I just wanted to share my detailed experience purchasing Studio Ghibli Museum tickets on January 10th, 2026 (Japan time and date) for February 2026, as a tourist from outside Japan. I’d read some older threads here of tips and tricks which helped, but if you’re like me and want a bit more structure maybe my experience will be beneficial for you during the next sale period.
- Tickets go on sale for international visitors outside of Japan on the 10th of each month at 10am local time Japan. For me in mountain time in the US that was Jan 9th, 2026 at 6pm local time.
- To access the tickets page visit: https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/tickets/ and scroll down to the “Lawson Ticket (English)” button to jump to the Lawson ticket purchasing page. After accepting the terms scroll to the bottom of the Lawson page and you’ll see which tickets are currently or soon to be on sale. (Note: if you are looking anytime other than on or before the 10th in Japan, you’re likely only to see limited tickets for the current month.)
- Beginning on the 9th, a few hours before tickets went on sale, there was a new section for February 2026 that mentioned “tickets not yet available” but clicking it allowed you to see the calendar.
- 30 minutes before ticket went on sale (9:30am on the 10th in Japan, 5:30pm on the 9th in US-MST), from the “not yet available calendar” page, the website places you into a Queue-It queue (in reality it was around 5:32pm local time when it changed for me). At this point I would not refresh or leave the page. It doesn’t yet have a line position number, just a random ID, but you will want to stay on this page for the remainder of your time until you secure your tickets.
- At 10am on the 10th in Japan (6pm local time for me), or a minute after, the page refreshes, changes to a progress bar of a person walking, and minute or two later provides you with a RANDOM line position (more on the randomness below). Do not refresh or leave this page or you will lose your spot and will have to start over. While it is random I would not recommend this to try to get an earlier spot.
- The page will provide you with 3 main metrics: 1) how many people are ahead of you in the line, 2) an ESTIMATE on how much longer it will take, and 3) what time it will be (Japan time) when you are able to purchase.
- When it is your time the page will redirect you to the purchasing calendar, where you can pick your desired day and time based on what remains available, as well as the number of tickets you want (looks to be capped at 6 people at least for adults). Note there is a legend for the symbols in the top right. Select your desired date and time and the page will proceed to request your email and phone number. Note: you CANNOT copy and paste your email or phone to prevent errors. This slowed my flow as I had them typed in a notepad on my devices to copy/paste, so just a heads up.
- This is where things began to fall apart for me, and something thankfully other Reddit posts prepared me for: the dreaded 503 Error, letting you know the server is unavailable due to demand. But don’t lose hope, press the Blue back button on the page and you’ll head back to the beginning, where it will look like you’ve started over, but so long as you stay in the same browser window, its going to now skip the queue. That’s the most important part: Do not close your browser window or use your browser refresh, just proceed through the pages again as you did before.
- For me I received the 503 Error a whopping 7 times. But I was determined to get my tickets and on the 8th try the page advanced correctly and requests your: name, nationality to match your passport, and arrival and departure airports. You will then be taken to the credit card info page, and potentially sent to a credit card verification page from your bank.
- And that’s it! It’s a process, it’s frustrating, but it is absolutely doable with good luck, timing, and determination.
Below are some additional metrics for the nerds like me who are interested based on my experience today (Jan 2026 for Feb 2026 tickets):
- I logged into the site on from 4 devices, with 5 browsers total: ** Devices: 1 PC, 1 MacBook, 1 iPad, 1 iPhone. ** Browsers: Safari for Mac, Firefox for Mac, Chrome for PC, Safari for iPad, Safari for iPhone.
*Once I made it to the queue, all of which happened with about 20 seconds of each other, I was given the following spots and wait times (note the RANDOM comment above): 1. PC (Spot 1086, estimated wait 12 minutes) 2. iPhone (Spot 2040, estimated wait 21 minutes) 3. iPad (Spot 3330, estimated wait 34 minutes) 4. MacBook - Safari (Spot 5714, estimated wait 57 minutes) 5. MacBook - Firefox (Spot 9647, estimated wait more than an hour)
*The shortest quoted wait time was 12 minutes on my PC, and this was the device I ultimately used to purchase, but I see no reason to expect the PC worked any better than the other devices, it was truly random. In reality it took 13 minutes from entering the queue to being able to select tickets. * As mentioned above I encountered the 503 Error 7 times. * Once I got past those, all in all it took me 24 minutes to successfully get my tickets (confirmed at 6:24pm local time, 10:24am Japan time)!
