Saw this at the supermarket today. Clearly some gen AI bullshit because they couldn't be bothered spending 5 seconds on Irasutoya and pulling an image of yoghurt from there.

No paywall: https://archive.is/VMkE3

Just taking a look at the Summer Sonic lineup from 10 years ago for example you had Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Bullet for my Valentine, Black Eyed Peas, The Offspring, Weezer, Justice, Kasabian etc etc.

Music is up to taste and some of those artists aren’t exactly my cup of tea but they were at the time huge acts in the world, while e.g. this year there is an 90 year old Jamiroquai and The Strokes as basically the only western artists and last year it was just Fall Out Boy and Alicia Keys.

Does the weak yen etc just make it not attractive at all to come here?

Sorry for the long post, but I’m kind of curious about other people’s recent experiences on trains. Have any of you ever reported an incident to the train company, and if so, did anything actually happen?

This morning, while getting on the train to work, the carriage wasn’t too crowded. Most people were standing near the doors, so I tried to move toward the middle of the carriage where there was more space and so I wouldn’t be blocking the doorway.

As I was trying to get past one person, I could feel him deliberately pushing against me and making it difficult for me to get through. Even after I got past him, I could still feel him trying to push me back with his arm. I ended up standing next to him because that was where the available space was.

When he got off at the next stop, he forcefully pulled his bag down, and I felt either his bag or his arm hit me. I turned to him and told him not to cause trouble on the train. He got off without saying anything, although he did try to stare me down.

I’ve lived in Tokyo for 10 years, and recently it feels like I’m either experiencing or hearing about more incidents where people are deliberately trying to make others uncomfortable on trains for example pushing people, spreading themselves out, sticking their legs out, and so on.

I’m going to contact the train company online to report what happened this morning, in the hope that they might do something or at least keep an eye out for him. I think most people just want to get to work without having problems on the train, and if reporting it helps stop him or someone else from doing the same thing to other people, then it’s worth it.

So my little apartment’s windows get directly blasted by the sun whole afternoon until sunset. It’s insanely hot on my balcony.

To reduce the energy bill, I’ve boguht some cheap aluminum emergency blankets from Daiso and taped them to the windows from the outside. Just wanted to share that idea with anyone else living in a similar place. It cost 300¥ and took like 5 minutes, but I expect to see a notable reduction in my energy bill

my massage therapist is blind. i am close with him. i'm moving away soon, and i want to write him a card before i leave. is there any way i can do that in braille so he can read it?

mods, i live in japan

I've been living in my current apartment for almost a year, and I'm starting to wonder whether this is normal in Japan.

A few days after I moved in, I found that both the garbage disposer in the sink wasn't working. I reported it immediately, but it took 98 days before someone came to repair it. The repair technician told me the problem was caused by a buildup that had accumulated over a long period of time, so it clearly wasn't something that happened after I moved in.

Despite that, the landlord & management company still tried to blame me. They kept telling me things like, "Don't put hair in it" and "Don't put things down the disposer," even though I hadn't. I also overheard the repairman on the phone with the landlord, with her scolding him.

They then insisted a week later that I use my tenant insurance to cover the repair. They told me they will contact my insurance company and say that I had caused the damage, and that they would need my name, address, and hanko for the claim. Since the disposer was already broken when I moved in, I refused. It honestly felt like they were asking me to participate in insurance fraud. I called them out on it & they later confirmed in writing that they would not use my information for the claim and that they would not ask me to do this again.

The air conditioner has also been an issue since I moved in. It's over 20 years old. Shortly after moving in, I paid to have it professionally cleaned because it wasn't cooling very well. The technician told me it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in about five years. It was still somewhat functional at that point, so I kept using it.

Now, almost a year later, I paid for another professional cleaning and inspection because it had become much worse. The technician told me, "It's a miracle this thing is still working." He explained that the cooling performance had declined significantly, one of the motors was deteriorating, and replacing the unit made much more sense than spending more money trying to repair or clean it.

I asked the management company to replace it. They called me once, but I asked them to respond by email so there would be a written record. They gave me a deadline by which they said they would respond, but that deadline has now passed and I still haven't received anything in writing.

At this point, I'm honestly just trying to have a habitable place to live. The living room gets so hot that I sometimes start feeling sick.

I pay a fairly high rent for this apartment, so I'm wondering whether this kind of delay, lack of communication, and reluctance to repair or replace essential equipment is considered normal in Japan, or if my experience is unusually bad..

I'm Japanese, born and raised in Japan. Recently, the yen has weakened so much that the cost of living has gone up significantly.

