One question
Ask us one question. We will answer it properly.
Free, once, answered from the statistics and the rules rather than from opinion. No follow-up and no sales call.
When JASSO asked international students what was hardest about arranging their studies in Japan, 49.5% said gathering information — ahead of the visa, ahead of the entrance exams, ahead of finding the money. Asked where they got that information, the top three answers were a returned student, a relative, and a teacher back home. Only 3.7% asked JASSO itself.
That is not because students are lazy about research. It is because the official channels answer in Japanese, on their own schedule, in language written for administrators. So people ask the person they know, and that person describes one version of Japan — theirs.
This page is a small attempt at a third option.
Why only one question?
Because the moment we offer unlimited free consultation, we turn into an agency hunting for clients, and everything else on this site stops being believable.
One question, answered carefully, is something we can do for everyone who asks. If you need more than that, you need a paid professional — and we will say so plainly rather than stringing you along.
What we can and cannot answer
We can answer
- What the statistics say about your situation — your country, your type of school, the city you are considering.
- What a rule currently says, with the government document it comes from.
- Whether the budget you have worked out is realistic against what students there actually spend.
- Where to look for something we do not know. Often the useful answer is a link to the right page of the right ministry.
We cannot answer
- Which school you should go to. We do not rank schools, so we have no basis for putting one above another. If what you want is a shortlist matched to your subject and budget, say so and we will tell you what that would involve.
- Whether your visa will be approved. That is the Immigration Services Agency's judgment on your specific file, and anyone who promises you an answer is guessing.
- Whether you will pass an entrance exam.
- Anything that needs your documents in front of us. That is paid professional work, not a free reply to an email.
Who answers
Someone at ASUNARO CREATE holding a gyoseishoshi licence — a Japanese legal qualification whose holders work with applications to government offices, immigration among them. That is the reason we can tell you what a rule says and point you at the document it comes from, rather than repeating what somebody heard.
It is also the reason for the limits above. A licence to read the rules is not a licence to predict what an examiner will decide.
What this is not
This is general information. It is not the preparation or filing of an application. Under Japanese law, preparing and submitting applications on someone's behalf is reserved work, and it can only be done by a gyoseishoshi in their own practice or by a gyoseishoshi corporation.
ASUNARO CREATE Inc. is an ordinary company, not a gyoseishoshi corporation, and does not offer that service. So if your question turns out to need documents prepared or filed, we will say so and point you to Tosaka Gyoseishoshi Office — a separate practice run by our representative, on separate terms. We do not take a fee for that referral, and you are under no obligation to use it.
How long it takes
Usually a few days. This is a small company and there is no call centre behind this form, so if a lot of questions arrive at once, it will be slower. We would rather answer late than answer badly.
We reply once. If your question turns out to be one many people share, we may also write it up as an article — with nothing in it that identifies you.
If you would rather just read
Everything we would tell you is on this site already, in longer form and with the sources attached. The ten findings are here, and the calculators are here.