What a week!

Tanabata decorations, downtown Sendai

This week has broken all our previous records for unexpected twists and turns.

As many people reading this may be aware, we completed the incorporation of our business this month! Incredibly, the Sendai Legal Affairs Bureau completed processing our paperwork in just a few short days, and with the help of the Sendai Entrepreneurship Support Group ASSISTA, the transition from “Entrepreneur” to “Business Owner” felt both easy and lightning-quick! We’re very lucky to have them in our professional lives.

We still have a few loose items to clean up before we apply for our visa change to “Business Manager” status, but the biggest hurdle is getting our corporate bank account setup. The application is being processed, so hopefully soon we’ll be completely ready to concentrate on our first full year of business!

Some of you would-be entrepreneurs may have heard about the changing requirements for the Business Manager Visa this year. We are, naturally, watching the situation very closely! Not sure if it warrants a full informational video on the topic yet, but if there’s interest I would certainly consider it.

For those not up-to-date, the rules for who can apply for a Business Manager Visa in Japan are changing! Before this year, you needed either 5 million yen in capital or two full-time employees residing in Japan. While expensive, this investment level is very achievable for several small and lean business types, like ours! However, the national government has seen fit to change the requirements, citing frequent misuse and exploitation of the current system. They’re raising the minimum requirements to include 30 million yen in capital AND a full-time employee who lives in Japan, other than the company founder.

While I can completely understand wanting to prevent exploitation (I’ve seen Tech Bros salivating on Instagram over the abandoned Japanese countryside homes, for instance), this seems a disproportionately large jump for most small businesses like ours. I’d guess many business owners here would agree; of the 41,000 or so Business Manager Visa holders in the country, only about 4% of them are already compliant with the new requirements.

Does this mean we have to change course? Maybe. But hopefully we’re lucky enough to figure that out next year.

Komyo-no-taki Waterfall, Sendai City

Semi-related, I was invited to be a part of a promotional video last weekend! The Startup Visa team I’ve been working with at Sendai City Hall wanted to make a video showcasing the benefit of the program, and recorded a 2-minute video of me in business meetings, me walking through a coworking space, me answering some questions about Life In Sendai, and me sweating through my shirt while I eat kaisendon at the morning market.

I will, of course, share it when it’s done!

I also had a good time connecting with the video production team from Tokyo. One of them was actually originally from Fukushima City, not far from where I live! They also co-managed a few Instagram pages, so it was nice to talk shop with them about social media.

Sunny in front of the new Jogi Nyorai Saigoji complex

Speaking of, we had our first big “viral” moment this week. I made a short-form video that got over 400k views across TikTok and IG. Everyone warned me it would be unexpected when it happened, and man if that’s not the truth.

Some frequent topics from the comments:

• Driving in Japan - A lot of people seemed to think I was advocating for renting a car to get away from overcrowded areas, but it’s just not necessary! Even the spot covered in the video could be seen by bus with a little planning. I actually don’t recommend tourists from overseas rent vehicles here unless they can read Japanese! There’s a lot of road safety that’s still behind a language barrier, and knowing the basics (or at least studying it really hard ahead of time) would do a lot for your own family’s safety.

• Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple - It made me really happy that people enjoyed the location! That was the main point I wanted to get across; Japan is full of beautiful places, and the beauty doesn’t stop when you get more than 15km away from the Kyoto city center. It really made me want to do follow-ups around Sendai that I think people would like! Stuff like Osaki Hachiman, Shiroishi Castle, Shiogama Jinja, and all the others.

• “Do they want us or not?” - They do. They really do. I saw a few people leave comments suggesting that I’d filmed someone’s backyard, or a merchant street that didn’t want visitors. Dear reader, let me put this idea to rest! They’d love you to come visit. Just observe the local manners, don’t be a nuisance, and everything will come up gold. I made the video because I see a lot of misinformation on what traveling to Japan is actually like, and feel a lot of people might be tricking themselves out of good experiences because of what they see online. So if you’ve been confused, I think I actually made the video for you!

Also, I fully recognize that this blog entry might have some new eyes on it, so welcome in! My name is Graham, I’m 42 years old, and my wife and I just moved to Japan this year from Seattle, Washington. We came here to open a tourism services business and game studio! Our first flagship product is a pen-and-paper RPG that helps keep you motivated on your Japan trip and becomes a unique souvenir/journal when you return home. We’re expecting to put the product on the website in the next couple weeks, as soon as the banking situation firms up. I can’t wait to introduce it to you guys, so stay tuned!