About
About Arigato Japan and how it is researched
Who Arigato Japan is for and how every rule, price and season is researched: official pages first, named secondary sources and To verify flags.
How is a fact researched?
We look for the page that owns the fact first: the resort’s ticket page, the railway’s notice, the ministry leaflet, the park office. Some of those pages are blocked or unreadable from where we work, and some facts are not published at all. In that case we fall back on secondary sources, such as a guide, a news report or a booking site, name them as secondary and hedge the claim in plain words.
Behind the scenes we rate each fact High or Medium. High means we read the primary page. Medium means an official snippet, or two secondary sources that agree. Anything weaker is hedged, carries a To verify flag, or stays out.
Sources are named in plain text, by organisation and document, with a year where we have one. We don’t link out, and we don’t paste prices from memory. If a price changes by season, the page says which season.
To verify This flag marks a claim we found but could not confirm. Most pages carry a few.
Why no dates on the page?
A visible date goes stale the day after it’s printed. So we tie facts to the thing that actually changes: the 2026-27 season, the fare from 1 Oct 2026. For anything that moves often, we say plainly: check the official page before you go. The check dates live in our own records, and they decide what gets re-read next.
What is the site based on?
Official sources: ministries, police, railways, resorts, parks and tourism offices, read page by page. Every figure shows its source, and anything unconfirmed is marked. Nothing on the site is written as a personal trip, a meal or a bath.
What does planned in public mean?
You can see the work. We publish one page at a time, and a page changes when the facts change. A “Changed in 2026” strip on the home page covers the big ones: rail pass prices, departure tax, tax-free refunds.
Can readers report a mistake?
Not yet. A way to report an error is planned. Until it exists, nothing on the site is based on reader reports.
Who runs this site?
Arigato Japan is an independent research site. No owner name or biography is published on the site yet.
How is the site funded?
No funding stance has been announced yet.
Frequently asked questions
Is Arigato Japan based on personal trips?
No. It is researched from official sources: ministries, railways, resorts, parks and tourism offices. Nothing on the site is written as a personal trip.
What does To verify mean?
We found the claim but could not confirm it from a source we trust enough. Where it matters we mark it To verify on the page instead of presenting it as fact, and we drop the flag only once we have read an official page for it.
Why don’t pages show a date?
Dates on a page go stale and imply more than they prove. When a fact is tied to a time, the wording says so, like the 2026-27 season or from 1 Oct 2026. Volatile facts also tell you to check the official page before you go.