I imagine that for some of the people who moved to Japan, salaries are higher or working conditions are better back in home countries.

Do you plan to stay in Japan long-term, or are you thinking about moving back to your home country someday?

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone here has gone through something similar :/

About 10 days ago, I placed an order on Amazon Japan. The very next day, when I tried to log in, I found that my account had been temporarily placed on hold.

Amazon asked me to verify the payment method used for the order. I uploaded the same through their verification page, making sure the required details were visible while hiding sensitive information.

Since then, it's been around 10 days, and my account is still on hold. I haven't received any updates, and I can't even log in to check my order status or contact support through my account.

I still have the order ID, order confirmation, and all the relevant details from when I placed the order.

Has anyone experienced this with Amazon Japan?

• How long did it take for your account to be restored?
• Did you have to contact customer support outside of your account?
• Is there anything else I should do besides waiting?

Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. TIA!

Source: Japan Tourism Agency (観光庁), Accommodation Survey (宿泊旅行統計調査), 2025 annual final values. The prefecture x nationality breakdown is sheet 参考第1表(年計) in the annual workbook:

Release page: https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/tokei_hakusyo/shukuhakutokei.html

Direct workbook (xlsx, 2.5MB): https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/content/002010340.xlsx

I see that many art galleries have postcards printed in bulk. The usual place that I get my printing from charges a small fortune for postcards. I feel like there's a cheaper option that I just cannot find via Google. Where do you suggest that someone can get 100 or 1,000 postcards printed either in Tokyo or online within Japan?

I’ve spent about half of the 15 years I’ve lived in Japan working physically demanding jobs. As I approach my 45th birthday, I’m really starting to feel the wear and tear.
Over the past week, I’ve developed what appears to be a worsening case of sciatica. I kept my supervisors informed as the pain gradually got worse, but there was little sympathy or accommodation. I was expected to keep up the same pace until last Friday, when the pain became unbearable and I had no choice but to leave work early.
I hoped resting over the weekend would improve things, but it didn’t. This morning I went to the doctor and explained that the injury had developed because of my work. They initially treated it as a work-related condition, but after the doctor advised me that I needed a week off to recover, my employer asked me to find out what workers’ compensation paperwork the doctor would provide.
That’s when everything fell apart.
The doctor refused to complete the paperwork and told me he would no longer treat me because he didn’t want to be involved in a workers’ compensation claim.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Between my employer’s attitude and a doctor refusing treatment over paperwork, I honestly feel completely let down by the system.
Has anyone else in Japan had a similar experience with workers’ compensation or doctors refusing to get involved? I’m trying to understand whether this is common or if I was just incredibly unlucky.

I’m a 22 year old canadian dude, looking for homies in tokyo and to make this summer feel like “summer” as this is much different then the summer i’m used too, a bit about myself, i enjoy snowboarding, cars, biking, fishing, gaming, any genre of music from rock and its sub genres to underground rap and edm, fashion, going out to club/bar/shows/dj sets. If you’re interested in any of those and think we’d get along reach out, i speak english and currently studying japanese. will be here for the next year and a half :)

As the title says, I am going on a trip overseas and I need to drive, so I need an international driver’s license. I don’t need to make a reservation in my prefecture, but I was wondering if anyone knows how long it takes. I can’t really miss a lot of work unfortunately :( thank you!

Hi everyone!

I started teaching Japanese online about a month ago. At the moment, I mainly teach

• Complete beginners
• Learners preparing for the JLPT N5 or N4
• People who want to improve their everyday conversation skills

A little bit about me…
I’m a native Japanese speaker from Kanagawa Prefecture.

Before becoming a Japanese teacher, I worked as a manager for an international restaurant company for about ten years in Japan, the United States, and Taiwan. Working in multicultural environments gave me plenty of experience training people from different backgrounds in English, Japanese, and Chinese.

Outside of work, I’ve also taught Japanese informally and volunteered to help friends who wanted to learn the language.

My current rate is $9 USD for per 50-minute lesson on Preply.
I offer two types of lessons:
• Personalized lessons based on your goals (travel, conversation, daily life, etc.)
• JLPT N5/N4 exam preparation

Since I’m just starting out as a Japanese teacher, I’m keeping my lesson price affordable while I gain more teaching experience. However, I’m serious about helping each student reach their goals.

If you’re interested in learning Japanese with me, feel free to leave a comment!

