Hello, Yaponiya

15/08/2026

🇯🇵 Do I need N2 to get a work visa in Japan?👇

In April 2026, Japan's immigration authority tightened how it reviews visa applications involving language ability. Naturally, this raised a big question for engineers: does this mean I now need N2 Japanese to work here?

We asked our legal advisor to break down what's actually changed.

"In April 2026, the immigration authority tightened how it reviews this status. No law changed, this is a change in what documents smaller and mid-sized employers (immigration Categories 3 and 4) must submit with applications filed from April 15.

Our reading is that the standard applies to the job, not the person: it targets roles centered on dealing with people in a language, like translation/interpreting or hotel reception. Purely technical work appears to fall outside this scope.

We've already tested this directly: one engineer was hired from overseas and placed, and another renewed their visa, both with Japanese ability around N5 — both cases processed after the tightened guidance took effect. Neither was asked to demonstrate Japanese proficiency, and both proceeded on the strength of their technical role alone.

What matters at renewal is what the work actually involves. If the engineer keeps doing the work they were hired for, renewal shouldn't be affected — only a shift toward duties built around communicating with people like sales, client-facing coordination, interpreting, which would warrant a second look."

10/08/2026

🇯🇵 Batch 9 Is Open!

Applications close September 10, 2026. It's free to join. Before you apply, here's exactly what the program includes, who it's for, and answers to the two questions engineers ask us most.

👉 Apply now 👉https://airtable.com/appmvFn0bjqbn7OX8/shrdJhzks3fXmno3y

Here's what's included:

• Free 6-month online Japanese course — starts from zero, and goes beyond language into Japanese workplace culture and communication norms
• CV and interview prep, tailored specifically for Japanese employers
• 2-week trip to Japan (Izumo), accommodation covered — meet real CTOs and engineers, and pitch your work at a hackathon
• Relocation support once you get an offer — visas, paperwork, settling in — plus a built-in Eastern European community who's already been through it all. Add real connections with local residents and employers in Shimane, and you're landing into a network, not starting from scratch. And yes, we know how to have a good time here too 😄

📍Please note: we can't promise a job — that depends on your interviews and company fit. What we promise is real preparation and real access to Japan's IT market.

Who can apply:
Engineers with a degree in IT, math, or physics, English B2+, and relevant experience. ITPEC certificate or 10+ years of IT experience also works.
_____________________

2 things engineers usually wonder about before applying:

🤔 "I don't speak Japanese — do I even need it? Is everything in Japanese?"
Nope, not at the start. The 6-month course covers the basics you'll need for daily life and the workplace. Interviews happen in English or Japanese depending on the company, but we translate and guide you through every step — you won't be left to sort it out alone.

🤔 "What if I'm not skilled enough? What if my CV or experience won't cut it?"
You don't need to be exceptional — you need real, solid experience, and we help you present it right. Japan has a serious shortage of strong IT talent, and companies are actively looking abroad. We prepare you for exactly how they hire — reworking your CV so it lands, prepping you for their interview style, and setting realistic expectations. And it's completely free for you — we get paid by the hiring company once you're placed, not by you.

👉 Apply now 👉 https://airtable.com/appmvFn0bjqbn7OX8/shrdJhzks3fXmno3y

We review manually — expect a reply within 1–2 business days.

04/08/2026

🚗 A Toyota Soarer, a Japanese auction site, and a Team Lead job in Izumo — Sergey's story

Sergey had spent more than a decade in IT, most recently as Head of Development at an international MedTech company while living and working remotely from Thailand, and Japan had always felt like a distant dream because he assumed fluent Japanese was the only way in.

After going through Batch 3's selection process, a six-month Japanese language course covering corporate work culture and communication, and a hackathon in Japan, Sergey ended up with two job offers and chose SAMI Japan, a company owned by the same founder as hello, yaponiya itself, and now works as Team Lead, splitting his days between Russian, English, and Japanese.

He's been living in Izumo for almost two years now, and outside of work he tracked down a Toyota Soarer with its iconic 1JZ-GTE engine and manual transmission through a Japanese car auction, a car that turned into an unexpected bridge into the local community.

👉 The full story goes deep on the actual projects he's built, what a typical day at SAMI Japan looks like, and how one auction car turned into road trips and a whole car community: https://telegra.ph/A-Toyota-Soarer-a-Japanese-auction-site-and-a-Team-Lead-job-in-Izumo--Sergeys-story-08-04

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the kind of story Batch 9 could turn into for you!

