About Komichi Japan
Our mission
Komichi Japan exists to be the most trusted, practical, and genuinely free resource for people building a life in Japan — whether you're coming to work, study, run a business, travel, or simply stay.
Komichi (小道) means "a small path." Moving to a new country rarely happens in one leap. It's a series of small, concrete steps: understanding a visa, passing a language test, finding a job, renting an apartment, opening a bank account, filing taxes, settling in. Our job is to make each of those steps clear, honest, and doable — and to link them together so the whole path makes sense.
Who this is for
Komichi is built for foreigners moving to Japan from anywhere. Most of what you need to know — how healthcare works, how renting works, how the pension system works, how permanent residency works — is the same wherever you're from. That universal, practical knowledge is the core of everything we publish.
Some things, though, genuinely differ by where you're coming from: which visa route fits, how your income compares in your home currency, what the process looks like at your local embassy. So we build country-specific guidance on top of the universal core. We started with India — the community we know best and where the need is greatest — and we're expanding to more countries as we can cover each one properly. We would rather be genuinely useful for a few origins than shallow for all of them.
What we do differently
We keep it free. No paywalls on our guides, no "premium" tier for the information you actually need. (Here's how we sustain that.)
We show our sources. Immigration, tax, and salary information affects real decisions, so we check what we publish against official Japanese government and primary sources, cite them, and show when each page was last updated. When something is uncertain or still changing, we say so rather than guessing.
We prioritise real experience over rewritten government pages. Anyone can paraphrase an official website. Where we can, we show the actual thing — real (anonymised) payslips, real test-day accounts, real costs, real timelines — so you know what to actually expect, not just what the rules say.
We build tools, not just articles. Calculators, checkers, and planners that do the work for you — starting with our salary calculator — because a practical answer beats a wall of text.
The people behind Komichi
You'll notice our articles are published under the Komichi name rather than personal bylines. That's a deliberate choice for now, and we want to be upfront about it.
Komichi is written by someone who has called Japan home for more than seven years — first as a single new arrival, and later as a resident raising a family here. In that time, helping people find their footing became second nature: guiding relatives around the country, and helping friends and others move here to study, work, travel, and settle in comfortably. Komichi grew out of that — years of lived experience plus the research we never stopped doing — turned into something we hope helps you navigate not just the official processes, but the realities of actually living here. We think Japan is an extraordinary country that far too few people know how to reach. We'd like to change that.
We hold ourselves accountable in the ways that matter more than a name: every page is checked against primary sources, dated, and open to correction — if we get something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it and note the change. Our Editorial & Accuracy Policy explains exactly how we work. As Komichi grows, so will our transparency about who's behind it. For now, we'd rather let the work speak.
Talk to us
Questions, corrections, or a Japan story worth sharing? Email us at japankomichi@gmail.com or follow along on Instagram. We read everything.
Komichi Japan is an independent resource created by a long-term foreign resident of Japan. Our guides are general information, not legal, immigration, tax, or financial advice — always verify your specifics with official sources and, where it matters, a qualified professional.