How to Purchase Music from iTunes Japan: A Guide for Non-Japan Fans

With the release of Kaisen Zenya on iTunes, many fans were despondent. The single is made available only in iTunes Japan, and for foreign fans it is a problem.

But there is a way to order the single without being a Japanese resident.

These are the steps you can take to successfully buy Kaisen Zenya, and other future Japan-only releases:
1. Make a Japan iTunes account. Don't worry if you don't understand Japanese - you can still make one through the US site or other English iTunes sites.

Last Name Pronounce and First Name Pronounce are phonetics. If you're creating an account using an iDevice, it will ask you for the katakana. Use a Japanese name generator in that case.

Next you will be asked to create your ID (username) and your password. That's easy. Though Apple will ask you to have at least one capital letter and number/symbol in your password.

But Security Questions will be tricky. Why? Once you're logged in to the Japan store, you will be asked to answer them at some point, and the questions may be in Japanese. So take note of which questions you choose (is it the first, second, third, fourth and so on question?).

Then input your Date of Birth and Rescue Email Address. 

Next is the important part of the process: your mailing address. 

Initially, the Country/Region portion will show United States or some other country. Change to Japan.

If you have a friend in Japan, kindly ask for their address with the specific information as seen below.

If you don't, you can use PSCompany's address (*wink wink*) or other Japan addresses but this will be in violation of iTunes's User Agreement. Choose this option at your own risk. 

In my case, I borrowed my friend's address.

Change your preferred language to English or to your own language.

Just finish the rest of the form and voila! You now have an iTunes Japan account!

2. Ordering the music. Once you're logged into the iTunes program (whether you're using Mac or PC or iOS), you will be asked to provide your payment information. 

Note: There is only one option available for non-Japan residents: an iTunes Japan gift card. Non-Japan issue credit card are not accepted. Whether your credit card is Mastercard, Visa, JCB, and others, if it's not from a Japanese bank, iTunes will reject it. 

So for payment method, under credit card, choose "None" (or something like that, I forgot). Go directly to the gift card box (the second payment method option). For this, only iTunes Japan gift cards are accepted. If you enter the code of a US or other country're gift card, iTunes will not accept that code.

You can ask a friend to purchase a gift card for you, or you can buy one for yourself from an online shop. 

I suggest you just buy a digital gift card like I did for a speedier process. There are various shops that sell digital codes, but I got mine from Play-Asia.com. (There are other gift card denominations available on the site.)

If buying from Play-Asia, just do the necessary steps to complete your digital gift card order.  Once you receive a confirmation email, go to your account page then click your item order number. 

In the following page, you'll find the code under Serial #/License Information. Enter the code in iTunes. Finish the rest of the form. You'll be informed that your gift card can now be used.

Go search for Alice Nine. Once the page loads, select Albums from the tabs. You'll see Kaisen Zenya in the list. Click the purchase link (the 400yen box). The whole single will be automatically downloaded to your PC, Mac, or iOS. 

Note: Do not purchase Kaisen Zenya and Exist separately. One song is 250yen, so if you buy one at a time you'll pay 500yen, which is 100 more than if you purchase the whole single. 

Now you're ready to rock out to Kaisen Zenya! Congratulations on your iTunes purchase!

If you have any questions, leave a comment or send an email to ninemirage@gmail.com.

Prepared by Seruka Sakamoto