Terms of Service

Article 1 (Application and Consent)

These Terms apply to all relationships concerning the Service between you and the operating entity (an individual business operator; the “Operator”, “we”). The Operator's identifying details are disclosed without delay by email upon request (desk: support@ryugakujinja.com). You are deemed to consent to these Terms when you register an account, sign in, or otherwise use the Service.

We may publish feature-specific rules or notices (on-screen guidance, help pages, etc.). Such rules form part of these Terms; where they conflict, the more specific rule for that feature prevails. The Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Data Sources statement and Commerce Disclosure apply together with these Terms.

Article 2 (The Service and Its Role)

The Service is a self-serve support platform for people preparing to study, enroll or work in Japan. Its main features are:

• Route planning for admissions and job hunting, timeline management, and profile management;
• Search and matching of professors/researchers based on public academic data, and browsing of databases on universities, research fields and keywords;
• AI drafting, formatting and review of application and career documents (research plans, statements of purpose, ES, emails);
• AI parsing and reading support for documents such as admission guidelines and job postings;
• Exam practice (the Dojo: practice questions, mock tests and a mistake notebook for aptitude tests such as SPI and Tamatebako, IT certifications, etc.);
• Industry and company research materials (including AI-assisted company reports), knowledge content on life in Japan, and conversational guidance (the Advisor desk).

The Service provides tools and information for your own preparation and judgment. The Operator is not a study-abroad agent, cram school, certified administrative scrivener, attorney or employment agency, and does not negotiate with or complete procedures toward any school, professor, company or authority on your behalf. Use of the Service creates no mandate, agency or advisory relationship between you and the Operator.

Article 3 (Accounts)

• Registration: some features require an account. Provide true, accurate and complete information and keep it updated.
• Authentication: accounts are authenticated by email and password, one-time verification codes, or an enabled third-party identity service such as Google sign-in. When using third-party sign-in, you must also safeguard that third-party account and your signed-in devices. Accounts may not be transferred, lent or shared; actions performed with your credentials are deemed yours.
• One account per person: unless we agree otherwise, you may register only one account, and may not register multiple accounts to circumvent free quotas, Hatsuho or other limits.
• Minors: users under 18 must have the consent of a legal guardian to register, use the Service, and purchase paid features.
• Security: notify us immediately if you find unauthorized use of your account. Except where attributable to us, you bear losses arising from failure to safeguard your credentials.

For accounts violating these Terms or the law, we may without prior notice warn, restrict features, suspend, or delete the account, and are not obliged to explain the grounds individually.

Article 4 (Fees, Subscriptions and Hatsuho)

