For long stays & real experiences — travel help from inside Japan
You came to conquer Japan. We cut the way in.
Whoever you are, wherever you fly in from, you are the samurai of this story — and the longer you stay, the more Japan opens up. This shop is built for long stays of two to three weeks, and for experiences, not souvenirs: the counter you eat at, the match you watch, the workshop you try with your own hands. Solo or with your whole crew, first trip or fifth: phone-only restaurants in Japanese, tickets that sell by lottery — we are the small team inside Japan who clears each obstacle with one clean cut, before it eats your best days.
✓ Checked in Japan, dated & updated✓ Everything by email — no calls, no time zones✓ One-off prices — no subscription✓ Booking service: full refund if we can't secure it
Available in English (canonical) · Deutsch · Français · Español — switch at the top of the page.
旅サムライ
The Tabi Samurai are you — ordinary travellers of every background, in borrowed samurai armour, charging in together. No movie heroes: five regular people — an everyday Black woman traveller at the sharpest instant of her swing, blade singing: shing!, with a white man with glasses, a South Asian man, a Latina woman and a freckled white woman right beside her. One clean diagonal cut through the booking chaos. Original photo-style image, made for this site.
42.68M
visitors to Japan in 2025 — an all-time record (+15.8%)
of in-country spend is what a $35–$180 purchase represents for a US/EU visitor — price is not the barrier; trust is
Research framing from JTA per-visitor spend (US ¥339,708 / UK ¥391,320 / Germany ¥392,251) ESTIMATE
Every kind of traveller charges in
Japan's visitors don't look one way — and neither do the people this shop is built for. Women travelling solo, couples, friend groups; Black, white, brown; Chicago, Stockholm, Sydney. The booking wall in Japan is the same for everyone, so the help is built for everyone.
Solo travellers — women included
Travelling alone, you can't split the research or hand the phone call to someone else. Everything here works by email, in writing, at your pace — no video calls, no group to keep up with, no performing for anyone.
Couples, friends & whole crews
On most trips, one person quietly becomes the unpaid tour manager. The kit is built to be shared instead: one basket, one total, and dated packs the whole group can read before you fly.
Every background, first trip or fifth
Our launch markets run from the US and the UK to Germany, France, the Nordics, Benelux, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Spanish-speaking Latin America. The obstacles are identical in every language — a Japanese-only phone line doesn't care where you started.
One shop — main guidance in English, German, French and Spanish
English is the canonical edition: the detailed service descriptions are written and checked in English, and the English text governs. The main guidance on this page — headings, service names and target-market information — can also be read in German, French and Spanish; the detailed service descriptions below remain in English. The Spanish edition serves Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America, Mexico included. Readers in the Nordics and Benelux are served by the English edition, where English proficiency is high and our research is already in English.
EN · Canonical edition
English
The canonical edition. Every date, price and booking route is verified in English first, and the detailed service descriptions for all 7 services and the ticket calendar are written in English. The main guidance is also shown in German, French and Spanish, but this English text is the one that governs.
CoversUnited States · United Kingdom · Australia · Canada (EN) · Singapore · Nordics — Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland · Benelux — Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg · Iberia — Spain, Portugal · Italy
DE · Hauptinformationen auf Deutsch
Deutsch
Die wichtigsten Informationen dieser Seite — Überschriften, Leistungsnamen und Hinweise zu den Zielmärkten — können Sie auf Deutsch lesen. Die ausführlichen Leistungsbeschreibungen sind auf Englisch verfasst; die englische Fassung ist maßgeblich.
FürDeutschland · Österreich · Schweiz (deutschsprachig)
FR · Informations principales en français
Français
Les informations principales de cette page — titres, noms des services et informations sur les marchés — peuvent être lues en français. Les descriptions détaillées des services sont rédigées en anglais ; l'édition anglaise fait foi.
