Your Guide To Getting Started With Netflix Japan Right Now!
Netflix has finally arrived in Japan. Regardless of how well it is being received there (lukewarm), to you this is something to be ridiculously thankful for. Unlimited Japanese TV and movies? Yes. But even better, Japanese dubs of all your favorite American TV shows and movies. Remove the guilt of watching all 5 Seasons of Breaking Bad in English, and watch it in Japanese. Life is good.
I know you don’t need any more convincing, so let’s dive right in.
1. Getting started
Head on over to the Netflix homepage. Your internet connection must be in Japan, otherwise you get redirected to your own country’s Netflix.
As with its Western counterpart, you get your first month for free. The weak Japanese yen makes that 650 yen monthly fee to a little over $5. Not bad at all. Click on 1ヵ月無料体験を始めよう (Let’s start a 1 month free trial).
2. Choose your plan
You have 3 plans to choose from with the difference being:
1. ベーシック (basic): No HD 画質 (quality), 同時に視聴可能な画面数 (only can view on one device at a time)
2. スタンダード (standard): You get HD, and can view on 2 devices at the same time.
3. プレミアム (premium): You get 4K画質 (4K quality), and can view on 4 devices at the same time.
Click on one of the blue boxes at the top, then click on the 続ける(continue) blue box at the bottom.
3. Register an account
Put in your メールアドレス (e-mail address) and enter a password under パスワードの作成 4~50文字 (Password creation between 4~50 characters).
Check off キャンペーン案内メールを希望しない (I don’t want campaign introduction e-mails), unless you like receiving constant e-mail reminders about things you probably don’t care about.
Click the big 登録する (Register) blue box.
4. Choose payment method
Choose Credit Card (this doesn’t need to be a Japanese credit card) or Paypal.
A few notes:
- ______に無料体験が終わるまで料金は請求されません: You won’t get billed until your trial period is up.
- 簡単登録、いつでもオンラインでキャンセルできます: Can always cancel easily online.
-
見放題視聴プラン。 月額¥650 (税抜) で、同時に1画面まで視聴できます: Unlimited plan. Monthly 650 yen (without tax), can watch on up to one screen at a time.
By credit card
お名前(姓): Last name
お名前(名): First name
クレジットカード番号: Credit card
有効期限: Expiration Date
セキュリティコード: Security code
Check off the box for:
私は18才以上です。利用規約とプライバシー/Cookieの内容に同意します: I’m over 18. I agree to user agreement and the Privacy/Cookie policy.
Then click on the large blue box:
メンバーシップを開始する: Begin membership
Assuming everything went through, you’ll get the following screen (and a welcome e-mail):
Press the 続ける button.
By Paypal
Click on the large blue button PayPalへ移動 (Go to payal). This sends you to Paypal, which should be in English if you have a non-Japanese Paypal account, and then you can just follow the payment method there.
5. Device Choice
どのデバイスで視聴されますか?: What device are you going to watch with?
Netflixはどのデバイスでも視聴できます。 該当するデバイスをすべて選択してください。: With Netflix you can watch on any device. Check all of the relevant devices.
Check all of your devices.
スマートテレビやブルーレイプレーヤー: Smart TV/Blue Ray Player
スマートフォンやタブレット: Smartphone/Tablet
デスクトップやラップトップPC: Desktop/Laptop
Press 続ける.
6. Users
Add in other people who will be using the Netflix account. This is for personalized recommendations and content introduction. You can just hit 続ける if it will just be you.
7. Analyzing your Likes
お好きな作品を3本選んでください: Choose 3 titles that you like
What you choose here helps give you your starter recommendations. As you continue to use Netflix, this recommendation list adjusts based on what you watch.
Choose three and press 続ける.
8. Enter your account
どなたが観ますか: Who will watch?
If you only have yourself as a user, click on that awkward smiley face.
9. Your Home Page
メニュー: Menu
キッズ: Kids
検索: Search
Netflixで人気の作品: Titles popular on Netflix
(Name)さんにイチオシ: Recommended for (Name!)
Continue to scroll down to look through all the genres.