*My second best spot, my iPhone, entered the queue at 6:22pm local time, so also 1 minute more than quoted, and encountered the same 503 Error, so again for anyone playing the device/browser game, it truly seems to be luck of the random draw. I of course exited the queue on my other devices to free up spaces for others.
Hope my experience helps you! Remember, don’t leave the queue, don’t refresh the browser, and best of luck!
No museum should ever be this hard to gain entry into lol
Ha! Hype creates demand, and so much of Japan travel seems to generate hype. So long as it’s warranted (and based on everyone’s reviews it seems to be) I think it can be a good thing. lol. Also I like the fact they limit admission so it’s not just overly jam-packed and no fun.
Maybe I’m an outlier, but I don’t think it’s warranted. The museum isn’t really accommodating to foreigners. Signs are only in Japanese and the short film has no subtitles (pretty dialogue-heavy too). I don’t know that it’s very rewarding even as a big Ghibli fan.
I’m still glad I went because I loved the Inokashira park next to it, but I don’t think it’s worth all this hype
Totally get your POV! Maybe my view will change upon visiting and I’ll align more with you, though I hope not. I will say though my personal opinion is museums like this don’t need to cater to “us” as foreign tourists to be successful. I’m glad Studio Ghibli has had such international dubbed success, and while it would be great to be able to understand and read more of what’s in the museum based on what you share here, the English-ification of everything really shouldn’t be the expectation everywhere. What draws many of in (my crew at least) is the fantastic artwork and storylines Studio Ghibli creates that seem to transcend language.
I'll give another POV and say that I enjoyed myself a lot. I had heard as well that it was kind of small, overhyped, etc. so I lowered my expectations. Ended up pleasantly surprised.
Give us your review of the museum when you get back! I really appreciate your attention to detail describing the purchase process, so I'd love your POV on the experience of going to the museum as a whole.
You got it! And thank you! Stay tuned in early/mid-March and I’ll post a detailed follow up of the good, bad, and ugly!
That's fair! I really do hope you enjoy it and I think you will, knowing what to expect. I loved seeing the art too (especially of Grave of the Fireflies and some early drafts). I just wouldn't expect a guided experience; it felt like it was meant for local families, lots of things to do for kids. I would usually agree with that expectation but it was confounding considering how many foreigners visit and the international popularity, just from a business perspective.
Anyway hope you have a great trip :)
That makes sense for sure, and thanks for sharing your experiences! It helps to level set expectations before going. And thank you!! I’m so looking forward to it.
<3 excited for you!
The Japanese and their lottery system man 😩
Lucky, I was spot 9900 or so, had to wait an hour and was not successful with any tickets. Frustrated but better prepared for next time I guess
Really sorry to hear it! I hope you have better luck next time around for sure. I wish there was more “science” to how to get a better position (as i see some here say they had luck refreshing at the last second) but I really do think they try to randomize it to make it more fair overall. Still that’s a bummer.
They would be much better ways to built this system with current web technology, this is wildly bad built.
This was our experience tonight as well! Used 3 laptops, 1 desktop, 2 phones, and an iPad. I read a random comment on here and FB that refreshing one device 1-2 seconds before the countdown to 10am ends, gives you a better chance at a good position in line. Oddly enough, my iPad that I tried it on was the top spot, with 3000 people ahead of me. Remaining positions ranged from 4000-8000 on the other devices. I also encountered the 503 error at least 5 times before finally getting through. I do think it’s related to the demand for that ticket slot you’re picking - got it when trying for the 10am and 12pm slots on one day, but succeeded in getting the 14pm slot. Be online 30 minutes before 10am to join the waiting room and never refresh!
Yay ticket buddy! Glad you succeeded as well! It’s really not terrible (Tick’master anyone?) but still best to have a good game plan. High five!
I did similar and my iPad was also the only one to get through!!!! Weird haha
This is really thorough and helpful, thanks!
I’m glad you found it helpful! I kept second guessing the process leading up to it that I decided while I of course wanted to secure my tickets, I was hoping I could help someone else along the way. Unfortunately it does seem like it’s still a bit of a gamble since it’s such a popular place to visit!
Fr this is actually kinda comforting to hear, brah, thanks for the heads up for real
Glad to help! Of course not everyone’s gonna like the detailed play by play, but it took very little effort to just jot it down and thankfully does seem like it’s helping so I’m glad. 🤙Good luck getting yours!
