What are some ways to use my VPN?

VPN
1

Last year I purchased a VPN subscription so that I could consume the Japanese internet. Over the entire span of a year, however, I haven’t used it a single time. I am thinking about canceling the subscription, but since I’m only improving at 日本語, I think it would be better to keep it and find some ways of exploring the Japanese internet.

The English internet has a lot of “weird” websites, and this was one of my favorite things about the internet growing up. I think maybe the internet has become more homogenized through social media, but it would still be interesting to see if I could navigate the Japanese internet to find stuff like this.

If anyone has any idea of what I could do with a VPN, please leave a comment.

2

https://tver.jp/

You can watch a lot of shows without a subscription, especially new dramas.

3

yahoo chiebukuro requires a vpn now. so theres that

and for those who dont want to use a vpn just try this instead 全てのカテゴリの質問一覧 | 教えて!goo

4

I use a free one just to make purchases like eBooks and eShop credit on Amazon.

5

If you know someone with a Japanese phone number you can make purchases on Mercari.jp. From what I can tell they don’t let you do anything without a VPN

6

I’m confused of how you where thinking of using the VPN when you bought it then.

I only got one when I saw some platforms I wanted to use where locked from outside Japan.

With VPN you can access things like Netflix Japan (thousands of jp subbed and dubbed shows), Abema+Tver (internet TV), Yahoo Jp (basically google+ wikipedia) and Google Play Store (for downloading japan only videogames and apps).

Nicovideo (jp youtube) and streaming sites in general are probably the only parts of ‘the internet’ you can’t access abroad, the rest of japanese websites and forums are usually always accessible.

7

Netflix via VPN is a goldmine of Japanese content with Japanese subs.

8

I keep seeing people say you can use a VPN for Abema but it doesn’t seem to work for me. Instead of being able to see the homepage I instead can’t see anything at all. :confused:

9

yahoo chiebukuro requires a vpn now. so theres that

Only if you’re in the European Economic Area or in the UK:

2022年4月6日 (水) よりYahoo! JAPANは欧州経済領域（EEA）およびイギリスからご利用いただけなくなりました

I just checked with a VPN to make sure and it worked fine in the US, Brazil, India and Australia, but I got the message above in France and in the UK, as expected.

10

“VPN detection” isn’t really a thing per se, so in theory you can use anything that’s geolocked with a VPN. The difference is some companies are more aggressive than others in blocking known VPN servers, if they block them at all. If you can’t use something via VPN, it’s because the service has blocked the IP of your VPN endpoint as a known VPN server. Some services claim they will guarantee you unblocked IPs for streaming for a premium.