Lives off the usual path

In "Born in Japan," besides lives that follow the statistics, high-variance paths sometimes open up. They appear only when the family you're born into, your natural gifts, what you build up from childhood, and luck all line up. Most of these paths are built so that failure is more common than success.

What you're born with

At birth, your IQ (how readily you learn), EQ (social skills), and talent for comedy, music and art are set as hidden values. Most people are ordinary, and a very few stand out. People with high EQ get friends who help them study, earn promotions through popularity and get invited to run for office. A high IQ with low EQ can cost you socially. On the results screen, you can see your approximate IQ and how high your EQ is. All of these values and their effects are assumptions.

Chasing a dream (comedian, musician, artist, actor, singer or idol)

If your talent is high, "signs" appear in childhood. Choosing "comedy and impressions," "singing and instruments," "drawing and crafts," "drama and acting" or "singing and dancing" as your "focus this year" builds your skill, and you can also hone it at the school festival at 16. Only people with enough talent and skill get the option to chase their dream in the year they finish school.

While you chase your dream, each year decides which stage you're at: "paying your dues → making a living → breakout → making your mark on the era." While paying your dues, every few years you choose whether to keep going or quit. Running every life on auto, about 1 in 45 people chase a dream, and most give it up along the way. About 1 in 200 reach "making a living," about 1 in 1,000 break out and about 1 in 10,000 reach the top. Singers and idols start to "graduate" in their late 20s, splitting into those who go solo and those who leave show business. There are no statistics on the chance of success or income, so these are assumptions.

Paths that start with what you loved as a child

Around the time you start elementary school, you pick something to get absorbed in: sports, books, games or lessons, plus fields where you have high talent (singing or instruments, drawing or making things, impressions, acting, singing and dancing). Skill in what you love grows little by little through elementary school, and in junior high you can pick a club that fits it (brass band or choir, art, drama, dance, sports, science). If you stick with it in your club and your skill is high enough, you're more likely to go to a music or art university, and in the year you finish school you get the option to take on that path. People who loved being active are also more likely to be recruited by the Self-Defense Forces, the police or the fire service. How skill grows and how strong these links are are assumptions.

Talent agencies, and taking on your chosen path

People who studied music, theater and film, art or physical education, who were scouted, or who became trainees in their teens always get the option to seriously take on that path in the year they finish school. You choose where to try from agencies with different strengths in each field. No real agency names are used.

• Major idol agency: Only about 1 in several dozen gets in. You can also start as a trainee in your teens, and if you debut, reaching the top is easier
• Singing and dance audition show: If you're picked, you debut all at once
• Major agency strong in acting / theater company: Major agencies get you TV drama and film work more easily. Anyone can join a theater company and build skills there, but pay is low
• Training school of a major comedy agency: Anyone who pays the tuition can get in, but there are many classmates and competition is fierce
• Major record label or music agency / indie: The majors are a narrow gate, and big if you make it
• Small agency or "live idol": Easy to start, hard to rise

If you fail a major audition, you start at a small agency. How easy it is to get in, the chance of success and income are assumptions.

A big turnaround with Bitcoin and NVIDIA

At some point between 2011 and 2021, you may get a chance to buy Bitcoin. From 2015 to 2023 there is also a chance to buy shares of NVIDIA, which drew attention for AI and chips. While you hold them, their value moves with actual year-end prices. Bitcoin was about $754 in 2013, about $14,156 in 2017, about $3,746 in 2018, about $16,536 in 2022 and about $87,640 in 2025 (CoinLore). NVIDIA (adjusted for stock splits) was about $0.8 in 2015, about $14 in 2022 and about $187 in 2025 (calculated from the closing price at the end of 2025 and the annual percentage changes). When your holdings grow 5x, 20x or 100x, or fall to half or less, you choose whether to sell or keep holding. People who bought Bitcoin by 2013 may lose it in the 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox.

Stock gains are taxed at about 20.315%. Bitcoin gains count as miscellaneous income, so the tax is simplified to get heavier the larger the gain. Yen-dollar exchange rate movements, prices from 2026 on, the details of the tax calculation, and buying and selling on auto are assumptions.

Presence, scouting, dating reality shows, and influencers

Your "presence" (charisma) is also set at birth. People with presence in their teens and 20s may be scouted on the street by a talent agency, which makes the path to acting or to becoming a singer or idol easier to open. People in their 20s from 2012 on may be invited to appear on a dating reality show. If you appear, you may find a partner on the show or see your followers suddenly jump, but you may also face vicious online abuse after it airs (in response to how serious online abuse had become, penalties for the crime of insult were raised in 2022).

