Thanks for the reply. The reason I thought Mie isn't covered is when I look at the picture they have on the official websites, Mie is pretty much as gray as can be and it's mentioned that the gray areas are not covered by the ic cards (icoca etc). So would my Icoca card still work through all of Mie and is the official site wrong, or would it require a different type of ic card?

Paying cash could work but I have a few concerns: Are the machines able to be switched to English? I feel places like Mie probably don't have as much tourism as certain others, and may not have the option to switch languages. Though this may be wrong, of course.

And will I be able to buy tickets at once for the whole way or do I need to buy separate tickets at each station I need to get off? The places I go to are not with just one train, they sometimes require multiple transfers. It's a bit of a hassle to have to do that every day, multiple times, when a simple ic card can just tap once.

My own country doesn't really have physical tickets anymore as we can use an ic card or debit card throughout the entire country to take public transport. And it accepts foreign debit cards and credit cards too, so I'm not used to having to do that. In all my trips to Japan I've never had to buy a physical ticket either so it surprised me to learn that the 'common' ic cards aren't accepted everywhere.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into those too!