La información principal de esta página — títulos, nombres de los servicios e información sobre los mercados — puede leerse en español. Las descripciones detalladas de los servicios están redactadas en inglés; la edición inglesa es la que vale.
ParaEspaña · México · Argentina · Chile · Colombia · Perú · resto de Hispanoamérica
Who we serve first — target markets
Launch order follows arrivals × spend per trip × how hard booking Japan is from that country. Higher tiers get localised prices, time zones and examples first.
Tier 1 · Launch market
United States
3.31M visitors in 2025, ≈¥339,708 per trip. English edition, USD pricing, release times in US time zones. The first market for every wave.
Tier 2 · Priority markets
United Kingdom · Germany · France
Highest spend per trip in the West — UK ≈¥391,320, Germany ≈¥392,251, France ≈¥360k — and the longest stays: German and French travellers often stay around 18 nights, which means far more experiences to book — more restaurants, more events, more regions. For Germany and France the main guidance on this page is available in German and French, with the detailed service descriptions in the English canonical edition; the UK uses English.
Tier 3 · English edition · ES guidance for Spain & Latin America
Australia · Canada · Nordics · Benelux · Singapore · Portugal · Italy · Spain & Latin America
Australia, Canada and Singapore are English-first markets. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands / Belgium / Luxembourg are covered by the English edition — no separate translation is planned, by design. Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America (Mexico and beyond) read the main guidance in Spanish, with the details in the English canonical edition. Portugal and Italy are served via the English edition for now.
Not in scope: mainland China is excluded from the current plan — payments, platform access and publishing would need a separate local setup, so it is not promised here. All other countries can still buy the English edition; the tiers only set localisation priority.
Everything, in the order travellers need it
Seven services in three waves plus a business line — one shop, one checkout, one team in Japan. Built around long stays and experiences — eating, watching, doing — with human help only where a human actually changes the outcome. Prices are one-off, in USD.
Language note: headings and service names on this page switch to German, French or Spanish with the language buttons at the top. The detailed service descriptions below are shown from the English master, which is canonical — the same 7 services, prices and delivery terms apply in every language.
Wave 1 · Book it
Restaurant Reservation Bridge
The pain: Tabelog lists ~900,000 restaurants, but only ~98,000 (≈11%) take online reservations. The rest are phone-only, in Japanese — and restaurants are where 38% of visitors who hit a language wall hit it.
Guide ($45): the real booking route for ~120 traveller-wanted restaurants in Tokyo / Kyoto / Osaka — platform, release day, phone-number workaround, cancellation warnings, copy-paste Japanese scripts
Booking Service — Standard ($120): send us up to 3 restaurants — salons included; we phone them in Japanese and book in your name. We call within 2 business days of your order. All contact with you is by email — no calls
Booking Service — Premium ($180): for long stays, multi-city trips and complex dietary needs — more places, more rounds of alternatives, one point of contact for the whole trip
Our guarantee: If we can't book it, you pay nothing — full refund for any restaurant we fail to secure.
Why this price: travellers already pay Tabelog ¥440/person, byFood ~$14/guest and TABLEALL ¥8,000/seat just to book; human phone-booking services charge ¥1,000–8,000. Sources: japanprep.com, table-ex.comINDEX
$45guide · booking service $120 / $180
Wave 1 · Book it
Hard-Ticket Calendar 2027
The pain: Ghibli Museum sells a whole month at 10:00 JST on the 10th via Lawson — named tickets, no door sales. Nintendo Museum runs a lottery ~3 months ahead. Miss the window and the trip's centrepiece is gone.