I got an error pretty much every time I pressed the button. I saw the ticket time slot go away when the page loaded back up, and then I got the error again, and the slot was available again.
I felt like I had 12 heart attacks, and at least 20 error messages. But I got the tickets.
Haha I feel your pain, though I guess since I had multiple browsers on devices I didn’t feel too much dread, but i was starting to second guess my approach with each additional error. Just glad you got them in the end!
Wow…compared to 2025 it was MUUUCH easier getting tickets. I actually checked out almost 45 minutes after they went live.
I kept getting that 503 error message with the cat.
Hopefully this means that Japan is less crowded.
It’ll be my second time checking out Ghibli Museum.
Fantastic! I’m so excited for what I’m sure to be my first of many trips to come there!
I had 4 devices as well, I got spot 250-ish on my iPhone which was actually the last device that I joined the queue with and was in ticket selection by 10:05am Japan time. I got 503s 5 or 6 times before it eventually worked. I had used Lawson for some concert tickets before so I knew how unreliable it could be when under load, just gotta keep trying.
My iPad was next at 3xxxx, I got in with that around 10:35am Japan time and it looked like there was still plenty of tickets left though quite a few days had the 10am slot sold out. I didn't bother checking the rest
So glad it worked for you as well!
I used two browsers, the one i opened later (safari) had a 5xxx position, the one I opened before that one (chrome) had a 9xxx position. Useless- no tickets.
Really sorry to hear this! Seems to be a very popular month right now unfortunately :(
Got 12pm tickets for the 25th!
Alriiiiiiiiight! -Linda Belcher
Love me some Linda Belcher!
See you there! Haha
Damn you were lucky on your spots, we had 10 devices total and only three were between 3k and 4k!
We still managed to get our tickets smoothly (no crash on my browser, first time slot I tried was the one I got, etc)
Luck it absolutely was! Woof I can’t imagine 10 devices, 4 was stressful enough! The random assignment of numbers in the queue is definitely both a positive and negative as it makes it more fair and maybe helps reduce full crashes like some other companies have experienced, but it does make it a roll of the dice and makes you come ready to play! Glad you got the one you wanted!
We were 4 on the case, so my friend and I (the ones travelling to Japan) were on 4 device each, and the other two were on one.
I like random queue way more than first come first served, It's way more stressful, and I would have said the same if I had missed my tickets !
But I'm really glad I chose a time slot less crowded (a monday at 2pm), and as a plus, it was the ideal time and day for me !
Also glad you got your tickets ! Your experience is really similar to mine (infos gathered on Reddit, well prepared, many devices)
That’s so awesome! Sounds like your group had the perfect flow going and yeah a “less desired” time like a Monday probably was the best call. I’ve already picked up a bunch of additional tips from you all for the next time I get tickets so glad it’s resonating with folks!
I forgot to book in advance for January 8 and booked it using a japanese esim, the airbnb address, and paid at a lawson one week in advance.
Ooof! I’m really glad to hear you could score some last minute tickets while in Japan and not miss it!
Wow, you were very lucky with your queue numbers. Back in November I used 4 devices, 3 browsers on each, regular and incognito modes, so I got over 20 different queue numbers. Only two of them were below 10,000 (I managed to snag the tickets with one). Several were over 20,000. Perhaps it was a much busier season?
Yikes! Yeah I’ve heard and seen Nov is a lot busier than Feb, but I also want to hope they’ve made their systems slightly better each time too.
Nice. Super lucky on that queue. I did a mock run for a June trip with 3 pcs. Ranged from 4k-9k, random. The 4k one took about 42 minutes. Once in, it showed numerous times with the triangle “limited” icon. 7 of 8 of those I tried eventually errored saying they could not confirm tickets. After fuddling around with that for about 5-10 minutes, I’d say almost everyday 10am and 12pm were sold out. But almost every day had afternoon slots available. TLDR- need under 4k to hope for 12pm, and I’d guess under 1k to hope for 10am. Next time I’ll try the refresh trick.
I tried last night as well (it went on sale at 2am my time) and spent an hour waiting, then 20 minutes of errors and re-tries until all tickets were gone and we didn't get one. This was the worst purchasing experience I've had in the last 20 years and put me off the museum completely. We understand how a ship should work and the way they built it seems to be on purpose bad. I've not seen a web ship this bad since the early 2000s. I wish we had tried to purchase it and just slept normally.
