Songs that teach you Japanese.
Then the playbook to actually live there.
Music,on loop
Real music you'd actually play — hip-hop backbone, R&B in the soul, not nursery rhymes. From 2026 Japan gates language school behind tested A1 Japanese; these tracks get you there: thirteen bilingual volumes, one grammar hook each, zero to school-ready. Made for grown ears. Just visiting? They still teach you enough to feel it.
The ruleschanged
A plain-English log of what's changing in Japan's immigration rules, before and after. The newest one matters most: from 2026 you need real Japanese just to enrol in a language school. The goalposts keep moving — this is how you stay ahead of them.
Main Line
Thedoor
School is the most forgiving route in — a language-school enrolment buys a year or two of legal residence and a runway to switch visas from inside the country.
The first30 days
Landing is the easy part. The month after — where each errand needs the last one done first — is where people drown. Residence card, ward office, phone, bank, insurance: every step unlocks the next, and the order is unforgiving. We hand you the exact sequence, the exact counters to stand at, and the words to say when you get there. Done right, the first thirty days take days, not months of dead ends.
Card
Residence card issued at the airport on arrival.
Ward
Register your address within 14 days.
Phone
A real number unlocks the bank and everything after.
Bank
Open an account — card, address, phone.
What Japanese companies actually look for, which visa fits which job, and where foreigners really get hired. Tech and English teaching are the obvious doors — but trades, hospitality, care work and the specified-skilled-worker fields are hiring hard, and many sponsor the visa themselves. We map who's hiring, what they pay, and which status each role needs, plus the boards and agencies that actually reply. So you stop guessing and apply where the doors are already open — from outside Japan, before you ever board the plane.
Get hired
Rent likea local
Renting here runs on its own rulebook — guarantors, key money and fees that stack months deep. We decode the agencies that answer in English and the neighbourhoods that skip Tokyo-centre rent.
Everyroute in
Student, work, working holiday, spouse, digital nomad — almost every long-stay route follows the same five-step spine. We lay the routes side by side so you can see which one fits, what it costs, and how long it takes.
Decide
Pick the route that fits.
COE
Your COE, filed in Japan.
Stamp
Convert it to a visa abroad.
Land
Residence card at the airport.
Stay
Ward office, insurance, done.
Stay legalStay here
Getting in is one fight; staying is the quiet one — renewals before they lapse, card updates, address changes within fourteen days, re-entry permits, tax, pension, insurance. The unglamorous upkeep that protects your shot at permanent residence.
Sellit all
Every month people leave Japan and sell whole apartments for almost nothing. The board puts them in one place — post free, listings run 30 days, re-up in a click.
Your movestarts now
Four hundred years of arrivals. Yours is next. Pick a route, take the first step — JPIF is with you the whole way in.