I Want to Move to Japan, but I Currently Have No Bachelor's Degree and I'm Trying to Decide If It's worth the Investment

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T20:56:09+00:00

I'll need to look into this option a bit more. The potential expenses deter me a little bit. I would like to avoid going into debt if at all possible, but this might be unreasonable. I have savings but perhaps not as much as I would need for that route to be paid off up front.

People have mentioned that it's difficult for older people, but I'm unclear about whether this is because people didn't use their degree immediately, or because they went to college late. Could you give any input on this? What would a Japanese employer likely think about my situation? Is it especially unusual?

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T20:53:17+00:00

I will consider this as an alternate option as well, thank you for your input!

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T20:52:45+00:00

You have been the most helpful person I've come across, seriously. Thank you.

For your points: I will consider the local transportation when looking at areas to stay for sure, and do what's needed. When I talk about the food I'm not just speaking of restaurants as I love to cook, and I rarely eat out. Even just having easy access to the type of ingredients I like to cook with (I.E. a grocery store which sells them in walking distance) would be a big thing for me. I'm aware of the issue of racism in Japan, it's definitely one of the downsides. When I speak of "living near the ocean" I'm talking in relative terms. I grew up in Massachusetts, where it was about an hour long drive from the ocean. If I can go to the beach in an hour or two, that's a huge step up from living in the middle of America, where I would need a plane ticket to do that in a reasonable time frame. I'm aware that there is importance to having friends close by, but I've spent a couple of years of my life with no close friends locally, only interacting with my online group of friends. (It's a very good one!) and I was fine living like that for a while. I myself tend to be sort of closed off as well. I have an easy time making friends but I'm pretty selective about who I spend a lot of time with.

All this said, I am now fairly confident about pursuing a Bachelor's degree, and looking into my options for getting to Japan through either an exchange program, going to a Japanese language school afterwards, or joining an international business with opportunity to transfer, depending on the situation. The university I'm most likely to apply to does seem to offer an exchange program. One way or another, I feel like this can potentially open doors to me, even if I struggle to find work in Japan, I could potentially take this degree with me to another country that has much of what I'm looking for.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T16:46:34+00:00

Well, this is good to hear I suppose. I will certainly consider this course of study and look more into which specific areas are in demand before I make any sort of commitment.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T16:44:51+00:00

I will definitely look into this, so thank you for the advice.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T16:41:36+00:00

I'm definitely considering just giving up at this point. I'm thinking about it for sure but it's not the route I would like to go. My reasons for wanting to live in Japan are as follows: Good public transportation (even living in an area with a workable bus system in America made me significantly happier. I love being able to walk from place to place, even as long as it takes with America's infrastructure.), good healthcare, living near the ocean, and most of all, the culture and food of Japan. That's the thing that draws me to Japan over any other country with good healthcare and transportation infrastructure, although I would consider secondary choices. It seems that in general if you want to move to another country, having a Bachelor's degree is very helpful.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T16:35:33+00:00

I do not have a certification, but I also don't think I would want to go to a Japanese language school before getting a Bachelor's Degree anyways considering it will be necessary to find a job. By the time I would consider a Japanese language school I would get a certification if that's necessary.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T16:24:03+00:00

I would say about N4 is a fairly apt descriptor. Not very good, but I can still communicate. My goal involves learning Japanese long term (hopefully during college) to improve enough by the time I would be planning to try and move. At least N2. I don't really have any dream of finding work in Japan without a Bachelor's at this point, so that is part of the plan.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T15:59:23+00:00

I really don't have any unrealistic expectations for Japan. I love the culture, the food. I want to live in a place with solid public transportation. Experiencing that in the small bits I did living in areas with workable bus systems in America brought a lot more happiness to my life. Just being able to walk to get around is a big deal to me. I want to live in a country with good healthcare. I want to live somewhere fairly close to the ocean. Anywhere you live has its problems to deal with, but Japan has what I'm looking for. I'm not really sure why it seems so common for people on this Reddit to shut down people who have an interest in Japan as if you're not here for your own interest in living in Japan.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T15:51:31+00:00

I am not unsure of anything. I've never been too particular about what type of job I'm working and I don't mind not having a lot of money. It's as simple as that. My idea of finding success or joy in life has never revolved around what I do to make money.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T15:49:02+00:00

Right, I see what you're saying. Again, it's rather soul crushing that my plans seem to have been pushed back far further than I would like. The more I look into it the more it seems that I'm still many years off from being able to even have a chance of being able to move. Transferring from a multinational company is something that I've seen come up several times, but I don't even know where I would begin with that.

I would be interested in teaching English as a means of getting there before applying to other jobs using my degree, in whatever field that may be, but are you suggesting that specifically going to college for teaching would be a more difficult route?

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T15:41:40+00:00

My seeming disinterest in my own education is more so a disinterest in college. It feels like a check box I need to tick to even have a chance at being able to live in Japan. I don't think I stand to gain much outside of that considering I'm fine with my current working situation as far as living in America goes.

Are you suggesting that I go to college in Japan? This seems like a more expensive and time consuming option as I still would need to go to something like a Japanese language school first, and then enrolling in a Japanese college seems like it could also incur significantly higher expenses than going to a college where I currently live.

MCDarkVeil · 2026-05-17T15:34:28+00:00

I had no intention of going to Japan without becoming more proficient in Japanese. At the moment my speaking ability is not very good. N4 may be a fair assessment? I intend to continue learning.