🗓 Applications open on August 10.

If 2026 is the year you finally do something about that "what if I moved to Japan" thought — this is your sign!

24/07/2026

My hackathon feedback caught a CEO's attention!

At the hackathon, Aray, one of our Batch 6 participants, had the chance to try out a test product from one of the sponsors and share her honest feedback on it. That feedback got noticed by a big Tokyo company's CEO himself, and she was invited to her first interview soon after.

Just a couple of days ago, she relocated to Japan with her husband and their kawaii cat 👀

Her Japanese was still at an early N5 level, so the entire hiring process happened in English. It was long and involved several stages, but Alina-sensei and Anatoly from the hello, yaponiya team supported her closely, making the whole path feel much easier than it could have been.

She's now a Middle Software Engineer working on the backend at a Tokyo-based digital consulting and app development company. The job is mostly remote.

Aray had visited plenty of countries, but Japan in 2024 hit differently. Love at first sight! The cleanliness, the order, the quiet, the respect for personal space — it all added up. Not long after, she learned about our program, and from there everything moved fast!

She and her husband started preparing for the relocation with both of their cats. Sadly, one cat wasn't able to fly with them 💔

💬 Aray’s advice for future participants:
"Huge thanks to the organizers for building an environment where you can truly show your potential and meet real employers. Izumo left a big mark on me too! It'll always stay close to my heart. Never underestimate programs like this! They give you a genuine chance to showcase your skills and connect with employers."

🚀🚀🚀

15/07/2026

In 2024, Alina — our Japanese teacher — shared how she fell for calligraphy at a cozy little school here in Izumo, studying under 93-year-old Tanaka Sensei, who's spent 60+ years mastering the art.

Two years on, she's still learning from him. But this time, Tanaka Sensei stepped in to help her run her own calligraphy workshop: 「書く。感じる。日本文化」, for international residents living in Izumo. Alina put it together with Izumo City Hall, with a group of students from Izumo Commercial High School joining in as assistants.

People from different countries came together, and for almost everyone, this was their first time ever holding a brush. The workshop was a chance to slow down and actually feel something through brush, ink, and paper — getting a little closer to understanding Japanese culture along the way.

We went through the basics — tool names, and practiced three basic brush movements:
• tome — stopping the brush with control
• hane — flicking it upward
• harai — releasing it in one long sweep

Then each person wrote a word that means something to them.

When you write a word with a brush, you end up spending real time with it. What does "freedom" mean to us? What kind of beauty do we see in "sakura"? What feeling comes up when we write "heart"?

As Alina says: "I'm still not sure what a perfect first calligraphy experience is supposed to feel like. But I want students to feel the softness of the brush, breathe in the smell of the ink, and get a little swept up in the whole aesthetic of the stationery — and maybe end up loving Japan a little more."

💬 What word in Japanese would you choose to write? What word feels important to you right now? Share it in the comments 👇

10/07/2026

🏡 This is SAMI House: the traditional Japanese home where our community actually lives.

Batch participants live here for two weeks during the program. Our engineers stay here temporarily while we look for their own apartment. And friends of our community, from every country and background, come through here too.

One day you might meet a researcher preparing for a talk at Oxford University. Another day, you're chatting with a vice-president from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. And another day, you run into a Japanese Olympic open water swimmer having tea in the kitchen.

Our house just attracts amazing people, and this time it was the Batch 7 engineers who lived here. Put a group of engineers under one traditional roof, and things happen that were never on the plan.

The result is a video about life at SAMI House. Behind the camera: Haruki Mogi, one of our community members. In front of it: the Batch 7 engineers, and Alina-sensei — house manager, cultural keeper, and Japanese teacher on our program — simply living their everyday life at the house.

Alina-sensei once talked about what she really wanted people to feel at SAMI House — the delicacy of Japanese culture, that subtle feeling the Japanese call mono no aware, and the warmth of the people gathered there. She wanted anyone new who walks through the door to take care of the house on their own, without being asked.

Haruki took her words and turned them into a video.

He tied it together with a line from Naruto:
"People become truly strong when they have something important they want to protect." — Haku

For Haruki, that something was SAMI House itself, and everyone inside it.

