One editor. No agenda.
No "top 10" lists allowed.

Who runs this

I'm Daichi. I'm an engineer who lives in Japan and runs this site on the side, late at night, after my main job. No team, no investors, no PR agency — just one person, a domain, and a stubborn habit of noticing things.

I've taken what most people would call repeat trips around Japan for years — spending weekends chasing micro-seasons in regional towns, queuing for ekiben on platforms most travelers never reach, comparing konbini coffee with the focus of a sommelier. I'm a repeat traveler myself, in my own country.

Why this site exists

It started because I kept noticing things.

Things like: the local fire station on my walk home does a brief bow before the truck pulls out, and I'd never seen anyone explain it on any travel blog. Things like: there's a font designed specifically for Japanese road signs to be readable at 100 km/h in the rain, and once you know that, you start noticing it on every drive. Things like: the konbini coffee at the Lawson by my office is — I'm sorry — somehow genuinely better than the Starbucks across the street.

I had a notes app full of these things. Hundreds of them. Most too small to be a "Top 10" article. Most not really about anything except how oddly specific Japan is once you stop being a first-time tourist.

This site is that notes app, organized.

Who it's for

It's for travelers who:

• Already came back from their first Japan trip.
• Already did the Shibuya / Kyoto / Mt Fuji loop.
• Want a second trip that isn't on every other website.
• Like the kind of fact you read once and accidentally bring up at dinner parties for years.

It's not for:

• First-timers — Tokyo Cheapo and Japan-Guide are amazing for that.
• Luxury concierge planning — different niche, different writers.
• People who don't actually like noticing weird small things.

How the site is built

Three layers, structured deliberately:

1. Daily TILs — one weird, true, oddly specific fact every weekday. About 250 words each. Read one in the time it takes a train to leave a Tokyo station.
2. The 24-Season Calendar — Japan traditionally divides the year into 24 micro-seasons, each two weeks long. The calendar maps them to specific things travelers can do: what's blooming, what festival is happening, what's only sold this fortnight.
3. The Curious Database — searchable, filterable indexes of things that should already be databases but somehow aren't. Konbini products. Regional KitKat flavors. A vending-machine hall of fame.

Editorial policy

The non-negotiables:

• Observed facts over hot takes. If I haven't seen, eaten, ridden, or measured it, I say so. Secondary sources are cited. Generalizations are flagged.
• Numbers are real. When I write "47 ways" or "24 seasons" or "1,255 km," that's an actual count, not rhetoric.
• AI use is transparent. I use AI tools (translation, draft cleanup, research synthesis). Every article is reviewed and fact-checked by me before publishing. When AI plays a meaningful role beyond editing — say, an AI-generated illustration — it is labelled.
• Corrections are public. If something on the site is wrong, email me. I'll fix it, add a correction note at the bottom of the article, and credit you if you'd like.
• No sponsored posts disguised as articles. Ever. See the Affiliate Disclosure for how monetization works.

Money, briefly

The site costs about ¥2,200 / month to run. Affiliate commissions (Klook, Booking.com, Sakura Mobile and a few others) plus a small amount of display advertising cover that. The goal is for it to break even and maybe pay for one research trip a year. That's it.

Full details on the Affiliate Disclosure page, and what data we collect on the Privacy Policy page.

How to follow

The easiest way is the Friday digest. One email a week, three minutes to read. Curated, not firehose. No "we redesigned our newsletter" updates, no paid sponsorship slots disguised as recommendations.

If you'd rather follow on a feed:

• TikTok: @japanapparently — daily videos.
• Instagram: @japanapparently — same videos, different feed.
• Pinterest: @japanapparently — boards organized by season.
• X: @japanapparently — TILs as text posts.

One last thing

I'm one person and I make mistakes. If something is wrong, please email me at hello@japanapparently.com. If something is missing, tell me what you'd want to see — I write what readers ask for.

Thanks for being here.

— Daichi