Interesting. I also bought tickets for February access today. I logged in on 4 devices - 2 laptops, 1 Google pixel, and 1 iPhone. Closed all windows except for Google Chrome, and made sure cookies were enabled and VPN was turned off.
When I first went to the Lawson's page, I saw that there was a countdown to getting access. I made sure to have that page open on all devices, and didn't allow the screen to time out. When the countdown was over, I refreshed the page on the iPhone and on laptop 1. I left the pixel and laptop 2 alone.
Funnily enough, the smallest waiting time was on laptop 1, which is the one I refreshed.
Even after entering the site to book tickets, I kept the rest of my devices open on the waiting page just in case something happened.
Piece of advice - make sure you spell your name exactly as it is on your passport if you are the "leader". Also remember your arrival and departure airports. And have several credit cards that you can use for payment in case one doesn't work. I tried to use a prepaid MasterCard that doesn't have fx fees, but it was rejected. So I had to switch to another MasterCard. I still had a visa handy just in case.
Tickets are non-refundable. And the person who organizes this (the leader) has to have their passport on them to show for entry.
Super helpful additions here for sure, thanks! So glad you were able to get your tickets as well!
Great tips! I snagged a noon ticket tonight! Starting around 30 minutes out, I opened the ticket page on 5 browsers across 3 devices (laptop 1 Chrome/Edge, laptop 2 Edge, phone Chrome/Safari). My queue numbers ranged from ~3100 to ~11000. I wish used one of my devices to test the refresh 1 second prior trick.
I closed all but my two quickest queues. My ~3100 queue took about 34 minutes. I got the error 6 times before I was able to proceed with a ticket, and every couple of times I got back to the calendar page, I noticed availability changes. I had a rough time copy/pasting my email and phone number. For whatever reason, it wouldn't take, and I had to manually type them in. 7 tries to get a ticket x 4 fields (email and email confirmation, phone number and phone number confirmation) = 28 times I had to manually type them in. This definitely slowed me down!
Oh I’m so glad you got them, and you hit something huge I’m gonna go back and add to my post! You CANNOT copy and paste in the email and phone number fields. It’s to keep you from messing them up and complaining to them, but it definitely killed my flow too as I had ALL my fields in a notepad on my computers and phone/ipad and then couldn’t paste.
I felt like I got super lucky, my queue was around 7000 and I still got a ticket for a 12pm slot on my second choice of day
So glad you still scored a good option that aligned with your trip!
Four devices, all position 5000-8000. Only managed 4:00pm tickets after many failed attempts at earlier slots.
That’s kind of a bummer, but I’ve heard the afternoon / early evening times are just as magical, so I’m sure you’ll have a blast!
I’m sure it will be lovely! I’m grateful I got any tickets at all. I will just need to replan that day :)
I did the same thing today just to test it out for later this year. Was 5000 ish in queue. Got couple errors. Couple of failed ticket slots that I guess became sold out but eventually got to a check out page that I didnt go through with of course.
Still deciding on whether or not it’s worth trying to squeeze into a first trip.
Glad you got to test it out, it’s honestly why I wrote this novel up. Haha. I was worried it would be much harder based on everyone’s experience before, and clearly they were right it’s not smooth, but it’s manageable with some luck and patience.
Hard call depending on how much time you have since it can be an hour or so each way in/out of central Tokyo, but if you’re a fan of any of the Studio Ghibli works I think it’s gonna be incredible!
I went to the museum and honestly didn't feel like it was worth it
As someone who grew up watching Ghibli movies, that museum was incredible and I loved everything about it. But even I'd say that for anyone who is not interested in Ghibli, any film-making museum will give you the same experience.
That’s ok! Not all of us like the same things, and sometimes we build stuff up so much (or let others for us) that it can be a let down, but I’m glad you can say you experienced it.
Also make sure you're getting the right location. I went through all that and on the day the people at the door told me I had tickets for the Nagoya park instead.
Ooof! Yes I had seen a few others mention this in the past too! Unfortunately subs both are called Ghibli folks do need to be sure they are picking the MUSEUM page and not “waffling it” on over to the PARK page or you may end up in the wrong spot and not be able to make it to the other in time. Using the link above will take you to the Museum tickets at least, with no option for the separate park tickets on that same page.
To give some people hope for the future, I was super lucky and managed to grab tickets 1 hour after tickets dropped for the week/day I was looking for. It was my 2nd time preference which still worked out.
