Yes! It will come out on Steam and Switch (looking forward to this one specifically, until then I have to figure out how to switch stores maybe).
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Oh awesome! Thank you for the heads up!
If you need access to the JP switch store, it’s super easy. Just create a new Nintendo account who’s region is Japan and register it on your Switch, and you should be good to go.
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I (not pashima) have done this without any problem to get the NSO retro games (they are mostly , but not completely, the same as in other regions). Since NSO membership is tied to accounts, I’m not sure how I did this. I assume I downloaded the Japanese version with the Japanese account and then started playing with the one that has my non-Japanese NSO-membership.
What I didn’t try is adding a payment method. I think I’ve heard people buying digital gift cards online. Wouldn’t normal PayPal or credit card work as well?
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I think that’s unfortunately either really finicky or a situation of foreign credit cards just straight up not being accepted. It’s been a while since I last tried, but I generally just buy gift cards online and use those.
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I wish they’d take my credit card 
… Well I think it depends on the title. I’ve done the buy gift cards off PlayAsia thing, but it’s annoying bc they really upcharge
This actually got in my way for getting FLOWERS, bc I couldn’t decide if I should buy on Switch online (thus overpaying), buy the Switch cartridge secondhand (possibly still overpaying), or buy the OG PC versions secondhand, etc. Maybe I should look at that again, since it’s 2025 now, but I don’t think I’d get to them anytime soon anyway
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This is exactly the method. Any game on the system becomes available to all of the other profiles, so you only need a jp account to purchase and download it, and can play on your normal profile.
I don’t think this is a finicky thing, I think it just doesn’t work with foreign credit cards.
I’m lucky enough that I have an amazon.jp account that doesn’t give me hassle that I can do the other option of buying the digital game from amazon.jp and using that code on the Switch, but I really wouldn’t recommend that unless your Amazon works flawlessly.
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I’ve been buying all my ebooks on amazon.jp without any issues, so would that would mean I’m safe?
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Probably?
I think the worst that can happen is that they don’t accept your cc for the purchase, but I also put the warning there because I’ve heard of people’s accounts that work perfectly and then they randomly don’t. So I’d also be wary of doing it if you don’t have your book purchases ahem backed up. That piece also isn’t a problem for me, but I’d still be crabby about needing to figure out Kobo if I lost my Amazon account I also wouldn’t mind not supporting Amazon anymore, but it would still be a hassle.
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Well that will save me money in the future! Thx
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On the other hand, first party Nintendo games are €70 on the eshop here and €40 equivalent on the Japanese eshop, so the gift card reseller markup is actually pretty competitive with the nintendo markup unfortunately.
Oh, given I’ve just recently made my first Amazon JP purchase, this could be super useful.
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Did create a Japanese Switch account now (can confirm it was super easy), I think I’ll try buying eshop credit from Amazon and if that doesn’t work look from there where to go. Pity that I can’t use my Amazon gift balance for that, I got some from a questionnaire but can’t use it for anything digital.
This week I read 光が死んだ夏 1 | L26 and I absolutely loved it (might use it for my “Unexplored genre” bingo which would be Horror/Suspense with a flavor of tragic BL).
Before reading, I was a bit afraid I would not understand much due to it being exclusively written in Kansai-ben, but actually I found it not that difficult, if you know the basic phrases and word changes it’s pretty sufficient. Also Google Lens for the most part worked quite well despite being non-standard Japanese.
Looking forward to the Anime adaptation later in Summer, the Netflix teaser looked very promising.
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I tried buying eshop credit and it worked! (European CC, I have a fake jpn address in my account). Added it to my jpn switch account flawlessly. Very happy that it works since it seems that Playasia has quite hefty fees (I paid around ~6 eur which seems to be exactly the conversion amount, whereas Playasia lists 8.90 eur for 1000 yen).
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We finally booked our trip to Japan!! It will be in September and it’s my first time going there. Really looking forward to it and I hope I can apply my learned things there. I’d love to visit some smaller cities so I hope it’ll be handy.
Otherwise studying is the same trot as usual. I’m currently in Tobira Chapter 6, and leisurely doing Sou Matome N2.