• For new purchases from 15 October 2026, tool Hatsuho point packs cost US$10 for 20,000 points or US$30 for 75,000 points, each valid for 180 days. New accounts receive 3,000 Hatsuho for their first 7 days, then 1,000 every 7 days. When this policy starts, existing accounts also receive a one-time 3,000 Hatsuho grant valid for 7 days, then move to the 1,000-per-7-day cycle. Weekly free Hatsuho expires and does not accumulate; paid accounts receive it too. The soonest-expiring free points are spent first, and purchased points remain separate for 180 days. Five complete Dojo subjects are free: Driving License Theory, JLPT N4, JLPT N5, SPI job aptitude and Tamatebako. They do not use the daily free question allowance; other subjects share an account-wide limit of 20 questions per day. Paid single-subject access lasts 12 calendar months and costs US$9.90, US$14.90 or US$24.90. One-time Dojo PASS terms last 3, 6 or 12 calendar months for US$14.90, US$24.90 or US$39.90. PASS covers the 36 verified paid subjects listed at purchase, plus any paid subjects released during its term, and includes neither tool points nor Standard or Premium membership. Subject and offer details appear at checkout. USD prices include applicable taxes; JPY amounts are estimates. New sales of the former monthly Standard/Premium plans, monthly Dojo pass and half-price renewals are closed. Existing subscriptions, orders and confirmed renewals retain their purchase terms and entitlement periods.
• New point packs, single subjects and PASS are charged once at checkout and do not renew automatically. Active legacy monthly subscriptions continue to be charged on their actual renewal dates under their original terms until canceled; account cancellation remains available. Your card issuer determines the debit date.
• Access is granted after the payment provider shown at checkout confirms payment. Each new point pack lasts 180 days from grant; buying another does not extend an older pack. Single-subject access lasts 12 JST calendar months. A repeat purchase extends from the current expiry, while a purchase after expiry starts on the new purchase date. PASS lasts 3, 6 or 12 JST calendar months; a purchase during an active term extends from the current expiry, and a purchase after expiry starts on the new purchase date. Existing rights retain their original terms.
• For tools using new point packs, points are checked and charged at the rate frozen for each run against actual usage corresponding to complete, valid delivery. Charges stay within that run’s cap, and insufficient funds block execution. We bear platform failures, runs with no valid result and necessary mechanical repairs, without extra charge. Charges never make the balance negative. Fixed-point features follow the rate shown at use. Existing subscriptions and allowances continue under their purchase terms.
• Each new point pack expires 180 days after grant; buying a new pack does not extend an older pack's expiry. Weekly free Hatsuho expires after 7 days, does not accumulate and is also granted to paid accounts. The soonest-expiring free points are spent before purchased points, which keep their own expiry. Points are nontransferable, cannot be redeemed for cash and lapse when an account is deleted. Legacy subscription allowances retain their purchase terms; canceling renewal does not immediately revoke paid-period rights.
• New single-subject access and PASS do not renew automatically; former half-price renewals are no longer sold. At expiry, question-bank and mock access based on that purchase ends, while other valid rights follow their own terms. Confirmed earlier renewals and active legacy subscriptions are unaffected by new prices. Legacy subscriptions remain manageable and cancelable from the account area.
• You may cancel an existing monthly subscription at any time through Membership & Billing. Charges stop from the next renewal date; paid rights remain until the current period ends, and started periods are not refunded pro rata. Cancellations or returns of purchased digital access for personal reasons after use begins are generally not accepted. Unused orders remain subject to the refund principles applicable at purchase; this revision adds no new restriction. If service failure makes paid features substantially unusable, or a refund is required by law, we handle it through the actual payment provider. This does not limit statutory rights.
• We may change prices, plans or Hatsuho-consumption rates; changes applying to existing subscriptions will be notified by reasonable means before the applicable renewal date.
• Payments are processed by the provider shown at checkout; we do not store your full card number.

Article 5 (Nature of the AI Tools; Your Duty to Verify)

Generation, review, matching, parsing and transcription features rely on third-party large language models (LLMs) and related AI technology. AI outputs are probabilistic and may contain errors, omissions, outdated information or “hallucinations” (plausible but untrue content); the same input may yield different outputs at different times.

• AI outputs and data displays are for reference and assistance only, and are not legal, immigration/residence, academic, financial, tax or career advice;
• For high-impact information — application deadlines, admission guidelines, residence status, costs, hiring conditions — you must rely on the latest official information from schools, authorities and companies;
• The Service guarantees no outcome, including admission, visas or residence status, scholarships, or job offers;
• You are responsible for the content, truthfulness and compliance of anything you finally submit to third parties, and must verify it yourself before submission.

Schools and institutions have their own rules on AI assistance and academic integrity. You are responsible for checking and complying with the rules of your target institutions, including any duty to disclose AI use.

Article 6 (Prohibited Conduct)

In using the Service, you must not:

• Violate laws or public order, or infringe the rights or interests of the Operator or third parties;
• Register under a false identity, or upload/submit third-party personal information, confidential information, or IP-protected content without authority;
• Scrape, crawl, bulk-download or reverse engineer the Service without authorization, or impose unreasonable load on its interfaces by automated means;
• Resell, sublicense, or use the Service's content, data curation or outputs to build competing databases or services;
• Attempt to bypass the Service's safety limits, scope limits or billing mechanisms, including by prompt injection;
• Circumvent free quotas, Hatsuho or feature limits by registering multiple accounts or sharing accounts;
• Transmit malware, or destroy, interfere with, or gain unauthorized access to the Service's systems, networks or data;
• Use the Service to facilitate academic misconduct (e.g. ghostwriting, impersonation in exams);
• Use the Service to generate or submit answers during any third-party selection process, examination, or assessment;
• Engage in any other conduct the Operator reasonably deems inappropriate.

All practice, explanation, drafting, and revision features of the Service assume final review and editing by you.

For violations we may remove content, restrict features, suspend or delete accounts, and claim damages.

Article 7 (User Content and License)

“User Content” means everything you submit or upload to the Service, including text (research plans, statements, ES, email drafts), profile information, files (PDFs, screenshots, résumés), and voice-input audio and its transcripts. You retain your rights in User Content.