10. Getting into a Title
Hover over an item, either click to enter or click マイリストに追加 (Add to My List).
11. Watching in Dubbed Japanese
Since the whole point of using Netflix Japan is to watch things in Japanese, you absolutely must set your settings to Japanese.
Click on the dialogue box on the bottom right.
音声: Voice
日本語: Japanese
英語: English
字幕: Subtitles
オフ: Off
日本語: Japanese
英語: English
Always have Japanese voice set. Use Japanese subtitles depending on the difficulty of the show, or your level. I won’t talk about English subtitles…
12. Getting around
The user interface is pretty self explanatory, not requiring much Japanese comprehension to get around. Just play with it a bit, and you’ll get it in no time. If for some reason you have any questions about it, leave them in the comments below.
Is the dubbed content worth it?
First, you know I love dubbed content. There is a nice start of some of the most popular shows (past and present), and I guarantee you this list will grow. The list includes:
TV series:
Breaking Bad
Better Call Saul
Orange Is The New Black
Friends
Pretty Little Liars
Prison Break
Supernatural
Daredevil
Vampire Diaries
Suits
Arrow
Bones
Mad Men
American Horror Story
Homeland
24
Glee
Of course there are also hundreds of Western movies as well, including all your favorites (probably).
Don’t forget the Japanese TV/Movie content
While it can be a lot of fun to watch all your favorite programming back home in Japanese, the content from Japan is not to be overlooked. While you’ve probably been able to get your anime through sites like Crunchyroll, movies and J-dramas are not as easy. They already have a nice start letting you catch up on all the goodness you’ve missed out on.
Is it worth it?
Yes. Yes. Yessssssssssssssssssssss. If you aren’t signing up immediately after reading this, what else would you be doing?
What do you think?
For those of you that have started using Netflix Japan, leave some of your initial feedback and thoughts in the comments section below!
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
You can actually use your existing Netflix account in your resident country with a vpn and access Netflix Japan. Pretty good stuff :D
How do you do that?
Check out https://hola.org/ ! Super simple. I set it up in seconds, and I’m no whiz.
I would recommend being wary of Hola-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hola_(VPN)
Rather than paying for servers like a traditional VPN, Hola operates their service using a Peer-to-Peer approach. Basically, when you go to access content, you connect to one of their other “free” users and download/upload the content through their internet connection. Likewise, someone who needs to browse from your country would connect through YOUR internet connection.
This all sounds great until your connection is used by someone else to do something illegal, at which point the IP logs obtained will point to *you* as the responsible party, and there’s not a lot you can do to prove otherwise.
Please, everyone, be extremely careful and do your research before utilizing any VPN service, especially if it needs to be installed directly to your machine and/or purports to offer any more than a brief sample of its services for “free”.
Thanks for the info!! I had no idea. I definitely don’t want to promote something that could cause people so much trouble down the road.
Is there a good selection of shows with Japanese subtitles? It would be great extensive reading/listening practice! Kind of like the L-R method with context from the video (and previous knowledge) !
Also what is the best way to pay in ¥ with US cc or debit cards? I have a Visa and Discover Checking Card, and a Discover CC if that helps!
You could subscribe to Netflix USA (if you don’t already) and use a VPN like https://hola.org/. I’m using a Canadian Netflix account to access the Japanese one.
Don’t use Hola. Use a real VPN, because Hola is a really dangerous program.
成績、ゴメンね。これからちょっと忙しくなるんだけど…
I had been waiting for Netflix Japan to come out and subscribed as soon as it released. Before Netflix I was using Hulu which is worth it for new shows.I have to say Netflix is still worth it since there are many movies and shows that are dubbed as well as Japanese shows. Hulu is better for Japanese shows though because it has a lot of different dramas, anime and variety shows, as well as shows exclusive to Hulu now.
I live in the US, but I use VPN Gate to access the content.
So Netflix Japan is amazing (OMG JP Subs <3), and as mentioned Netflix doesn't really care if you use your existing US account and subscription. You can simply create a second user account (ex: MattJP), set its language to Japanese, and go through the process above to establish preferences.
