Every Japan deal is decided in what goes unsaid.
Japan market-entry consulting for overseas companies. Negotiation advisory at the core, everything around your entry managed through one person.
Send me a recording of your meeting, or seat me beside you in the room. I read what the Japanese side actually means and hand you the next move. One side per deal.
No transcript records the moment a deal dies.
Translation is infrastructure now: free and instant. What it misses: the pen quietly set down, the pause before "we will consider it", the question that was actually a decision. Reading that room is the only thing I sell.
"It's an interesting proposal. We need internal discussion."
The decision-maker was not in the room. Find out who is, before the next date is set.
"Regarding the price, it is a little difficult."
Not a rejection. An invitation to restructure the offer. Move the variable, not the number.
(Silence, after your proposal.)
Silence is deliberation, not disinterest. The worst move now is to fill it.
Consultants stop at the meeting-room door. My work is inside it, on your side of the table.
ONE SIDE PER DEAL. NEVER NEUTRAL.Meeting Read
Send the recording of your last meeting. Within 48 hours: what was said, what it meant, and your next move.
Live Advisory Seat
I join the call beside you. Private reads while it happens, full debrief the same evening.
Deal Documents
AI translation or legal-specialist native translators? I advise on the right route for each document, we decide together, and you get the quote before anything starts. Backed by a 30-language network from my years running a translation company.
Monthly Retainer
Your standing seat at every Japan conversation that matters.
Your entire Japan entry, through one person.
Business trips, relocation, family and schools: partner specialists deliver, I coordinate. The practical side of your entry, handled.
BEYOND THE MEETING ROOM
Your entire Japan entry, through one person.
Most advisors stop at the deal. With MIKATA03, the practical side of entering Japan runs through the same single point of contact: delivered by vetted partner specialists, managed by me.
The kinds of rooms I've read.
Every case below comes straight from my own career. Counterparty names are withheld for confidentiality.
Closed my own M&A with a listed company
Due diligence, terms, closing: I ran every conversation myself, in both languages. I've lived an M&A not as a neutral voice in the corner, but as the party at the table with everything to lose.
Reading cross-border acquisition talks as they happen
I currently sit inside acquisition talks between Japanese and overseas companies in food & in-flight catering, reading intent at the exact point where deal jargon meets deal tactics.
300+ corporate & government clients
Running my own firm for 13 years, I sat in top-level sessions on both sides of the language, carrying sole responsibility for quality across a 1,000-linguist, 30-language network.
Twenty years on the Japanese side of the table.
Japanese language, Japanese business custom, Japanese decision-making: these are what overseas companies most need to read correctly, and they are exactly what I know from the inside. For more than 20 years I've sat where decisions actually get made in Japan, from boardrooms to closing tables.
The core of my story is the language services company I founded and ran for 13 years, serving 300+ corporate and government clients through a network of 1,000+ linguists across 30 languages. In 2019 the company joined a listed group through an M&A I negotiated myself: every conversation, in both languages, from due diligence to closing.
After seven years leading a global division at an education company, a team drawn from 30 countries, with P&L responsibility, I returned to independence in 2026. This service is the result.
Should you use AI in your Japan meetings? Yes. I do too.
AI gives you the words in real time, for free. But I once watched a Japanese executive quietly put down his pen after his question was dismissed as "basic," and never pick it up again. Three weeks later the deal was dead, and no transcript recorded why. Translation is infrastructure now. Reading the room is the game, and it is the only thing I sell.
Translation coordination lead, Osaka
Founded a language services company: 13 years, 300+ clients, 30 languages
Company joined a listed group via an M&A I negotiated as the principal; moved to a global education firm
Independent again. MIKATA03: one side per deal, never neutral
Questions people actually ask.
AI translation is free now. What exactly am I paying for?
Why not just hire an interpreter?
What's the difference between reading a meeting and designing one?
Do you attend meetings in person?
How fast can you turn a meeting around?
Which languages and sectors do you cover?
How does pricing work?
Can you help with the practical side of entering Japan too?
Dead Deal Autopsy. Free.
A deal that died costs nothing to examine. Send me the final recording or minutes of a Japan deal you lost, and I will tell you why it died: the moment, the misread, the words. No charge, no sales call attached.
Why free? Because dead deals are how you will judge my reading before trusting me with a live one.
See the product before you pay
A Meeting Read is a document, so I published one: a full four-part sample debrief. What was said, what was meant, the risks, your next moves. Fictional case, real standards.
Just left a meeting wondering what 前向きに meant? Try the translator.
Tell me about your deal.
A free 20-minute call. You'll leave knowing whether I can help, what it costs, and what to do next, even if the answer is "you don't need me". No sales pitches.