One release matrix: Ghibli, Nintendo Museum, teamLab, USJ Express, sumo, baseball, concerts — times converted to US / UK-EU / AU time zones
Pre-registration checklists (Lawson phone verification before the 10th, Nintendo Account, 3D Secure card check) + the sold-out playbook
Updated monthly for 12 months — dates are the product
Honest limit: we do not buy tickets for you. Popular tickets are named and ID-checked, so proxy buying doesn't work — anyone offering it is a risk. The sanctioned Ghibli fallback tour costs $179.19 for a ¥1,000 ticket: that's the price of missing the window. Source: tokyomuseums.orgINDEX
$35one-off · 12 months of monthly updates included
Wave 2 · Plan it
Itinerary Review & Light Custom
The pain: the #1 pre-trip anxiety in travel forums is "is my itinerary too rushed?" — and crowds are the #3 on-trip complaint in the official survey (12.9%). Free AI repeats stale facts (it still quotes pre-2023 JR Pass prices).
Review ($129): send your draft; within 72 hours you get pacing fixes, crowd-timing (what to see at opening, what to move to a weekday), hotel-area verdict, and a pass audit — a 7-day JR Pass is ¥50,000, while Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka singles total ≈¥29,470
Light Custom ($299): we build your 7–10 days from a structured form. Async only — no video calls
Every claim checked against Japanese sources, stamped "checked in Japan, [month year]"
Market anchor: Japan by Joe (Japan-based) charges $99 review / $299 custom / $599 full VERIFIED LIVE — japanbyjoe.com; Invisible Tourist's itinerary check is $119 — theinvisibletourist.com
$129review · light custom $299
Wave 2 · Plan it
Tax-Free, Post-2026 Rules Pack
The pain: on 1 November 2026 the system flipped — you now pay tax-inclusive at the till (≥¥5,000 per store per day, physical passport) and claim the refund at airport customs within 90 days. Every pre-November guide is now wrong.
The refund-killers, at receipt level: using or eating even one item on a receipt can void the refund on the whole receipt; posting purchases home separately no longer works
Airport sequence card: customs check before you check your bags
Dated edition — reissued when the rules move again
Stakes: 10% of a shopping-heavy trip is real money — ¥30,000 on ¥300,000 of purchases. Sources: japanprep.com, clevertourists.comINDEX
$19small add-on · dated Nov 2026 edition · part of the Japan Kit
Wave 3 · Go deeper
Beyond the Golden Route — Regional Map Pack
The pain: repeat visitors go regional — then meet buses that run 1–5 times a day, cash-only, with Japanese-only timetables. Rural buses are the top rural transit complaint (42%) in the official survey.
Interactive map pack (Rexby format): 300+ personally checked spots at launch, growing past 600, with translated timetables, last-bus times and IC/cash flags
Car-free route plans per region — the layer Google Maps doesn't give you
Lifetime updates; free preview before you pay
Format proof: Empty Japan's "Secret Side of Japan" — 837 spots, $69.30 list, page shows "6k Users" VERIFIED LIVE — rexby.com/empty.japan. Our region is chosen from what Wave 1–2 customers actually ask about.
$49intro · rises to $69 at 600+ spots
The 700 series. The duck-billed Shinkansen travellers ask for by name — white body, twin blue stripes, a nose like no other train. Photographed on the Tōkaidō line in front of Mt Fuji in its farewell season — the same bullet-train network the Regional Map Pack builds its car-free routes from.
Wave 3 · Go deeper
Craft Experiences: Knife Workshops & Makers
The pain: the best part of Kappabashi, Sakai or Dōguyasuji isn't the purchase — it's the workshop behind the shop. But travellers walk straight past the makers, never get their hands on a whetstone, and leave with a souvenir instead of a memory.
Workshop-first routes: knife makers in Sakai and Tokyo where you can watch the forge, try sharpening on a whetstone yourself, and talk steel with the craftsperson — checked in person, with photos
Buying, as the supporting act: which shops, which steel, what a fair price looks like (¥8,000–30,000) if you do bring a blade home
The rules that bite: blade-length carry law, checked-luggage packing, second-hand camera & instrument checks (condition grades, tax-free interaction)
Source: knife-buying guidance and price bands — jpnknife.comINDEX. High-intent buying guides are a proven small-pack category; generic sightseeing PDFs are not (1,000+ Etsy listings at $2–25).