I refined my manga reading setup a little to ease looking up words. Because I can’t use any technical enhancements (I don’t read on a PC, and I’m mostly reading DRMed books) I had to get but what Android has in stock.
So basically it’s like this:
- Open manga app (any works)
- Open Renshuu (or any dictionary app) in pop-up view
- minimize Renshuu window so it’s just a hovering app icon
- lookup whenever necessary
It basically just saves me having to switch the window by keeping an overlay app icon on the screen.
I use Renshuu’s Reading Buddy where you can quick-add terms to a list to study/SRS later.
Next week is my birthday and I think I’m gonna treat myself with a new BLCD… been eyeing the one for オールドファッションカップケーキ, I have a 15% off coupon but it’s still a bit expensive (about 30 Eur converted). Why do BLCDs have to be so expensive
BTW I’ve been wondering how much other people spend on Japanese study material (which I count books as well).
I tallied mine for the month, and yeah I do spend quite a lot, though I’d say it’s all stuff that I find it worth spending money on.
Monthly broken down expenses
Renshuu 5€ (have lifetime but I want to support the developer)
Natively 5€ donation
Nihongo no mori 5,60€
Amazon/Bookwalker 10-20€
Nintendo Switch Games 5-10€ (I rarely buy something, maybe 1-2 games in a year)
Drama CDs 20-40€ now this is the real cash sink, especially BLCDs are soo expensive
Textbooks 5-10€ (I try to buy used though, I just love textbooks)
JLPT 5,50€ (65€ once a year)
Community college class 25€ (4x a month, currently on hold though)
Coming around to about 80-120€ 
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Oooh, congrats! Hope you have a great time!
I’ve never actually tracked my spending habits, for better or worse. 
Books are probably my major expenditure at the moment, and even then I’m typically buying on Kindle, so I either didn’t need to deal with shipping costs and/or it’s on deep discount as well. When I do do the occasional proxy purchase, though, I end up spending a bit more in order to get more bang for my shipping buck.
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Nice! I hope September cools off a bit for you. Have you decided which cities yet?
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Since it’s our first trip we’ll probably go with the standard route Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara. I’m going with my husband and friends, we’ll probably split up in the end of the second week (when were around the Kyoto area) because my friend only got 2 weeks off, in the third week I’d like to travel back to Tokyo along some smaller cities and maybe go on a leisurely hike, and then spend the rest in Tokyo/daytrips around. If you have suggestions, let me know (here or in the Discord)!
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So I used to track my spending in different categories every single month because I had student loans I was paying off and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being frivolous with my money when I could be getting that load off my back. Looks like the last year I did that I spent $727 over the course of the year on Japanese specific things (books, tutoring, Viki sub, etc), so ~$60/month. The massive bulk of that was tutoring, though.
I probably spend more on lessons now as I try to get roughly 1 hour/week of conversation practice on iTalki, but I don’t track it anymore. I also meet with community tutors rather than a professional teacher at this point.
I spend a lot less on books than I used to because I’m on a low-buy given my collection is so big now I got a LOT of books at used book stores/sales or as big Bookwalker sales, though, so even my collection build up wasn’t as expensive as it probably looks. It also helps that I don’t read much manga which is more expensive per reading hour than books are ($10 manga = maybe 1-2 evenings of reading, $10 book = usually 1 week+ of reading).
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If you’re gonna spend a while there and are into hikes, check out Wakayama. I was able to go as a (really long) day trip with my friend who was living in Osaka at the time, so if you’re spending time in the area already it shouldn’t be hard to get to. I had one of the worst hangovers bc some friends from Australia happened to also be in Japan for that trip and got me so drunk the night before, and I still loved Wakayama, which I think is some really high praise.
This is also me. And my justification for it is that whatever I do now has to cost less than Japanese university classes did per month, and this is actually improving my Japanese 
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Seconding this, Wakayama is great! 
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Lessons & subs - about $270 USD per month. If you add in physical media (plus occasional games or going to movies like きみの色 | L20??), double that or more. (Not sure how detailed I really wanna get on that )
I do budget and track this every month, but I hadn’t really taken a close look at it in a while. Think I need to cut the physical media amount a bit, going forward
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