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Or you could just show up and buy your ticket/pay your fare on the spot like 99% of the rest of Japan.

Think I’ve only ever had to buy a ticket online once before in all my years in Japan.

I'm visited Japan for the first time recently and that's what I'd recommend as well. At first I tried to search for it online and when I couldn't figure it out within 2 minutes, I decided I'll deal with it later. When I got to the station, there are machines that support English which you can enter your destination and whether you wanna include the IC fare. Haven't had any problems so far

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