$29one-off · per-topic editions
For business
Japan Sourcing Research
For shops and importers outside Japan who found a product on a trip — or in a feed — and want to sell it at home. A different customer from travellers, run through the same Japan desk.
Discovery ($99): is this product / maker findable, exportable, and who actually makes it?
Full report ($399): supplier shortlist, Japanese-side verification, terms and contact route — research and introductions in writing, in English
You visited as a fan; this is how the trip turns into stock
Positioning: B2B research is the highest-ticket line in the wider overseas-business survey behind this site; travellers' services stay consumer-priced. Sold by inquiry — no instant checkout.
One roof means one basket. The Japan Kit — Hard-Ticket Calendar ($35) + Restaurant Guide ($45) + Tax-Free Pack ($19) — is $99 bought separately, $79 as the 3-pack (Save $20, applied automatically below). Tap "Add" on any service above and see the one-off total. Nothing is charged on this draft page.
Your kit
All one-off. No subscription, no account, delivered by email.
Japan Kit: Calendar $35 + Restaurant Guide $45 + Tax-Free Pack $19 = $99$79 — Save $20 when all three are in your kit, applied automatically.
Nothing added yet — try the Hard-Ticket Calendar ($35) as the usual first piece.
Total$0
Checkout at launch runs through merchant-of-record platforms (Gumroad / Etsy / Rexby) so EU VAT is handled by the platform — see FAQ. This builder is a draft-page demo; selections are kept only in this tab.
Why this sells: frequency ≠ money
The official Japan Tourism Agency FY2025 survey (4,110 departing visitors) says 43.7% had no problems at all. The #1 complaint — no trash cans (17.2%) — is real and commercially worthless; nobody pays to solve it. We built the shop only where travellers already pay strangers to fix the problem.
What we deliberately don't sell: generic Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka guides, etiquette lists, IC-card basics, a paid travel newsletter
Generic PDFs sit at $2–25 across 1,000+ Etsy listings; no traveller-facing paid Japan newsletter at meaningful scale was found in research
Given away free as trust content instead
Scoring is the researchers' inference — no source surveys willingness-to-pay for information products directly; it is inferred from adjacent paid services (booking fees, tours, consulting). JTA percentages aggregate all nationalities (skewed to East Asia + US) and are not English-speaker-only figures. Survey reporting: MapFan Business · LIVE JAPANINDEX
STEP 1 · BEFORE
Ticket calendar
You learn the lottery dates months ahead — the trip's centrepiece is secured first.
STEP 2 · PLANNING
Itinerary review
Your route is rebuilt around those fixed dates, at a human pace, crowds dodged.
STEP 3 · BOOKING
Restaurant bridge
The phone-only places get booked in your name, in Japanese, by our team.
No video calls, no apps to install, no performing for a camera. Built for travellers in US/EU time zones and a small team in Japan.
1
You send, we check
Order a pack instantly, or send your itinerary / restaurant list through a structured form. AI tools draft and translate; a person in Japan verifies every date, price and booking route against the Japanese source.
2
Humans do the human parts
Restaurant bookings are phoned in Japanese by our Japan-side caller and made in your name. Judgement calls — pacing, neighbourhoods, "skip this" — are a resident's, not a model's.
3
Dated, stamped, updated
Everything arrives by email within the stated window (reviews: 72 hours), stamped with its check date. The ticket calendar updates monthly for 12 months.
Results & traveller reviews
This is where the proof will live. Every entry published here will come from a completed, verified booking or purchase — shown with its date and service, as it happened.
Booking results
Secured — and not secured
Restaurant bookings completed through the Booking Service, including the ones we could not secure and refunded under the guarantee.
Traveller reviews
From verified customers
Reviews from travellers who bought a pack or a booking — with their country, trip length and the service they used, as written.