There are just two sticky issues-
1: VPN. As I mentioned in a comment above, using an unsafe VPN is extraordinarily risky. I feel like if we're going to promote this as a way to access JP content, it should also come with a suggestion of one or more VPN services that are known to be safe. Let's not send our fellow users blindly into the dark underbelly of the internet with no knowledge of how to avoid dirty VPNs.
2: Netflix is bad about surfacing their Audio/Subtitle information on most of their content's Details pages, and has poor search functionality, so it can be extremely hard to locate content with Japanese subtitles (especially if you're looking for Anime or Dramas, rather than Hollywood movie dubs). I think it would be great if we could compile a list of content that supports Japanese subtitles somewhere on this site.
What VPN do you use/would you recommend? Especially paid ones, since as someone around here stated, “if it’s free, then you are the product”.
Others on the site have mentioned it before me, but I think TunnelBear looks safe based on many different well-known sites’ reviews and such. Also, they apparently don’t record any information at all about your browsing, which is huge for security.
I tried the free version (which they basically just let you try out 500mb/month which is maybe an episode or 2 to stream) and it worked very well. I think I’m going to pay the subscription on it.
I don’t think all VPN’s work like Hola does, I think you’re being over-cautious here. There are countless people who use VPN’s and have no problem security wise. This is the first time actually I’ve seen such heavy criticism towards it. Get a well known/paid/well reviewed VPN out there and you’ll be fine, there are lots of there, even managed by professional companies.
Do you need a VPN to do this? feel like Adam should have added this to the post.
You need some way to make your internet connection appear to be coming from Japan. That requires a Proxy/VPN service, many of which are shady (mainly the free/freemium ones).
No, most VPN services do not work like Hola, but they can be “dirty” in a variety of other ways. Abuse of user bandwidth, vulnerability to third party attacks, built in spyware/malware, etc are all serious concerns when using any of these services for “free”. You really need to invest in a paid service to have a safe experience (or have a friend in Japan who’s running a VPN, I guess?).
@Naoki: I’m honestly not experienced enough in this area that I’d be comfortable making a recommendation. I’d encourage you to look up reviews on the quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness of various services and see which one feels like the best fit for you.
> I don’t think all VPN’s work like Hola does, I think you’re being over-cautious here.
The scary thing about Hola specifically is that (from what I understand) you are volunteering your *own* bandwidth and network identity for random other people (their paid users) to use. It’s a “give a little, get a little” setup. That’s fine in theory, but if someone is using Hola to, say, search for child porn or buy drugs or something, it’s your IP that it’s sourced from.
And just as a random sidenote, hitting hola.org gives an SSL cert error. Doesn’t bode well for a company you’re trusting with your network traffic.
There are lots of other trusted VPN services that you can use that aren’t set up in that way. However, by nature a VPN is a “man in the middle” that has access to your network traffic, so you should always be cautious of the type of data you’re sending and probably use something like HTTPS Everywhere (https://www.eff.org/HTTPS-EVERYWHERE).
You may already know of this, but netflix does have a list of everything they have with Japanese subtitles: http://www.netflix.com/browse/subtitle/ja
But I agree that it isn’t very searchable other than just scrolling through the big long list.
So if you’re already paying for an account in the US, then you don’t have to pay again for the Netflix Japan services?
Correct. All you have to do is use a vnp, and your set.
Actually I live in Japan so I have to turn OFF my VPN! Thanks for the reply!
Edit: And it’s working! But now what to choose? I have no idea what movies to watch.
This was the best news so far in the week! Thank you!
Unfortunately there were no other options for me beyond Hola.
I say so because there have been some scary informations about lack of security recently about this vpn service. Google “Adios Hola” up to check this out.
I’m using only in my secondary browser logged only in Netflix just in case.
I found a pretty great service adfreetime.com. it’s recommended all over Reddit. I’ll try it and let you guys know. (BTW read their privacy policy before you sign up)
Wow thanks great post, just hooked up my netflix account using tunnelbear. About to watch mean girls dubbed right now ^_^
凄い!電車男だ!!
