( last update: 5/15/16 )

Hello! I’m /r/kogaoogami, and I’m making this due to the common misconception that you have to buy a Japanese iTunes cards in order to get into the Japanese app store, when, really, it shouldn’t cost a penny. I hope it’ll be easy to follow!

First:

You need to download iTunes on your computer. Linked here.

Second:

 Once you have that set up, open it and scroll to the very bottom.

Change your country’s flag to Japan’s, setting your region to that location.

It’s a bit of a scroll, but it’s under the Asia Pacific subheading.

Three:

This is an important step, so please pay mind to it!

Once you have your region set, choose to download any free app. This will ensure later on that you have the option to choose None for your payment.

In my example, I searched for ‘Line’.

After clicking ‘Get’, it will prompt you to create an account.

Four:

From there, you’ll go through the usual. You can input your details normally, as the only part that truly matters is when it asks for your location.

Ignore both of these -- your method should be set to ‘None’ as default.

For your first and last names, you will have to input Japanese characters, but go wild with the Phonetic.

What I’ve used in the example above is 真木 愛藍.

If a Japanese address isn’t readily available to you, you can use any random one you find, but in the example I’m providing it’s the address of a post office.

As for phone number, you can input your regular one, but if it’s already linked to a separate iTunes account then putting 3 080 5555555 will work fine.

Five:

Click to create the ID, verify the e-mail used, then you should be able to log on via whatever iOS device you have! You need to first sign out of your prior one to access the store, but don’t worry, you can switch between the two accounts with no problem if you ever need to go back.

Six:

Finally… after opening the app store, you can search  あんさんぶるスターズ！ and download Ensemble Stars! Searching Happy Elements and scrolling down until you see it works fine, too.

Thank you, and I hope that this was helpful!