Guarantee record
Refunds, published
How many booking requests we took, how many we secured, and how much we refunded when we couldn't — updated as bookings complete.
Straight answers
Can you just buy the Ghibli / concert tickets for me?
No — and be wary of anyone who offers. Major Japanese tickets are increasingly named and ID-checked at entry, and unauthorised resale is restricted. What we sell is the thing that actually works: the exact release calendar, the pre-registration steps, and the legitimate fallback routes when something sells out.
How is the itinerary review different from asking ChatGPT?
ChatGPT's Japan facts go stale — a documented test found it quoting pre-2023 JR Pass prices (the pass has cost ¥50,000 for 7 days since October 2023). Our reviews are checked against current Japanese sources by a resident, and stamped with the check date. 91% of travellers are open to AI planning, but only 6% fully trust it — verification is the product.
You don't need to think about it: we sell through merchant-of-record platforms (Gumroad, Etsy, Rexby, KDP) that collect and remit EU VAT for digital goods. A Japan-based seller charging you directly on their own checkout would owe EU filings — which is exactly why this shop doesn't launch that way.
Booking Service: If we can't book it, you pay nothing — full refund for any restaurant we fail to secure. We call within 2 business days of your order; if one restaurant of a Standard booking can't be secured, its $40 share is refunded. Packs: if it doesn't fit your trip, ask within 7 days. Other services: full refund any time before work starts. Platforms set the floor here — Gumroad can refund within 90 days to pre-empt chargebacks, and Etsy buyers can open a case for non-delivery or not-as-described — so our listings show free previews and exact contents rather than promises.
No. Research found no traveller-facing paid Japan newsletter that works at scale — people take one trip, not a monthly one. Updates are bundled into the product that needs them (12 months for the ticket calendar; lifetime for the map pack) instead of sold as a subscription.
Which language should I use — and what if I’m in Sweden or the Netherlands?
Use the language that matches how you read best for the main guidance. English is the canonical edition and covers the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore — and, by design, the Nordics (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland), Benelux (Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg), Portugal and Italy, where we do not publish separate translations for now. The main guidance — headings, service names and target-market information — can also be read in German, French and Spanish; the Spanish edition serves Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America, Mexico included. The detailed service descriptions, and the product details and terms they state, are in English, and the English text governs. Support is by email; product details follow the English canonical text. Switch any time with the EN / DE / FR / ES buttons at the top — your Japan Kit is kept.
Deutsch: Die wichtigsten Informationen — Überschriften, Leistungsnamen und Zielmarkt-Hinweise — können Sie auf Deutsch lesen. Die ausführlichen Leistungsbeschreibungen sind auf Englisch; die englische Fassung ist maßgeblich.
Français : Les informations principales — titres, noms des services et informations sur les marchés — peuvent être lues en français. Les descriptions détaillées sont en anglais ; l’édition anglaise fait foi.
Español: La información principal — títulos, nombres de los servicios e información sobre los mercados — puede leerse en español. Las descripciones detalladas están en inglés; la edición inglesa es la que vale.
Who are you?
A small Japan-based team: research, writing and translation are AI-assisted (disclosed on every Etsy/KDP listing, as those platforms require); verification, photography, restaurant phone calls and final approval are done by people living in Japan. This page is a pre-launch draft — the shop opens in waves, Wave 1 first.
