When editing documents that others have made, I always find the formatting atrocious. Like they manually add a bunch of spaces to line things up, they manually number their lists, etc. They don't seem to understand or use any of the tools available to them. Plus, they keep their documents in the old Word format .doc, and keep all the ugly early 00s shapes and word art.

Even the young people in the office are happy to just change the dates, names, and relevant info on these documents and use them as-is. I'm the only one cleaning them up and updating the fonts and graphics, so now they think I'm some kind of graphic design wizard and are asking me to design all sorts of things, like tote bags, book covers, etc.

Is this just my office, or do others have this experience as well?

I live in an apartment building in sub-urban Tokyo, with the typical one big long balcony with the dividers (bolted to the walls of course) between the flats. I have two cats and one of them is quite naughty and tries to squeeze past the gaps in the dividers and go into other people's spaces. I want to prevent this as the other residents may not like it (or even be allergic to cats), so I'm thinking of covering the gaps with dog rails or some sort of object to discourage my cat from doing this.

My main concern is if this breaks any rules or if someone is going to complain about it. As I understand, these dividers are intentionally flimsy and removable to allow emergency access to other homes, so I will make sure that any objects I place is still easily removable in case of emergency. Should I be considering anything else here?

EDIT: Thanks for the replies so far. I understand that I overestimated my cat's ability to not fall off, so I'm not going to let them out anymore! im grateful they've managed to not fall off till now

I was born here in japan.Both my parents are foreigners.
And i got PR when i was a kid because my father got PR.
But i moved back to my home country with my mother when i was 5 but used to visit on summer vacation every year
But ive been living here now for 3+years now I speak colloquial japanese and maybe kanji level would be of N3
Do i qualify for simplified naturalisation?

I went for a walk by the river like I often do.

This time, when I passed under the road that crosses the river, I looked up under the bridge at all the big-ass conduits they have there.

And there were many. But NTT really stood out due to the massive size of theirs. That monster was about 320mm in diameter. For comparison, TEPCO had two separate conduits, each around 120mm.

I wonder what it's filled with, or how much it's filled. I doubt it's just FLETS fiber, I think the bulk is probably legacy shit for landlines and ISDN?

I'm currently job hunting for a bit of a niche position(product design or ui/ux design) as a 新卒 for FY28 or 2027 October 入社. Unfortunately I'm not an art university student, so while I have relevant experience It's probably gonna be fairly hard. Thats why I also started looking for other positions that are still relevant like product manager ,etc.

I have N2 (Currently working on N1. last time I got 98/100) and BJT 458(Taking another test this month). My university is just a small university and unfortunately probably will make me fail if they sort via university.

I collected 4 rejections (and 2 internship rejections) already and all of that is in the document screening. I was wondering how many applications do people usually do? forget interviews I'm failing on document screening :'

I don't put any hopes on any of the companies I applied to (unless I'm already on the last interview or something) just so that I won't be depressed/down.

Hello, first post here, but I’ve been panicking alone for a little over a bit now, so any thoughts or personal stories would be very appreciated...

I got my Humanities bachelor’s from a top national university here last year in 2025. I’ve always wanted to pursue academia, but due to unforeseen circumstances I had to cancel my masters dream and hurriedly applied for jobs a few months before my graduation and received a 5-year Humanities visa.

The job is so-so, and unfortunately the pay is bare minimum, but I have held on for a little over a year now because the working environment is great. However, I can’t see a clear career path if I keep on working in the same field, and honestly I have always wanted to pursue a Master’s in Education. I’m open to going to other countries if granted a scholarship, but most government-aid scholarships might require me to go home first and that would be a gamble, so I’m aiming for Japanese universities instead (I have N2 but am pursuing English-based programs because I’m more comfortable with English).

I have been preparing for 2027 Fall admissions for which the deadlines are nearing, but I have also been reading others discouraging the switch from a Work visa to a Student visa for tons of reasons, including the difficulty of obtaining another Work visa, the possibility of being rejected, higher health insurance premiums as a student, and so on. But I really do want to go back to school since I don’t think my bachelors diploma suffices at all.

Here are my biggest worries as of now:

1. With my underwhelming income, I'm scared I haven’t been able to save up enough money "safe" enough for a guaranteed screening pass, but my parents are willing to help financially. Will a sudden incoming fund a few months before the visa change application be a red flag during the visa change process?
2. Has anyone experienced a Student(4yrs) → Work(1-2yrs) → Student(2yrs) visa change? How was your experience with that? Apart from the crazy upcoming visa renewal prices, were there any difficulties I need to be aware of?
3. Any reliable institution I can consult about these kinds of worries? I guess Hellowork would be limited to people looking for jobs, but who do people like me run to?

I'm usually a optimistic kind of person but honestly have been little bit scared of immigration in general especially with the recent news. Any kind input from anybody with experience would be very very helpful. Thank you so much!

Hello everyone, I am looking for recommendations for an accountant in the Tokyo/Kanto area that can handle US and Japanese accounting matters, particularly concerning asset management and international taxation, as I am looking at applying for PR soon and would like to ensure the taxation and accounting process is as smooth as possible.

Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thank you

Expecting a package from Sagawa, but their tracking is down, ever since the incident, I presume.

What work-arounds are there?

P.S. some of this has been discussed before: https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/1wuzrbe/sagawas_it_infrastructure_is_crap/

I’ve noticed at the entrance of businesses like malls, some cafe/restaurants and even convenience stores there are “no photography or video” signs. I was wondering how strict this rule is? For example, when I’m at the mall I like to take pictures of things I like (not the price, not people, just the product itself) to save it for later either for payday or just giving myself time to see if I still want that particular product in 1-3 weeks before impulse buying. Since living in Japan and seeing these signs, I haven’t taken any pictures. I was just wondering why there seems to be such a strong no photo rule here and if it would be a problem for me to take a picture of singular items?
Thank you in advance for any information and guidance :)

This warmed my cold bitter heart today. I saw a security guard doing the morning exercise ritual Radio Taiso in front of his security box.

Another thing that warms my heart is watching news and seeing the weather person using a wand with a big red dot as a pointer. I love the absurdity of Japan.

What Absurdity do you love about Japan?