Thank you!!

why do most if not ALL japanese only respond with はい or one word answers when texting
I was on tandem and they just respond without asking questions back or they seem unenthusiastic
and this isn’t a one-off thing - I have friends who also share this sentiment. And I’ve seen the way they text/how long it takes them to respond.

Is it the language? Is it the culture? Are they not interested in talking? Is it a Tokyo thing?

The only time I enjoy talking to someone is with a foreigner who’s only been here less than 4 years, can anyone tell me what is going on

Good day fellow residents,

I just need some advice for Pension payments.

I (22M) am an international student at University (4th year), and I've been paying my NHI properly until last year since it was only about (1900¥ ish) and didn't have to pay pension cuz I was still a student, but this year since all that is calculated by your last year's income.

Last year I earned around 199万 and viola everything is through the roof, NHI is upto 16500~ish which I do painfully pay, and I was lucky enough to pay my residence tax in full with the tax return I got.

But pension, 17500~ish is not something I think I can pay, i filled the paper for exemption like last year but this year it got rejected.

Is there anything else I can do??

I earn around 160,000 to 170,000 per month (I work the night shift, around 27hrs a week as per regulations),

Rent 60,000

NHI 16,500

Mobile, internet and some subscriptions 12,000

Gas, water & electric around 10,000

Credit card payments 35,000~ (I have two card on revolve payment, yes I know I was stupid but I'm trying to pay it off without touching using those cards as much as possible)

Transportation 8000 (just for uni)

And I have the rest for myself (2万~)

But if I add pension to it, I'm done for...

Any advise?

Much appreciated thanks.

Edit: Damn I forgot that waiting on the exemption, I hadn't paid for month 4 thru now.... I'm gonna have to pay all that until now aren't I.... Godddd

I am leaving Japan and have PR and want to come back in a few years.

Do I keep paying into pension?

What if I want to keep paying into it from abroad?

How about resident tax?

Who do I inform that I am leaving?

I already went to the city office for health insurance.

What else do I need to do officially before I leave?

I've been a student in Japan since last year, and I keep receiving pension notices over and over again. I even went to the pension office and had it canceled, but after that, the notices started coming again.

How can I get this permanently resolved?

Curious to see if any folks moved from the Bay Area (and especially those of you who worked in tech) — it’s becoming a fairly common transition in my own circle but wanted to get your thoughts. For me it’s mostly been positive but some caveats.

Pros:
- walkable cities, excellent public transit
- electric city atmosphere
- everyone’s polite and courteous
- very affordable especially with the yen even in an upscale neighborhood (I live in Daikanyama)
- extremely picturesque.. sometimes I still pinch myself that I live here

Cons:
- took a massive pay cut to come here (-50-70%)
- might be my own bias but I feel like I’ve effectively stepped out of the cutting edge? My work was primarily building infra for inference and basically transitioned to a normal backend role here. Colleagues are nice, work is chill but definitely doesn’t feel like this is where the “action” is happening? I know this is what I signed up for but still digesting

Overall I made the decision to come here because I wanted to transition to my next phase in life focused on cultivating a life outside of work.. still WIP.

Have any of you felt this way?

I am just curious bc there is this teacher at my language school and I seem to take a liking to him but it feels wrong, bc he’s a teacher and he probably won’t see me that way even if he does see me that way, he probably wouldn’t do anything about it because it can get him in trouble and Japanese people are really strict when it comes to such things. He’s close to my age. Idk what interaction we had but he helped me once and went out of his way for something that most language school teachers would be cold about and he really deeply looks at me everytime I pass by which got my attention because no one has looked at me like this before

Hey everyone,
I’m currently looking into opening a Japanese bank account and considering PayPay Bank.
Before making the jump, I’d love to get some honest feedback from people who use it regularly. How convenient is it for everyday life in Japan compared to traditional banks (like Rakuten Bank or Sony Bank).

The amount of times I have seen Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses in my area is kind of surprising (Shikoku).

I left Japan for a few years but I don’t remember seeing anywhere near this number in the several other areas of the country I had lived in during the several years I was here before.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t talk to anyone who doesn’t come up to them while the Mormons are out doing their thing. I’m polite to them and turn them down kindly while telling them to stay safe since they’re so young and far from home, but I’ve seen them so many times over the past few months.

I’ve actually told Japanese people that are corned by them that they’re basically a cult from the US after they finish talking with them and that they ca jus ignore them if they get approached again. I feel bad for them though, because they never really understand what’s going on or why they were approached in the first place. Once I explain it’s a religion and that these young men don’t have a choice in coming to spread “the word,” they are quite surprised.