価格はすべて調査レポートの実在価格帯の中に置きました（レビュー$129はJapan by Joeの$99/$299が裏付け、チケット$35・予約ガイド$45／代行$120はペイン調査の範囲内）。最終決定はお二人で。
ブランド名は「旅サムライ（Tabi Samurai）」に決定（2026-11-13、オーナー指示）。ヒーロー画像は同日の追加指示で差し替え：日本人の将軍ではなく、『ラストサムライ』的な世界観で、甲冑を着た外国人（西洋人）の侍が日本へ乗り込む構図にしました。刀は斜めに大きく振り抜く斬撃の瞬間で、金色の軌跡と桜・軍旗の流れで疾走感を出し、ページ側でも刀の閃光が斜めに走るアニメーションと緩やかなズームで「シャキーン」という音が聞こえるような動きを付けています（動きを抑える設定では停止）。主人公＝外国人のお客さん自身、という打ち出しに合わせ、見出しも「You came to conquer Japan. We cut the way in.」に変更。右上に「旅サムライ」の縦書きロゴは維持。
多様性と「普通の人」感（2026-11-13、オーナー追加指示）：海外市場では表現の多様性への目が日本より厳しいため、ヒーローを白人男性1人から「多様な外国人侍の集団」に差し替えました。先頭は黒人女性の旅人（刀を振り抜く金の軌跡は維持）、黒人男性・白人女性・南アジアの女性・眼鏡の白人男性が続きます。さらに統計セクション直後に「Every kind of traveller charges in」セクションを新設し、京都の商店街で笑う多様な旅人たちの絵と、ソロ女性／カップル・グループ／あらゆる出自の旅人、という3つの対象像カードを置きました（見出し・本文は独仏訳キーにも追加）。人物像は追加指示どおりモデル級の作り込んだ格好良さではなく、その国にいそうな「普通の人」——素朴な顔立ち・普段着・少し不格好な鎧——の等身大の雰囲気に統一し、ヒーローも街の絵もその方向で作り直しました。旧ヒーロー画像（hero-foreigner-samurai.webp）は参照を外し削除済み。
グローバル／多言語構成：英語を正本とし、ページ上部の EN / DE / FR / ES ボタンで主要な案内（見出し・ヒーロー・サービス名・対象国説明）がドイツ語・フランス語・スペイン語に切り替わる構成です。詳細なサービス本文は英語が正本であり、独仏西は「全文版」ではなく主要案内のみの切り替えである旨を、Languagesセクション・サービス欄の注記・FAQに明記し、サポート言語の表現もこれに統一しました。対象国は決定どおり——第1対象：アメリカ／第2対象：イギリス・ドイツ・フランス／第3対象：オーストラリア・カナダ・北欧・ベネルクス・シンガポール・イベリア（スペイン・ポルトガル）・イタリア・スペイン語圏中南米。中国本土は対象外と明記。北欧・ベネルクスは別訳を作らず英語版でカバーする旨も明記しています。独仏西とも同一商品・同一価格です。
月商300万円仕様への書き換え（2026-11-15、オーナー承認の確定事項）：確定価格を全言語で統一——チケット暦$35／レストランガイド$45／免税パック$19（入口の添え物として画像を小さくし前面に出さない）／予約代行はStandard $120（3店・サロンを含む）とPremium $180（長期滞在・複数都市・食事制限が複雑な場合）の2段価格。Japan Kitは3点セット固定$79（単品合計$99、Save $20）で提示し、キットビルダーも3点が揃うと自動で$20引き＝$79になる計算に変更（Standard／Premiumは相互排他）。訴求の軸は「長期滞在 × 体験（コト）」に寄せ、ヒーローと商品説明の前面に long stays と experiences（食べる・観る・体験する）を置き、買い物（モノ）は前面に出さない——第3波の買い物ガイドは「工房を訪ねる・研ぎを体験する」体験型に組み替えた。独仏など長期滞在層（18泊前後）に響く文言をヒーロー・第2対象の説明・各言語の要点表示にも反映。予約代行には返金保証「If we can't book it, you pay nothing — full refund for any restaurant we fail to secure.」と「We call within 2 business days」をカードとFAQに明記。実績・レビュー欄はFAQ手前に表示位置の設計（予約結果／ verified レビュー／返金実績の3枠）のみ用意し、架空のレビューや実績は置いていない。連絡先は仮のまま、購入リンクは未接続のまま、ドラフト表記も維持。
