so im heading to japan in about 5 weeks and obviously bringing the mini 3 pro because theres no way im leaving that at home. been trying to figure out the rules there and honestly its a mess to navigate. from what i can tell you need to register the drone with the civil aviation bureau before you go, and theres like a whole online system for it but its partially in japanese so ive been going back and forth between tabs trying to figure out what im actually signing up for.

also the no fly zones seem really aggressive, like basically every city center is restricted and you cant fly within like 150m of people which in tokyo is kind of everywhere. has anyone actually done this and managed to get any good footage or is it just not worth the hassle

yeah i did this last year, took the mavic 3 to kyoto and osaka. the registration thing is annoying but doable, just give yourself like 2 weeks minimum because sometimes the confirmation takes forever. the website does have an english option buried in there somewhere.

honestly the best spots i found were early morning, like 5-6am before anyone was around. got some insane shots over the bamboo forest near arashiyama before the tourists showed up. the key is just staying away from anything remotely urban and checking the DIPS 2.0 system for your specific flight area before you go out. some of the rural mountain areas are totally fine and basically no restrictions.

dont forget you also need flight insurance that covers japan specifically, i think some of the standard policies dont. learned that the hard way when i tried to sort it out at the airport lol