From 2014 on, you can also start posting on Instagram or TikTok. Once you pass 10,000 followers (a micro-influencer), companies ask you for sponsored posts, which become side income. Since October 2023, stealth marketing has been regulated under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations, and sponsored posts must be labeled "PR." On auto, about 1 in 6 people who start posting pass 10,000 followers. The distribution of presence, the chances of being scouted or appearing on a show, how followers grow and income from sponsored posts are assumptions.

People called "cute" who get confessions

People with high presence and a talent for idol work or acting are called "cute" by relatives and neighbors from a young age, and may even be entered as child models. In junior high and high school, people confess their feelings to them or give them chocolate on Valentine's Day (confessions come by letter, email or LINE depending on the era), and they may be nominated for contests at school or university festivals. The first time someone confesses, you choose whether to go out with them or turn them down. If it happens while you're a trainee at an idol agency, you're torn between it and the agency's "no dating" rule. Standing out can also lead to the frightening experience of being persistently followed. All of these rates are assumptions.

Pro athletes and entrepreneurs

If you have athletic talent and honed it by choosing sports as your "focus this year," the path to going pro opens in the year you finish school. Some go from corporate teams or independent leagues to the pros and then the national team, but injuries can close the path, and athletes retire in their 30s. Those who reach the national team go on to a second life as commentators or coaches.

In your 30s, there is also a path to starting a company to fix an inconvenience you noticed at work. Most companies run out of money and vanish within a few years, some get on track, and very rarely one goes public. The chance of going pro, the chances of a startup surviving or going public, and the resulting wealth are assumptions.

Self-Defense Forces, police, firefighter, pilot, fisher, farmer, artisan, Buddhist priest, astronaut

In the year you finish school, you may be offered a job that suits you: the Self-Defense Forces, police or fire service for people strong in fitness or sports; pilot (trained in-house by an airline) for top university graduates; fishing or farming for families outside the big cities; artisan work for people good with their hands; and the priesthood for people born into a temple family. Self-Defense Force members have disaster relief deployments and an early mandatory retirement in their mid-50s; police officers can be promoted to detective; firefighters rescue people; pilots face training checks and promotion to captain; artisans go independent from their master; and priests take over as head of the temple.

Especially capable people, such as science graduate school graduates, doctors and pilots, may come across JAXA's call for astronaut candidates. In the 2021–2023 selection, a record 4,127 people applied and 2 were chosen (JAXA, announced February 2023). The share of people in each job, income and the probability of events are assumptions.

A farmer's life: the family rice paddies, scaling up, successors, and new farmers

Real data (MAFF, Survey on the Dynamics of Agricultural Structure 2026, as of February 1, 2026): There were 986,600 core agricultural workers (individuals whose main work is farming), down 4.8% from the previous year and less than half of the roughly 2.05 million in 2010. Their average age is 67.7; 56.5% are 70 or older, 3.8% are in their 30s and 1.2% are 29 or younger. Agricultural management entities number 799,700 (down 4.4%), but corporations are increasing, at 34,600 (up 2.4%). Cultivated land per entity is 3.8 ha (34.6 ha in Hokkaido, 2.7 ha elsewhere). By the sector with the highest sales: rice 55.7%, fruit 13.9%, open-field vegetables 10.2%, greenhouse vegetables 6.7%, beef cattle 2.4%, dairy 1.2%. Of individual farm operations, 65.7% are "side-business" operations that earn more from non-farm income. Of entities growing rice for sale, 58.7% farm less than 1 ha, and only the 10 ha-plus group is growing.

For people who become farmers, what they grow is set by the sector shares above (with more dairy and field crops in Hokkaido, more fruit in Aomori, Nagano, Yamanashi, Yamagata, Wakayama and Ehime, and more beef cattle in Kagoshima and Miyazaki), and the area farmed differs between Hokkaido and the rest of Japan. Events of the times also occur: rice acreage reduction (gentan, 1971–2017), the Heisei rice shortage (1993), the abolition of the Staple Food Control Act (1995), BSE (2001), foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki (2010), reputational damage after the nuclear accident (2011, Fukushima Prefecture), the Reiwa rice shortage and the release of stockpiled rice (2024–2025), and rising feed and fuel costs.

Assumption: The share of people from farming families (a rough estimate that is higher for earlier birth years and for rural areas), the share who keep up the family paddies part-time, income by crop, the probability and cost of events, the effects of scaling up, incorporating and farm stands, the chance a child takes over, and the share of city people who newly take up farming.

