About Michi
I was born in Shizuoka and moved to Osaka at eighteen. That move did something useful: it made me a stranger in my own country. Japan looked different from the outside, even when the outside was still Japan.
I’ve since traveled to more than forty countries and two hundred cities. Every trip sent me back home with new eyes. The neon and the silence, the precision and the chaos — things I had stopped seeing became strange again, in the best possible way.
By day, I work a regular corporate job in Osaka. Before the city wakes up and after it goes to sleep, I photograph, write, and document the Japan that most guidebooks don’t have time for.
About This Site
OtherPlanetJapan.com exists because most English-language travel writing about Japan is written by people who arrived recently and leave eventually. I was born here. I’m not going anywhere.
That’s not a complaint about other writers. It’s a description of what this site offers: the perspective of someone who knows where the locals eat, which temple is worth the 6 AM alarm, and why the deer in Nara are not as friendly as the postcards suggest.
Every article, photograph, and recommendation on this site is mine. No press trips. No sponsored content. No AI-generated filler. Just a Japanese person trying to help you see Japan the way it actually is — which is stranger, quieter, and more beautiful than you’ve been told.
One trip. New eyes.
Get in Touch
Questions, corrections, or just want to say hello:
Email: info@otherplanetjapan.com Contact form: here