so im heading to tokyo and then up to hokkaido for about 3 weeks and obviously bringing the mini 4 pro. ive done a bit of reading but the rules there seem kind of complicated and im not sure if what im reading is up to date. from what i understand you need to register the drone and get some kind of permission number before you can even fly legally? and a lot of the national parks and coastal areas are just flat out no-go. anyone actually flown there recently and can tell me if the process was as annoying as it sounds

yeah went last spring, the registration thing is real and you do it through the DIPS system on the japan civil aviation bureau website. its a bit of a pain to navigate if you dont read japanese but google translate gets you through it. took maybe 2-3 days to get approved. the bigger headache honestly was figuring out where you can actually fly once you're there because so much of the urban stuff is just restricted. i ended up doing most of my flying in the rural bits of hokkaido and that was honestly way better anyway, scenery is unreal

cant help with the permit stuff but just wanted to say hokkaido is insane for drone footage, a friend sent me clips from up near biei and it looked like a screensaver or something. definitely worth the paperwork hassle