Four cards, free to download
The ramen ticket machine, the convenience store counter, the taxi address, and “I don't understand.” Four images at full resolution, downloaded straight from this page. No email address, no account, and nothing to unsubscribe from later.
Free sampler
Four cards, one per category
Same resolution as the paid pack, and the same files. There is no email gate here because there is nothing yet to send you — the packs are not on sale until the register check is done.
Right there, four files. Save them to your camera roll before you fly — they are images, so they open with no signal.
In the sampler
The ramen ticket machine
The escape hatch
Why these four
They work as a set on their own
They map to the first day. You land, you buy an IC card, you get in a taxi or a train, you go to a convenience store, and at some point you eat in a shop with a machine by the door.
The fourth is the escape hatch, and it is the one people actually use. “Wakarimasen — please write it down, please point at it” ends a conversation you cannot follow without either party losing face.
They are also the best demonstration of the format: two of them carry the branch — the replies you'll get back and the one word that answers each one — which is the part a phrasebook cannot do.
Read first
Or read all fourteen guides — also free, also no email
Packs
The full sets
Four cards, downloaded direct, no email.
- Four cards — the ramen ticket machine, the convenience store, the taxi, and “I don't understand”
- Full resolution, identical to the paid pack
- No email address, no account, no card details
- Straight download. There is no list to join and no sequence to unsubscribe from.
All 22 situation cards, phone and print.
- 22 situation cards at 1080 × 1620, for the camera roll
- Print sheets, 4-up with cut marks, US Letter and A4
- Works offline — they are images, not an app
- Corrections and updates free for 12 months — and the first hundred buyers keep every future Japan card, with no time limit
Not on sale yet — the register check is the gate
Everything in Core, plus shopping, stay, the recovery set and the plan guide.
- Everything in the Core pack
- Shopping and services — 10 cards, including takkyubin luggage forwarding
- Stay — 4 cards: hotel check-in, ryokan, capsule, luggage storage
- The recovery set — 6 cards for when it has already gone wrong
- The plan guide: your first three days in the order you'll hit them
Not on sale yet — the register check is the gate