• You grant the Operator a non-exclusive license to store, copy, parse, process and display User Content to you, to the extent necessary to provide, maintain, protect and improve the Service;
• To generate AI results, your inputs, uploaded files and voice data are sent to third-party AI providers (such as DeepSeek and Google) for processing — see the Privacy Policy;
• By using the Service you agree that we record your usage data under the Privacy Policy and use it, together with User Content, to improve the Service; behavior analytics can be turned off in settings at any time;
• You warrant that you hold the necessary rights in your User Content and that its submission and processing infringe no third-party rights;
• You can delete saved content (drafts, review results, experience cards, favorites, timelines) within the Service.

As between you and the Operator, the Operator claims no exclusive rights in AI outputs generated for you, and you may use them for your own admission and career preparation. Identical or similar outputs may however be provided to other users; no originality or registrability is guaranteed.

Article 8 (Intellectual Property)

• IP rights in the Service's software, UI, design, copy, data curation and practice-question content (excluding third-party data and User Content) belong to the Operator or its licensors;
• Academic information displayed on the Service (professors, universities, papers, grants) derives from third-party public sources (researchmap, KAKEN, CiNii, official university sites, etc.) and belongs to the respective rights holders — see the Data Sources page;
• Subject to your compliance with these Terms, the Operator grants you a limited, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to use the Service for personal admission and career preparation;
• You may not copy, republish, publicly transmit or resell the Service's content or data curation without our prior written consent (statutory quotation and similar exceptions aside).

Article 9 (Changes, Interruption and Termination of the Service)

• We may add, change, suspend or terminate all or part of the Service at any time for operational or technical reasons; termination likely to materially disadvantage users will be announced in advance by reasonable means;
• The Service may be temporarily or permanently unavailable due to maintenance, failures, communication problems, force majeure, or changes/outages of third-party services (AI providers, payments, cloud infrastructure);
• We make reasonable efforts to preserve your account data and generated results but do not guarantee permanent retention. Please back up important content yourself.

Article 10 (Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability)

The Service is provided “as is”. To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Operator makes no warranty, express or implied, as to accuracy, completeness, currency, fitness, uninterrupted operation or freedom from errors.

• To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for decisions you make in reliance on the Service's information, data or AI outputs, or their consequences;
• Where we are liable to you in contract or tort, except in cases of intent or gross negligence, damages are limited to direct and ordinary losses actually incurred, capped at the amount you actually paid for the Service in the 12 months preceding the loss;
• These exclusions and limits do not apply to the extent prohibited by mandatory rules such as the Consumer Contract Act, nor to damage caused by our intent or gross negligence.

Article 11 (Withdrawal; Effect of Account Termination)

• You may delete your account at any time following the guidance in your account pages. Cancel any subscription first; unused Hatsuho lapses at withdrawal without refund;
• After suspension or deletion, access to the Service and saved content stops immediately. Export anything you need before withdrawing;
• After account deletion we process and delete personal information under the Privacy Policy; records needed for security, dispute handling or legal obligations may be retained for the necessary period;
• If your account is deleted for violating these Terms, fees already paid are not refunded except where mandatory law requires otherwise.

Provisions that by nature should survive (IP, disclaimers and liability limits, governing law and jurisdiction, etc.) survive account termination.

Article 12 (Exclusion of Anti-Social Forces)

You represent and warrant that you are not, and will not in the future be, a member of or affiliated with organized crime groups or other anti-social forces, will not use such forces, and will not provide funding or other cooperation to them. On breach, we may immediately suspend the Service and delete your account without demand, and bear no liability for resulting damage.

Article 13 (Amendment of These Terms)

These Terms are standardized terms under the Civil Code of Japan. We may amend them where the amendment conforms to the general interest of users, or is reasonable in light of its necessity, the appropriateness of the amended content and other circumstances. We will announce the amended content and its effective date in advance by reasonable means (posting on the Service or email); continued use after the effective date constitutes consent.

Article 14 (Miscellaneous: No Assignment; Severability; Language; Governing Law and Jurisdiction; Contact)

• You may not assign or encumber your position or rights and obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent;
• If part of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the remainder remains in force;
• The Japanese text of these Terms is the authentic text; Chinese and English versions are courtesy translations, and the Japanese text prevails in case of discrepancy;
• These Terms are governed by the laws of Japan; the Tokyo District Court has exclusive agreed jurisdiction in the first instance over disputes arising in connection with the Service;
• Contact for inquiries about these Terms: support@ryugakujinja.com.