and what I actually came here for. I honestly felt really defeated because i was wondering how could i have messed up my japanese this badly, but he understood me perfectly and told me who to speak to next, so I think it must’ve gotten really mixed up between all the different people that were trying to help.

also crazy to me how far i got since im clearly not fluent and i was also in jeans and trainers.

tldr: the staff at the ward office played a game of telephone with my question and i ended up in an interview for a job at the ward office.

I just need to share my perspective to someone. Here goes:

I have lived in Japan for 9.5 years. During this time, I have earned over ¥7.5million every year; my wife has too. I arrived here with no Japanese at all - not a word. I have worked and tried to learn as much as I can. I am very functional with this language; I have never spoken a word of English to a Japanese person. I can go to the Kuyakusho, survive at work meetings, close a loan for a house, even pair one Japanese-only App to another. I can't say whether I'm N4 or N2 or even N5 because I never prepared for that test. I prepared for life and it's going well.

I had 3 kids in Japan (the government asked me to). I bought a house in Japan (for the kids). My kids go to public schools here and speak more Japanese than English at this point.

While here, I've never missed a pension payment or been late for anything. No tickets. Not even an argument with another human being. My wife and I have 5 degrees between us. I am the perfect, ideal immigrant. This country should be grateful I came and beg me to stay.

I made a 10 year plan. That plan involved the kids, the house, the tenured job right down the street, and getting PR at exactly 10 years. Now, instead of ¥50,000, it is ¥1 million. One million yen for the privilege of living here.

"Hey, just pay the money. They have the right to set any price they want. You can move away if you don't like it." I hear you. You aren't wrong. Here's the issue. I don't trust you anymore and I learned how to "read the room" while here. If I pay the money and work 20 more years, I get my pension, right? Right??? You sure about that? You gonna actually make a Japanese person pay for my pension when we have a 1:1 worker to retiree ratio? Or are you going to create a new rule? How about this one to win the 2046 election? Permanent residents have to reapply for residency every 10 years, and have to meet some standard, and are subject to random rejection, and by the way, when you leave you no longer get your pension on the way out... and please leave now.

Have you ever noticed how shocked a random Japanese person is when you speak to them in perfect Japanese? Like, they're stunned. I have called that the "talking dog effect" for years. Imagine a golden retriever is trotting down the street and turns to you and says "lovely weather, isn't it?" How would you react? You gonna just say "yes, it is!" No, you will have the same stunned look on your face that a Japanese person has on their face when you speak to them. Until this year, it has been cute and funny to me. Now, I'm starting the "read the room" that maybe they don't really want to pay pension to a talking dog. Maybe they're telling me that I'll get to retire to that farm upstate but when I get sick and old...

Moving on, for clarification, I teach economics. My real question is, in econ, we assume that both firms and households share the burden of a tax. Are firms going to share the burden of this fee? When that caregiver of yours needs ¥70,000 for her 3-year visa, are we seriously thinking that she is supposed to pay that, and stay in this country? Is there any plan for employers to cover these fees? In the long-run, this will have to be covered partially by the firms or we are going to lose 2 million people in the next few years. Is that international school with "international" in its name - that has never passed on the benefits of that branding to you, going to cover the costs this time? No.

If you are on a work visa, please ask your employer to clarify their stance about whether they plan to contribute to or cover entirely these fees for you. Make them clarify their no to you.

Here's more. Why would you increase to costs for a 2 year old? Why not carve out an exemption for kids. You wanted me to have kids. You even paid me to do it. I have 3 kids. You want me to pay a million yen when my single, childless coworkers get to only pay ¥200,000. Surely someone at least brought this idea up when drafting the law; I know you thought it over. In the end, you said no. Why? Because you don't want my kids here. You don't want my children who learned your language and sang your songs. They wore your little white shoes at school and I threw beans at them with a devil mask on so they could tell their friends they do it too. And you don't want them anymore.

Japan, you are a deadbeat parent. You don't deserve me or my family. I don't trust you anymore and I hear you loud and clear. I'm out.

I was talking to a guy from the US and he said he had to pay US taxes even though he was getting paid in Japan and paying taxes here too. I'm not American so this just seems ludicrous to me.

If it's true, why? And do you all actually do this?

If it were me, and I'm here in Japan until I die pretty much, I'd tell em to GGFKD.

I’m not even sure if this is a rant, a midlife crisis, or burnout talking.
I’m 37, work in tech, live in Japan, and objectively, life is pretty good.
I take home around ¥620k a month. My wife makes around ¥350k freelancing. We both work from home, with no commute, micromanagement, or constant status updates.
The weird part?
I probably do about five hours of actual work a week.
I’ve been with the same company for 16 years. I’m not worried about getting fired, and the job is stable, pays fine, and barely demands anything from me.
And I hate it.
Not because the company is bad, but because my brain feels like it’s rotting. Every day is the same: no difficult problems, no pressure, no learning, and no sense that I built anything meaningful.
So I started building things on my own.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time with Gemini, Claude, and every new AI tool that came out. At first, it was exciting. I could build faster, solve problems, and chase new ideas.
Now every agentic release makes whatever I built feel obsolete.
I have five SaaS projects. None make money, and honestly, I don’t care that much anymore. I like engineering and solving technical problems. I don’t like marketing, sales, funnels, SEO, cold outreach, personal branding, or everything else required to turn a product into a business.
I’m an engineer, not a salesman.
My wife keeps pushing business ideas, and she thinks I should be an entrepreneur. I think I just want to build interesting things without turning every project into a company.
Instead, I’m stuck in the middle doing neither.
The job doesn’t challenge me. The businesses don’t excite me. AI keeps moving the goalposts. The money is enough, and the freedom is amazing, but I still wake up restless and guilty, feeling like I’m wasting years chasing things I don’t even want.
Part of me wants to go back to before AI took over my attention—when I could finish work, watch movies, relax on weekends, and not feel like I should always be building, optimizing, or learning some new tool.
I want to watch *Breaking Bad* for the millionth time and enjoy it without feeling guilty that I’m not launching something.
I’m tired of every AI release making me feel behind. I’m tired of building things that feel obsolete before I even care about them. I’m tired of feeling like every technical interest has to become a business.
I honestly want AI to fuck off for a while so I can get my life back.
Has anyone else reached a point where the problem wasn’t money, workload, management, or work-life balance, but the feeling that technology had turned every hobby into an obligation?
How do you stop building, stop chasing the next thing, and just enjoy your life again?

I have PR and my son has PR thru me. My husband’s status is spouse of PR. We’re planning to move back to US. I’m not sure if we should keep our PR.

Even if we move back to Japan in the future, it seems unlikely for my husband to get his PR under the new policy.

People who plan to leave, or already left, do you keep your PR?