I thought i set up a notification 30 minutes before tickets dropped but turns out I never did.
Only used one device (laptop).
I would occasionally see tickets open here and there over a 10 minute time span. I kept refreshing. The first few times I tried booking these open spots, I was too slow or there was only 1 ticket available (was trying to book 2).
After a few times of attempting to book, it finally went through at like the 5th time. Hope this gives people some context.
There might not be as much movement now but its good to take a look every now and then.
I bought tickets today from the UK.
I joined the queue about 9:32am Japan, despite having the website open since 9am Japan. These are roughly the positions.
MacBook Safari: 4700th
MacBook Chrome with JP VPN: 7,000th
iPad 4,900th
iPhone 6,500th
After it started at 10am, it took until about 10:43am Japan for the queue to drop to 0. When I got through, about half the tickets were gone by this point. I luckily got the day I wanted, just not the time I wanted.
Did you need a Japanese mobile number?
One of the well known shoe bots has compatibility with the ghibli tickets, worked well enough for me without the stress. Worth looking into if you know anyone in this game
Sounds like a similar experience for the Studio Ghibli Park in Nagoya (though today was for March booking there).
11,000 in the queue via Lawson right on 2:00pm Japan time.
Tried Klook, got in straight away. Got preferred day/time for Premium tickets. By the time you logged in and got through all the add ons they try to sell you, the Premium tickets had ‘sold out’. This was less than 10 minutes after they went on sale. I gather Klook get minimal Premium tickets compared to Lawson.
Decided to stick it out in the Lawson queue. 90 minutes later, I’m in. Premium tickets available on the day I want to go. Then the details you need to fill in. Passport number. Address of a hotel you’re staying in Japan. I’m going to a theme park, not entering a country 😂
Thankfully only one error but that just took me back to the start page and not the back of the queue thankfully.
It took a hot minute but we eventually got tickets and I have one very excited partner.
This is just obnoxious. At least at Gundam base you can pick up cancelations or no show slots day of.
When I entered the queue I was o above 14000, I was still was able to snatch tickets for my preferred day!
A tip that I never saw here, be sure to stick around even when you see that there are no more tickets available, I kept refreshing and a lot of slots would appear randomly (probably from people timing out or that were trying to get tickets on multiple devices).
Can anyone give insight into payment methods? I've heard Mastercard is preferred... anyone have luck with Amex or Visa?
So I did check for this but the page doesn’t explicitly show which card types are accepted, at least on the payment details screen, so I’m not sure. I used a MasterCard and it worked well - though it did send me to MasterCard 3D payment verification with my bank. I did enter my Amex on my phone when I entered the line there and it accepted it in the box, but I didn’t proceed to purchase with it since I already grabbed the tickets I needed, so I couldn’t tell you for sure.
Going to japan this summer and i waited in the queue on my phone yesterday just to get a feel for what it is like.
Overall i found the queue very organized, i got the error when getting in but it was smooth. I used only my iphone and i had a 9min wait, could have bought tickets for 10am on a saturday (was still a circle) bit after loitering around for about 30sec it went yellow/triangle.
Even though it was smooth, still plan on using all the technology to get tickets. I like that they actually use queue-it and it isnt a free for all.
Couldn’t agree more! At least you’re prepared for what it will be like in a few months!
Posts like this have been very helpful with preparation too. Happy you got your tickets!
Wow, I came into this process severely underprepared. I thought I was being extra by visiting the Ghibli website right when tickets went live (5pm local for me.) I didn't scroll down far enough to see the link for purchasing tickets outside of Japan, and spent a good 15-20 minutes unsuccessfully trying to register for a Lawson account, which is for Japan residents only.
By the time I checked Reddit and found the link to the Queue-It queue, I was ~14000 in the line. I thought there was no chance of getting tickets, but I stayed in the queue, which ended up going faster than expected. Once I got into the purchasing page, I made 10+ unsuccessful attempts at getting tickets. I would select tickets, then try to check out, but I'd get an error message that the tickets had already been sold. Then I'd go back to the main page, and a few different time slots would be available. Or, if none were available, I'd refresh the page. Miraculously, I was able to get two tickets on the day I wanted, just two hours after the time slot I was hoping for.
Such a crazy process! I had no idea it was going to be so stressful.
It’s definitely a process that’s for sure! My hope with this post is to help others like you and me in the future so they don’t end up missing it by only a few minutes or not knowing where to click, because it is immediately unclear. So glad you were successful at snagging some!