The nightlife world: cabaret clubs, host clubs, bartenders, izakaya, snack bars

Real data and estimates: There are about 60,000 licensed hospitality venues nationwide, such as cabaret clubs (kyabakura), hostess clubs and host clubs (National Police Agency statistics on adult entertainment businesses). Per capita, Okinawa has several times the national average, and Kagoshima, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto and Fukuoka also have many. Snack bars (small bars run by a "mama") are said to have spread after regulations around the time of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics; at their peak in the 1990s there were about 120,000, and today there are about 45,000, with an estimated 10,000 closing during the COVID-19 period. There are said to be about 10,000–12,000 hosts and about 1,100 host clubs nationwide, concentrated in Tokyo's Kabukicho and in Osaka (estimates from industry job sites). In 1985, a new Adult Entertainment Business Act sharply restricted late-night business, and in June 2025, it became illegal to exploit romantic feelings to push customers into expensive spending, or to pressure them to pay on the grounds of a tab (urikake).

Between about 18 and 30, people who live in a big city or a prefecture with many nightlife venues, who are struggling financially, who are non-regular workers or who draw people in are more likely to be recruited into the nightlife world. Recruitment as a host happens only in big cities with host clubs, and only from 1975 on. Women before 1985 are depicted as "club hostesses" rather than cabaret club workers. Hostesses and hosts reach a fork after about five years, and bartenders and izakaya workers after about eight, on whether to open their own place, and they may become the mama or master of a snack bar, a bar owner or an izakaya owner. If you have your own place, you live through the bubble boom, the Lehman shock, COVID-19 closure requests and cooperation payments, and your regulars growing old. Office workers also have paths like quitting to open an izakaya, a favorite snack bar, client entertainment at clubs, and getting hooked and blowing money.

Assumption: The chance of being recruited, the income boost, the chance of making the rankings or becoming a star, the cost of opening a place and the chance it closes, the probability and cost of events as a customer, and the health effects of a nocturnal lifestyle.

Training as an artisan: apprenticeship or school

When you aim to become an artisan (sushi chef, carpenter or traditional crafts), you choose between a traditional apprenticeship (for sushi, it's long been said: "three years cooking rice, eight years making nigiri") and learning efficiently at school (sushi academies since around 2002, vocational training schools for carpenters, specialized schools for crafts). If your family runs a workshop, you can also learn the family trade from your parents. Apprentices are paid little, and some quit during the first few years, but once fully trained they can be granted noren-wake (permission to open a branch under the master's name), and their independent shops are more likely to last. School gets you fully trained faster, but with no one backing you.

You grow in stages: making nigiri in front of customers for the first time, being trusted to cut joints in pillars, putting your work out into the world, being recognized as fully trained, going independent (for sushi, there is also a path to working at a restaurant abroad), and taking on apprentices; the line for each year changes to match your stage. Certification as a Traditional Craftsman requires 12 or more years of hands-on experience. How skill grows, the share who quit, whether going independent succeeds, and tuition and startup costs are assumptions.

Skills, qualifications, and pixel art

A driver's license, Eiken (English proficiency test), a judo black belt, piano, bookkeeping, a real estate broker license, programming, finishing a full marathon, a trip around the world: the things you gained over your life are listed on the results screen. They are easier to get in years when you chose study, sports, reskilling, health or hobbies as your "focus this year," and some come from the industry you work in. Some qualifications raise your income a little. The chance of getting them and their effect on income are assumptions.

For the pixel art, hairstyle, hair color, skin tone and glasses are set at birth, and items and backgrounds change with each stage of life. Comedians get a center mic, musicians a guitar, doctors a white coat, politicians a campaign sash; in years spent in prison you are drawn behind the walls, and comedians and singers who made it are drawn on a stage under a spotlight.

Medical school and retaking exams

People born into doctors' families, or with top grades, can aim for medical school. The entrance exam is judged every year, and if you don't make it, you choose whether to keep studying for another year as a ronin (a student retaking exams) or go to a different department. If you pass, you study for six years and become a doctor, and your income rises sharply. On auto, about 1% of everyone becomes a doctor (medical school admissions are just under 1% of 18-year-olds). The pass rate, the improvement from each year of retaking, and the boost to doctors' income are assumptions.

Elite private elementary schools, CEO families, and politicians

• Elite private elementary schools: In wealthy urban families, there is an elementary school entrance exam at age 5 (such as Keio Yochisha). If you pass, you can go on almost entirely within the same school system up through university.
• A family that runs a listed company: Very rarely, you are born into one. You choose whether to join your father's company, and you may take over as president at 45. You may also step down because of poor results, and there is a large inheritance in your 50s.
• Politicians: People from families with a political base, or with high EQ and popularity, get invited to run for office. Elections come every four years, and you can also run for national office. You may resign over a political funding scandal. Pay is set at a rough guide of about ¥8 million a year for city council members and about ¥21 million a year for members of the National Diet.

The birth rates, pass rates and election win rates, and pay levels are all assumptions.