So, do you now know how to say “stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen” in Japanese?
Has anyone been able to find a decent way to rip the audio from Netflix movies for our immersion iPods?
You can just record the sound with sound recorder while you watch
Unotelly.
Super simple.
Been using it for years to access US netflix from Canada.
You can change your Netflix region to any country instantly.
There’s a 7 day trial and then 4$/month.
Netflix is worth it, believe me. btw, you can get a Lifetime membership of getflix.co.au for $60. You get both DNS (which I like) and VPN. The offer ends in 2 days though. The deal comes and goes, so if you are willing to wait for a few months, you *might* be able to snatch this for $40 or less too.
Where did you see the lifetime membership? I can’t seem to find it.
Various sites host their own deals. Just search getflix lifetime on “news.google.com”. For example:
deals.makeuseof.com/sales/getflix-lifetime-subscription is one of them. You can also search Groupon.
Research the service before buying, as I don’t take any responsibility :)
Yeah of course ;) wouldn’t just go and buy something recommended by random internet stranger straight away haha :D (not that you feel like that much of a random internet stranger after reading so many of your comments)
Thanks for the tip anyway :)
Does getflix.co.au still work despite Netflix’s recent efforts to prevent VPN users from accessing content? I have been using TunnelBear but it doesn’t work as of now.
Yes. Netflix Japan has never been blocked as of now (I didn’t even know that was happening). Cannot guarantee anything about the future though. Maybe it’s because it’s DNS?
Nice. From what I understand, Netflix is currently just blacklisting IP addresses that send an abnormal amount of traffic (say, hundreds of users maybe) so any VPN service that doesn’t use the same IP for all of their customers is safe. I may try out getflix, thanks!
This must be correct. To try to add an additional level of detail to the helpful comments above, I can confirm that not only can a foreign-registered Netflix account access the Japanese catalogue if you use a VPN to hit Netflix via a Japan-based server; in addition to that, if you have a ‘multi-device’ subscription in Netflix in your home country, you can also access your home-country content at the same time. Practical implication: your kid can be watching Dora from the Canadian/US/non-Japan Netflix catalogue while you’re watching your favorite J-Drama from the Japan catalogue on a different device at the exact same time, and from the very same Netflix account. I initially VPN’d in to set up a “Japanese” Netflix account only to confirm that this is unnecessary; keep your overseas account and then all you need is a reliable VPN.
Anyone found any solutions to the vpn problem? I’ve been using the smart vpn service called unblock-us… Getting proxy errors now on any show that isn’t available in my region. Sucks big time !
sadly no. missing my daily dose of Friends in japanese.
You can use a dns service like getflix (see above).
is getflix still working as we speak? I’ll give it a try now and write back.
Have you tried it as of today? Something in your region. Maybe because I’m in australia… I’ll give getflix a shot though, I think they work the same way as unblock-us, but here’s hoping!
nope, doesn’t work :(
as suspected :(
Whoops, something went wrong…
Proxy Detected
Hmm, it’s not working for me too. Well it usually takes a few days to get fixed.
You may want to follow along with news from Unlocator.. They currently have a beta that is working with Netflix US (no proxy errors, but requires a bit of setup since Google DNS IPs need to be blocked). Hopefully they will add more regions to it soon.
Rejoice! Getflix is working again!
本当だ!また機能は使えなくならないように!
So very happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Manan. Watching Daredevil s2 finally. finally.
I’m pretty sure the Japanese dub of Daredevil is available on US Netflix, but I may be wrong? I was able to watch the dub of the first season… 知らない。
Ah, a number of things I checked didn’t have the Japanese audio available (Friends for instance) so I had been assuming most of the jdubs were only available on netflix.jp. Good to know, although I’m happily set up with getflix now.
Can’t get Neflix to work via DNS or VPN currently. Does anyone have any clues how to get it up and running, or is it just hit and miss right now?
You just need to get a vpn that isn’t as popular
Dude… where do I buy like a roku or d-link in Japan… tried Yodabashi already.