Used three devices myself and had my family also join the waiting room 30 minutes early.
I ended up with one device around 3.8k in the queue, waited half an hour to enter and then managed to grab tickets for us.
Two of our group got in 10 minutes before me but ended up stuck in crash and error loops unable to purchase first.
Thanks for this thread. Very useful!
Really glad you found it helpful!
I'd like to also recommend that if you need to squeeze this into a very specific day on your itinerary and the Ghbili website fails you, you can book on a third-party site. Just be wary that some of the popular sites will try to charge you more than 20,000yen for the experience, which is ridiculously exorbitant when it only costs 1,000yen on the Ghibli site.
I happened to find a site called Willer Travel that was far more reasonable, offering it at 6,300yen. Again, still doesn't feel great to pay that much when you know you could've just gotten it for 1,000yen, but it's an easier price to make peace with (especially since I was visiting solo, if I had to pay for more than one ticket I probably wouldn't have done it). Not long before making the Ghibli booking, I was lucky enough to get a 5,000yen discount on one of my other bookings, so I just decided "screw it, I'll put that towards the Ghibli Museum and treat it as a convenience fee".
And to be fair to the service, it was very convenient to book and the experience was nice and simple. We went to the museum as a tour group, meeting at the train station closest to the museum and walking from there. I was actually late for the meeting time due to a train issue but one of the tour guides was kind enough to hang back and wait for me, and we caught up to the rest of the group quickly. The guides took us through Inokashira Park and talked about how the scenery is known to have helped inspire Miyazaki, and we were able to stop and take pictures at the temple there. One of the other people in my group that I met actually ended up being from my hometown, which was pretty cool since I'm from a not-too-big city in Canada and the odds of meeting someone from here in Japan were insanely low. Once we reached the museum, we were given our tickets, lined up to enter, and at that point we were on our own and free to wander around for as long as we wanted until the closing time. It was pretty hassle-free overall, and while a bit more expensive, I was happy to have the peace of mind and the little pre-museum walking tour experience.
So my tl;dr is to avoid going into panic mode if you get unlucky with the Ghibli site and you're worried about your itinerary getting ruined, there are other options to book.
Can I ask what kind of start times they had at Willer? I want to book tickets for the Museum, but there are so many things that have to be booked at specific times or miss out, it’s getting quite stressful lol. At this point I’d rather pay a little more and have one less thing to worry about. Also, did Willer go live the same day as Lawson do you know? Thanks :)
I just checked my old itinerary, we had to meet the group at the station by 1:30. I’m not sure about when it went live but what I can tell you is that demand is infinitely lower and I’m pretty sure I remember my desired date being available on the site for a couple of days before I finally made my decision to book.
That’s brilliant, thank you :) Ideally I wanted to make sure I had enough time to look around, spend an unholy amount in the shop and eat at the Straw Hat Cafe. Allowing an hour for the walk prior that still leaves plenty of time before they close.
Really glad to hear the 3rd-party route worked out for you so well! I couldn’t believe the insane prices on the few other sites that were astronomically higher than Ghibli’s list price, that made me not want to even consider those, but it is great of hear the page you found ended up not being too steep and was worth it!
I’d further add to this point here, if your trip is on the edge of two months, book at the beginning if you can, just because there’s no guarantee it’ll be available in your second month. (I booked 2/28 for this very reason.) At 1,000¥ each, I figure if I can get a better option next month I may try again but if not I no longer have to stress about will I / won’t I!
Don’t you need a Japanese phone number?
Adding to the 503 error - I probably sat there pressing the blue button at least 20 times!
I actually bought my January ticket at 2pm EST on Jan 9 and there were lots of open slots… I didn’t line up for anything at all… very confused what happened.
I followed all of these almost by the letter, did extensive research, was very prepared and didn't get the tickets (for November 2025). You get placed on the queue at a random number. I was extremely lucky to have a friend living in Japan at that time and he managed to buy it for us. Just keep in mind that it is a luck thing, you can follow all these steps, watch a million videos and read a million Reddit posts and articles and still it will depend whether you're lucky to get placed at a decent spot in the queue.
The tickets my friend purchased were in his name and he bought them as a Japanese resident, we were super scared they weren't going to let us in because of that but they checked our passports and tickets and didn't say anything and just let us through and I'm extremely grateful it worked out because it was an incredible experience.