And as promised in one of the comments in the FSFJ entry, here is the PrintedManuals.jp site. I’ve worked quite hard on this one, and am reasonably happy with the results. PrintedManuals.jp is a service where we print English manuals (other languages too if available) for Japanese products like digital cameras or printers.
The reason I decided to create this site is because more than once I have felt the frustration of not being able to use the product I bought in Japan fully because the manufacturer only supplied a Japanese manual.
It is understandable though, foreigners make up such a small percentage of the population in Japan so it doesn’t make commerical sense to bundle an English manual as well. It doesn’t make ecological sense either because 99.9% of the time the English manual would just be thrown out.
But still it is a real pain for us foreigners. So I decided to offer this service. It is true that people can find, download and print the manuals themselves but it would probably cost a lot more in time and money for them to do so. If only a handful of foreigners find the service useful then I will be happy and the site will be a success. As I wrote in the FAQ, I’m not in it for a quick buck, I just want to help foreigners’ lives be a little less frustrating.
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