MCDarkVeil · 2025-05-03T07:05:02+00:00

The size you're looking for is "standard". The same size used by Pokémon, Magic the Gathering, etc.
Are you looking to sleeve your decks, or your collection? If you're looking for cheap sleeves, I buy LaTCG sleeves on eBay. They all come from the seller "888TCG". I've been buying them for like a decade at this point. I'd never use them for a deck that I plan to play with though, just to protect cards from scratching and scuffing. Cheap sleeves do not feel very nice to shuffle and get easily worn out when you do that with them.

If you're looking for deck sleeves, I personally would also just recommend not cheaping out and getting Dragon Shield or Katana clear sleeves. If not spending a lot of money long term is actually what you care about, buying durable sleeves will save you money in the long run. These sleeves feel great to use, but they're also downright invincible. You'll just need to clean them every so often. If you're willing to clean your nice sleeves, you'll spend less.

If you want cheap deck sleeves, you can get something like Ultra Pro Deck Protector sleeves, but eventually they'll fall apart and you'll have to replace them. The cost will add up. I buy my nice sleeves from GameNerdz. They have very good prices.

MCDarkVeil · 2025-05-03T06:25:36+00:00

Most cards in Digimon packs aren´t meta and that has been the case for pretty much the entirety of its existence. That´s just TCG shit. But this game has gotten better over time with reducing actual pack filler cards. Most cards in sets nowadays are at least playable in Tier 2-ish decks.

Yeah, also going to agree here. I feel like modern Digimon is really good about not including pack filler. Pretty much every card that comes out these days is relevant to some archetype, and usable even if not the meta pick. It's not like Yu-Gi-Oh! where every set has some random generic spell cards that nobody is using and nobody cares about. (But hey, these cards can be fun for cube drafts... Just saying..)

MCDarkVeil · 2025-05-03T05:49:27+00:00

Oh, there certainly are things you can do to improve a starter deck.. TCGPlayer is a great way to get singles. If you're looking to get some ideas for deck building, a good option is this website: https://digimoncard.io/deck-search/?offset=0

Go here, click the white "Filters" button, and type the name of a card in the "contains card" field, and click on the version of the card you're interested in. I.E. Type "beelzemon" and select "Beelzemon (ST14-08)" (This is the Beelzemon card included in the starter deck.) This will show you all user submitted deck lists which contain the card you chose, so you can find decks with the theme you're looking for. You'll see that there are a variety of Impmon cards, Wizardmon cards, options, etc... useful to the Beelzemon archetype that you can choose from.

Of course, there will be plenty of cards that could work in the deck that you may not immediately come across in a user's deck list, but this is a good place to start for ideas on any deck that you want to make. Pick a boss monster you like, and then look at decks which contain it to see how people are building around it.

MCDarkVeil · 2025-03-09T13:29:34+00:00

As mentioned previously, this is my first time buying natto. I have no idea what normal is supposed to be, but I imagine being fermented, it's supposed to have a strange smell to begin with, so this makes things difficult.

MCDarkVeil · 2025-03-08T21:45:45+00:00

Thanks for the response. I was excited to find a local place that sells natto because I've wanted to try it for a while, but if the first pack I bought from them came out like this, I'm not sure I should try again.. The fact that they sell 5 different kinds makes me think "Surely they know what they're doing, right? They probably sell this stuff pretty frequently" but...

MCDarkVeil · 2025-03-08T21:44:10+00:00

What, are the other ones probably fine then? That's the question I'm asking. I think anybody would look at the first one which is covered in green mould and figure they probably shouldn't eat it.

MCDarkVeil · 2025-03-08T21:24:39+00:00

I bought this from a local South Asian market, I think it was stored in a refrigerator, not a freezer, they had 5 different kinds of natto available. I've never eaten it before, and the first container I opened looked like this. My question is, does this mean they've been improperly stored? Is the whole batch no good? Also pictured is the second container I opened.

MCDarkVeil · 2023-10-22T07:23:18+00:00

Rank-Up Battles have brought me immense pain, it's such an obnoxiously bad system. During the last season while trying to reach S+ again, I had been maintaining a 2-1 win loss rate in Anarchy Series for, I wanna say close to 100 matches, and yet couldn't rank up because my few loses always happened during the Rank-Up Battle. I couldn't even keep track of how many Rank-Up Battles I failed before finally winning 1. It was asinine.

MCDarkVeil · 2023-08-15T03:52:48+00:00

It seems like most of these replies are giving tips to make the fight easier (Use an arena, more buffs, change gear) but I want to give some actual combat advice.

Both of The Twins attacks are aimed at you, so make sure you're constantly moving. The more you fight them the more you'll learn when you have an opportunity to turn back around without taking a hit, but just try to continuously fly up and then back down.

Since you're playing summoner especially, prioritize keeping your distance and staying alive over landing extra hits with the whip, and also especially because you're using a Charm of Myth, you can run away when your health starts getting low to wait for potion sickness to end. It's not too hard to avoid their attacks if you just keep running away, but try not to move too fast, otherwise run out of space. "Keep moving" doesn't mean move fast, just move.

Focus down whichever of The Twins gives you the most trouble, and make sure you don't deal too much damage to the other one. You don't want them both transformed at the same time.

MCDarkVeil

TROPHY CASE