Hairdressers and YouTubers

If you go to beauty school, you move from assistant to stylist, and at 32 you can choose whether to open your own salon. On YouTube, you can start posting videos from 2012 on. Most channels never take off, and a very few go viral and gain subscribers. Once you pass 100,000, you can choose whether to quit your job and go full-time. There are online backlashes, too. The probabilities and income are assumptions.

Born as an immigrant or of mixed heritage

The share of children born with one foreign parent, and that parent's nationality, are real data from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Vital Statistics (annual births by parents' nationality, 1987–2024). In 2024, 2.3% of births had one foreign parent. Before 1985, a child with a Japanese mother and a foreign father could not hold Japanese nationality (this changed with the 1985 revision of the Nationality Act).

The chance of being born in Japan to two foreign parents is estimated from the number of residents and nationality shares by prefecture in the Immigration Services Agency's Statistics on Foreign Residents (end of June 2025, 3.957 million foreign residents) (the conversion rate to births and the levels before 2012 are assumptions). In older generations, many are born into Zainichi Korean families.

People who live as foreign nationals experience being turned down when looking for housing or work. In the Ministry of Justice's Foreign Residents Survey Report (2017), 39.3% of foreigners who looked for housing had been refused a rental, and 25.0% of those who looked for work had been refused a job, because they were foreign. Around age 20, there is also a scene where you decide whether to take Japanese nationality (naturalize) or choose a nationality.

Children raised in a religion, and religious incidents that shook society

Rarely, you are born into a devout family (the families in the game are not given real religious group names). There are events such as taking part in religious activities, restrictions on friendships and schooling, hardship caused by donations, and physical punishment, as well as decisions at 17 and 25 about "how to face the faith" and "whether to leave." The types of events are based on the items in the Chiki Lab (Social Research Support Organization) Survey of "Second-Generation Religious Believers" (2022, 1,131 respondents). In that survey, about 60% of respondents who had left experienced a worsening relationship with their family. However, it was an open-call survey, and these are not shares for second-generation believers as a whole. The survey report asks that its data not be used in ways that reinforce prejudice against second-generation believers or religion in general. All likelihoods in the game are assumptions.

Real religious group names appear only for events established by courts or official records: the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by Aum Shinrikyo (March 20, 1995; 14 people died and more than 6,000 were injured); the shooting of a former prime minister (2022), after which large donations to the former Unification Church were reported; and the dissolution order against the former Unification Church (issued by the Tokyo District Court in March 2025 and finalized by the Supreme Court in 2026, with damages from donations and other harm found to involve at least 1,500 people and about ¥20.4 billion). People who were young in 1987–1994 rarely encounter recruitment disguised as a yoga or meditation group.

Yakuza, crime, and alcohol

Men with a history of delinquency, from struggling families, who didn't go to university rarely get an invitation to join a yakuza group. At the end of 2024 (Reiwa 6) there were 18,800 yakuza members and associate members, and in the same year 8,249 members, associate members and affiliates were arrested (National Police Agency, Organized Crime Situation in 2024). Joining brings the risk of arrest, prison, and injury or death in conflicts, and income is unstable. Even after leaving, for about five years it stays hard to open bank accounts or sign leases.

"Dark part-time jobs" (yami baito, criminal gigs recruited online) that reach young people short on money, embezzlement by office workers in debt, drunk driving and more also happen. After prison, it is harder to choose a job. At 21 you choose how you drink, and heavy drinkers have mishaps like missing the last train, losing their wallet or getting belligerent with their boss. In 2025 (Reiwa 7), 200,663 people were arrested for Penal Code offenses (National Police Agency, Crime Situation in 2025). The rate of invitations and the probability of what follows are assumptions.

A life hooked on fortune-telling, and spiritual sales scams

At birth, how strongly you believe in fate and destined connections is also set. It is somewhat stronger in younger generations, people with good social skills, and women (in private surveys, about 1 in 3 people have changed their behavior because of a fortune-teller, with the tendency stronger among younger people). People with strong beliefs may get hooked on fortune-telling in their 20s and 30s, putting off job changes, breaking up with partners over compatibility, or choosing where to move by lucky directions.

If painful things like divorce, bereavement, illness or job loss pile up while you're seeing a fortune-teller, you may be frightened with talk of "ancestral karma" or "misfortune befalling your family" and pushed to buy expensive vases or seals. If you buy, you later realize it was a spiritual sales scam (reikan shoho). After the 2018 revision of the Consumer Contract Act, you may be able to cancel the contract and get some of your money back. You can also choose to talk to your family or call the consumer hotline "188." The share who get hooked, the price of the vases and the share of money returned are assumptions.

Related: Where, and into what family, you are born / Accidents and crime / Work and wages

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