🎵 Music: "Fukutsu ni Hana" by jo0ji
👉 Watch it, and meet our community a little closer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDCPj78cxd0

Haruki also teaches Japanese to our engineers alongside filmmaking.
📸 Check out his Instagram:

This is SAMI House — a traditional Japanese coliving home in Izumo,...

11/06/2026

The karaoke was great! But here's what they actually built 👇

Hack Yakumo is the international hackathon we run as part of every batch — our engineers team up with developers from Japan and other countries to tackle real challenges from local companies and city governments. This time, the brief came from the City of Matsue itself.

Matsue has been drawing growing international attention since "Bakebake" — a major NHK drama inspired by Lafcadio Hearn, a writer deeply tied to this region — began airing in 2025. The city wants that momentum to last, but the right information still isn't reaching foreign visitors or residents. That gap became the brief.

Hack Yakumo 2026 brought together engineers from Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, India, and Indonesia to work on it. Five teams presented. Two won.

🥇 Gold — "Matsue Mate" A single app for foreign residents covering waste sorting, administrative processes, and healthcare support. Built with Nodeblocks, Node.js, React, TypeScript, and Express. Judges called it simple, practical, and immediately usable — one noted that it tackles exactly the kind of everyday friction that foreign residents in Japan run into, with a design that feels warm and approachable.

🥈 Silver — "Yokai trails: Shimane" GPS and AR bring Lafcadio Hearn's stories and Shimane's yokai folklore to life as you walk through the real locations behind them. Built with Nodeblocks, Node.js, React, TypeScript, and MongoDB. One judge called it: "yokai is Matsue's content, and nobody else's."

After the presentations, the Mayor of Matsue joined the networking reception — congratulated the teams, answered their questions, and spent real time with the engineers who had worked on his city's problems for two weeks. (That's him in photos 2 and 3 👇)

NHK covered it too 📺 (in Japanese): https://news.web.nhk/newsweb/na/nb-4030024921

Send the teams some 🔥🔥🔥
All five teams earned it!

11/06/2026

We've been off the radar for a few weeks — not because nothing was happening, but because everything was happening at once 😅

Here's what we were up to: Batch 7 just wrapped up two weeks in Izumo — and if you think a small regional city in Japan sounds quiet, Izumo would like a word!

Six engineers from Russia and Kazakhstan came to work on real challenges set by the City of Matsue, and ended up getting a full picture of what living in Japan outside the big cities actually looks and feels like. Quiet it was not!

🏢 Inside four Japanese tech companies

The group visited four local companies who opened their doors for honest conversations about products, engineering culture, and what it's actually like to work in Japan's regions. These visits tend to shift something for participants: Japan's tech industry stops being an abstract idea and starts feeling like a real place you could work.

🎌 Everything else that makes Izumo, Izumo

The programme made sure there was more to the two weeks than laptops and whiteboards. Tea ceremony 🍵, calligraphy 🖌️, an onsen ♨️, a kimono fitting 👘, a takoyaki party 🐙, nomikai at a local izakaya 🍻 — and karaoke. Several times. The engineers apparently discovered karaoke early in the trip and saw no reason to stop 🎤😂

The two weeks went fast. We're already missing this batch 🥹

The hackathon story is coming up next!

06/05/2026

We’ve finished the selection process for Batch 8!

This time, we selected 8 participants — and they’ll begin their Japanese language course already in May.

As always, the competition for spots was very high! We received a lot of strong applications, and honestly, there were many great candidates we simply couldn’t fit into one batch.

📩 Results are already in your inbox. If you don’t see them there, make sure to check your spam folder too!

And to everyone who applied: thank you! We read every application carefully and appreciate the time and effort behind each one!

💡The next chance to join the program is planned for late 2026. We’ll share details closer to the launch.

28/04/2026

🇯🇵 Two more engineers from Batch 6 have arrived in Izumo!

Meet Nikita, Full-Stack Developer (Go + Vue), working on a gaming platform around online games and digital entertainment.

And Viktor, Backend Developer (Java), who joined a Japanese tech company focused on large-scale flash-sale e-commerce and curated online shopping.

And yes, yesterday the guys had a very Japanese onboarding moment: a local police officer came by to say hello 👮‍♂️

It’s part of the standard settling-in process here. He explained how safety works in the area — who to call, what to do during natural disasters, and where to bring lost items. He also made sure they knew him personally, so they’d feel comfortable asking for help if anything happens.

Welcome to Izumo 🎉