Actually Japan What student life in Japan is really like, from the government's own figures https://actuallyjapan.com/ 2026-08-10T00:00:00Z ASUNARO CREATE Inc.https://actuallyjapan.com/ The Japanese student sitting next to you spends between ¥1,067,200 and ¥2,689,100 a year https://actuallyjapan.com/read/classmate 2026-08-10T00:00:00Z Japan surveys its own students every two years and leaves international students out by design. Over a million people applied for the JLPT in one sitting. The exam Japanese universities built for admissions is held in thirteen countries. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/exam 2026-08-07T00:00:00Z Over a million people applied for the JLPT in one December sitting, across 81 countries. A Japanese university has already published what happens in week 11 of a class you have not enrolled in https://actuallyjapan.com/read/week 2026-08-07T00:00:00Z Japanese universities are required to publish, in advance, what each course covers week by week and how the mark is divided. We opened a real one. Japan is famous for its science. 1.7% of the international students here are studying it. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/study 2026-08-05T00:00:00Z Every English-language guide to studying in Japan leads with robotics, AI and materials science. Osaka's average August night is 25.8°C. That is the number nobody quotes. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/summer 2026-08-05T00:00:00Z Kyoto and Osaka have the lowest relative humidity of any major Japanese city, and the most oppressive air. The figure that matters is taken at night. Every doctoral thesis in Japan is required to be online. Almost nobody applying has read one. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/thesis 2026-08-05T00:00:00Z Japanese law requires every doctoral thesis online — the abstract within three months, the full text within a year. Read what a lab really does. Half the students who arrived expecting the worst of Japanese people changed their minds https://actuallyjapan.com/read/impression 2026-08-03T00:00:00Z JASSO asks 7,867 international students how their impression of Japanese people changed after arriving. A language school student and a university student live on the same money. Almost none of it arrives the same way. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/money 2026-08-03T00:00:00Z Japan's own survey breaks international students' monthly income into what comes from home, from work and from scholarships. Two in five undergraduates went to a Japanese language school first. One in seven doctoral students did. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/route 2026-08-03T00:00:00Z Japan's own survey asked 7,867 international students how they got into the school they are in now. 85.2% are satisfied with their school. Everything they are not satisfied with happens outside the classroom. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/school 2026-08-03T00:00:00Z JASSO asks 7,867 international students what they like and dislike about the school they are at. Every academic item is overwhelmingly positive. Two in three international students fall ill in Japan. One in seven of them just waits it out. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/sick 2026-08-03T00:00:00Z JASSO asks 7,867 international students whether they have been ill or injured since enrolling, and what they did about it. 54.4% of you want to work here afterwards. What you ask for is not a job — it is a faster visa change. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/after 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z International students in Japan were asked what would help them most when job hunting. The top answer was not more career fairs or better information. The city you pick costs you twice what the school does https://actuallyjapan.com/read/expensive 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z 71.4% of international students in Japan say it is expensive. The city you pick moves your monthly cost about twice as much as the school does. Your Japanese friends will come from your part-time job, not your university https://actuallyjapan.com/read/friends 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z Japan's own survey asked 7,867 international students where they actually mix with Japanese students. Almost half of you will be asked for a guarantor. Most of you do not have one. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/guarantor 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z 70.1% of international students in Japan rent privately, and 48.7% were asked for a guarantor. Of those, only 19.3% used a guarantee scheme. More of you will work twenty hours a week than will study twenty — until you reach graduate school https://actuallyjapan.com/read/hours 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z JASSO asks international students in Japan two separate questions: how long they work, and how long they study outside class. 77.7% of you will choose your room by price. 2.7% will think about who you might meet there. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/room 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z What international students weigh when choosing where to live in Japan, what each kind of housing costs, and the consequence nobody mentions. Nepal has more than doubled, and vocational schools have overtaken universities — both in two years https://actuallyjapan.com/read/shift 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z Japan had 279,274 international students in May 2023 and 408,069 in May 2025. What changed is not only the size. 49.5% of you will struggle to find information. What you will find instead is one person's story. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/sources 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z Where students actually get their information about Japan: the top three sources are all people, and every official channel sits at the bottom. The law lets you work 28 hours a week. At a language school, most of you will use nearly all of them. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/work 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z 65.2% of international students in Japan work part-time. The difference between schools is not whether you work, but how many hours and at what. Half of you are worried about making friends. That is not the thing that goes wrong. https://actuallyjapan.com/read/worry 2026-07-31T00:00:00Z JASSO asks international students what they feared before coming to Japan, and separately what they actually struggled with after arriving.