Most English-language writing about Japan is copied from other English-language writing about Japan. That is why the same wrong prices circulate for years: someone writes down a figure, everyone else repeats it, and nobody goes back to check whether the operator ever said it.
We work the other way round. Every factual claim on this site starts from a primary Japanese source — the company's own site, the city's own notice, the ministry's own page — read in Japanese, on the day we write. This page explains exactly how that works, including the parts most publishers would rather not put in writing.
The rules we work to
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Primary sources only | Operator, government or municipal pages. Not aggregator sites, not other travel blogs, not our own memory of how things used to be. |
| Japanese first | Where a business publishes in both languages, we read both and compare. The Japanese page is very often more current and more detailed. |
| Every number carries a date | Prices, hours and rules change. Each article states when we read the source, so you can judge how stale it is. |
| We say when we could not check | If a page was unreadable, or the operator simply never publishes something, we say so in the article rather than filling the gap with a plausible guess. |
| We say what we deliberately did not state | Most articles carry an explicit list of claims we chose not to make, and why. |
| Corrections are visible | When our research contradicts the consensus, we say what the consensus is and why it is wrong — rather than quietly publishing a different number. |
Yes, we use AI — and here is precisely how
We also run mechanical checks before anything publishes: that every claim we consider critical actually appears in the text, that embedded videos are still live, that internal links point at pages that exist. An article that fails any of them does not go out.
The reason we are comfortable saying this out loud is that the method is the point. Using AI to restate what other websites already say would produce exactly the sludge we are trying to replace. Using it to read fifty official Japanese pages carefully, and to hold a writer to what those pages actually say, produces something the English-language internet mostly does not have.
What that catches — real examples from this site
These are not hypothetical. Each one is a case where the widely-repeated English answer was wrong, and the operator's own page said something different.
| What guides say | What the source says |
|---|---|
| Himeji Castle costs ¥1,000 | ¥2,500 since March 1, 2026 — and the combination ticket with Koko-en went from ¥1,050 to ¥2,600. Under-18s became free. |
| Sushiro is a ¥120-a-plate chain | Four price bands set by branch type. The Dotonbori and Kyoto Gion branches are ¥170 — and the chain writes the price into the branch name in its own store finder. |
| A 7-Eleven ATM charges ¥110 | Seven Bank publishes no fee anywhere. The ¥110 traces to a 2017 notice covering VISA only, quoting ¥108, at the old tax rate. |
| Convenience stores have free Wi-Fi | The official FAQ states there is no Wi-Fi for general internet use — only a connection for the copy machine. |
| Nozomi's free seating is cars 1–3 | Cars 1 and 2. JR gives the figure as 165 seats, which only works for two cars. |
| You can bring your own pocket router under the 90-day rule | Japan's communications ministry answers this directly: routers require the technical conformity mark. The exemption covers phones, tablets and handheld consoles. |
| The Imperial Hotel is closing in 2030 | Its own investor filings say the Tower reopened, demolition is targeted at the end of FY2030, and the new building's completion date is undecided. The English page saying otherwise is from 2024 — and the Japanese version of it was deleted. |
Where we are honest about the limits
Some things simply are not published
When an operator does not state something, we say that rather than estimating. Aman Tokyo publishes no pet policy and no check-in time anywhere in either language. Conrad Tokyo publishes no opening year and no architect. The Imperial Hotel publishes no room rates outside its booking engine. Those absences are reported as absences. A number that appears in a guide but nowhere in the source is a number someone invented.
Some pages we could not open
Bot protection, JavaScript-only pricing and image-only PDFs all defeat straightforward reading. When that happens we say which page and why — for example, we could not verify any Michelin star for Conrad Tokyo's restaurants because the guide's site was unreadable, so we do not claim one, and instead report the awards the hotel itself lists. Not being able to check is not the same as knowing.
Sources disagree with themselves more often than you would think
A recurring finding: a company's English and Japanese pages contradict each other. Conrad Tokyo's English page prices afternoon tea 1,500 yen above the Japanese one by omitting the standard tier. Torikizoku's English FAQ still shows last year's prices for its all-you-can-eat package. Aman Tokyo's two versions differ on the last spa appointment by 30 minutes. When this happens we quote both and tell you which one we followed — usually the Japanese page, which in our experience is the one that gets updated.
What we do not do
We do not accept payment for coverage, and no business has any say in what appears here. Some pages carry affiliate links, which are disclosed on every page that has them and are covered in full in our affiliate disclosure — they never affect what we recommend or what we report. We do not republish press releases as articles. And we do not write about places we cannot document: if the official sources will not support an article, we do not publish one.
Tell us when we are wrong
Prices change, hours change, and sometimes we will simply have got something wrong. If you find an error — especially if you are standing in front of the thing we described — please tell us. Say which page and what you saw, and we will check it against the source and correct it. Every guide on this site is listed on our all guides page, and you can read more about who we are on the about page.