Forty-two cards, and the day put in order
Everything in Core, plus the situations nobody thinks to search for until they are standing in one — and a guide that sequences them by when you will actually hit them.
$14.99 free for now
Enter an email and the download link is on the next page. No account, no newsletter, and the date is on the badge above rather than on a countdown.
Free until September 15 — then this pack is $14.99. If you download before September 15: you keep every card you took, and every correction to those cards, forever. That was the promise and it stands — nothing is taken back and nothing expires. Cards released after September 15 are part of the paid packs, for everyone. No newsletter unless you ask for it.
Every Japanese line on this site is a draft written from standard, high-frequency phrasing. None of it has been through a native-speaker register check, and that check is the thing standing between these cards and a price. What has and has not been checked is written out in full.
The recovery set
The card you hope not to need
What is in it
Cards by category
| Category | What it covers | Cards |
|---|---|---|
| Shops | Market stalls, butcher and fishmonger, 100-yen shops, point cards, omiyage, coin laundry, the barber, shipping home, takkyubin luggage forwarding, konbini services | 10 |
| Stay | Ryokan, capsule hotel, luggage storage, asking to leave bags early | 4 |
| Help | The recovery set — lost, the toilet, wifi, the emergency allergy card, and “something has gone wrong and I need someone who speaks English” | 6 |
The plan guide
What sits at the top of the ladder
The guide is not a card set. It is a sequenced document: day one, the airport IC card counter, your first konbini, the taxi. Day two, your first ramen shop and paying at the front. Day three, the onsen.
It is ordered by when you will hit each situation rather than by category, which is the one thing a deck of cards cannot do for you. It is also the only part of the product that took real editorial judgement, which is why it sits at the top of the ladder rather than being sprinkled through both packs.
13 of the 42 Complete cards are drawn today. The rest, and the plan guide, are not, and this page gives them no date, because a date here is a promise made to someone holding a receipt. Everything in Core is included, and until September 15 all of it is free. Then it is $14.99.
Every Japanese line on this site is a draft written from standard, high-frequency phrasing. None of it has been through a native-speaker register check, and that check is the thing standing between these cards and a price. What has and has not been checked is written out in full.
Compare
Against the other packs
Every card on the site, one email, one download.
- All 23 cards at full resolution — the 13 core situations plus the 10 night cards
- The printable sheet and one-file ZIP
- Works offline — images, not an app
- Free until September 15 — what you take now stays free forever
Ten cards for the smallest rooms in Japan: yatai and yokocho.
- 10 cards for yatai stalls and yokocho bars: getting in, the cover charge, ordering, paying, leaving
- Decoder cards for yakitori, oden, Hakata ramen and the drinks menu
- One printable PDF sheet, grayscale, cut marks
- Free until September 15, then $4.99. Email for the link
All 22 situation cards, phone and print.
- 13 of 22 cards drawn today, 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 forever for early downloaders
Questions
Before you download
What is in the recovery set?
Six cards for when it has already gone wrong: “I don't understand”, an unambiguous emergency allergy card, lost and needing help, where the toilet is, wifi and data, and “something has gone wrong and I need someone who speaks English”.
What is takkyubin and why is it in here?
Luggage forwarding — you send a suitcase from one hotel to the next for roughly ¥2,000–¥2,500 and travel with a day bag. Almost no visitor knows it exists, and it changes how a two-city trip feels. It is the clearest example of a card nobody would think to search for.
Do I need Complete if I'm only there a week?
Probably not. Core covers the 22 situations of the first 48 hours and most of a week. Complete earns its place if you are staying somewhere other than a business hotel, shopping seriously, or moving between cities.
Is the plan guide Tokyo-specific?
No. It is sequenced by arrival day rather than by city, so it works for Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto or Fukuoka. Where a detail is genuinely city-specific — the airport IC card counters, for instance — it says which city it means.
Same terms as Core?
Yes — free with an email until September 15. If you download before September 15: you keep every card you took, and every correction to those cards, forever. That was the promise and it stands — nothing is taken back and nothing expires. Cards released after September 15 are part of the paid packs, for everyone. See refunds.