Yes you can. As of March 2020, all listeners are welcome to pitch in song suggestions. HOWEVER, you won’t be able to hear your song request, unless you are a Patreon Star or Platinum level donor as song requests are placed in the extra songs section in our regular top 10 episodes, which only Patreon Star or Platinum listeners can access.

No, if you are not part of our Donor’s Club, you will continue to recieve episodes the same way you currently do. You do not need to make any changes to your listening habits to our show, as a result of this change.

Whether you are a Patreon donor or a public listener, Japan Top 10 will remain committed at fulfilling the goals of our podcast, which is to educate our listeners on the music of Japan, both in the contemporary and historical landscape. By being a Patreon donor, it gives you the fully enhanced experience of immersing yourself in Japanese music culture, though public listeners will remain able to grasp the basic understanding of the Japanese music scene. You may notice some programming changes to the podcast as a result of the Patreon program, but rest assured, all listeners will remain able attain high quality knowledge on Japanese music.

Unfortunately, no. The features that we are offering to our Donor’s Club is directly from our Patreon page, thus you must verify your donation and claim the features from there.

All episodes before our 200th one will now be made exclusive only to our Donor’s Club. Public listeners will hear an announcement made by one of our staff to let them know that the episode(s) they are trying to access is only avaliable for our Donor’s Club members. Episode 200 or over will still become accessible to the public.

Unfortunately these services are not compatible with updating their audio feeds, so we had to remove them from our listings on those 2 sites. Please note that episodes before the 200th are now only exclusively available to our Patreon Donors.

We are making this change because as everyone can recognize, there are costs associated with producing a podcast show. As much as we would like to continue operations without any monetary support, that is not anyway possible. Our Patreon program gives our listeners an option to further enhance their experience with listening to Japan Top 10 and their ability to attain knowledge on the Japanese music scene, with a small monetary contribution.

Furthermore, through reducing the sizes of our episodes (such as reducing the top 50 episode to a top 10 and reserving past episodes before the 100th for only our Donor’s Club), we will be able to reduce the bandwidth we use with our providers which would in turn allow us to maintain a positive relationship with our provider (and allow them to grow as well).

As a registered non-profit organization, we commit all obtained revenue from our Patreon program back to our podcast. Improving our podcast is our number 1 goal and by supporting us through a monetary donation, you are helping all our listeners gain a better experience listening to our show!

This includes purchasing enhanced recording equipment for our staff, having better contests for our listeners, supporting the overall development of the Japanese music scene and much much more. We are always trying to improve the podcast in any possible way, however we are very limited with what we can do, as a result of our limited monetary funding. We hope you understand our rationales behind introducing this program and hope you will consider being part of our Donor’s Club!

We have activated Patreon’s charge up front feature for our Patreon program. It means when you join our show, you’ll be billed right away for access to that month, at the regular rate you have pledged for. Ie, if you join on February 16 as a Premium Base donor, you’ll be charged $1 on the 16th for access to our Patreon program for the month of February. You will then be charged again on the 1st of the next month (in the example, you’ll be charged again on March 1) and the following months with that same amount you pledged. Full details from Patreon are also here: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/208404313-Why-was-I-charged-immediately-Will-You-Charge-Me-Again-

Why did we implement this feature? We have seen listeners “sample” our content and remove their pledge before they get charged at the first of the month. As you guys know, that means those listeners would have access and listen to our Patreon episodes without paying anything at all. Patreon implemented this feature to prevent listeners from “sampling” premium content without making their pledge. We understand this might cause a double charge for listeners who join our program near the end of the month (ie, if you join July 29, you’ll be charged your pledge amount and then you’ll be charged again on August 1 with your pledge amount), so we ask all listeners to be mindful about this before joining our program, as we cannot offer refunds regarding these situations.

Yes, if you are a current Patreon Donor’s Club member, you will recieve a special “RSS” link from Patreon that will contain episodes before the 100th and any previous or current content that has already been distributed for current or previous subscribing Donor’s Club members. You can input that RSS link into many podcast applications, including the Apple podcast application on iOS devices. More information on manually inputing a RSS feed here: https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/podcast-app-instructions-for-rss-feed/ Remember, this will allow you get all the newest and exclusive episodes with that RSS link, provided to you from Patreon, so make sure you keep it handy!

Please note that RSS links are all different from each member, depending on the level of their donation (it is unique to that individual).

For more information about how you’ll get the link, please see this page from Patreon’s help page: https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/212055866-How-Do-I-Get-and-Use-My-Audio-RSS-Link-

Your RSS link will become inactive if we discover that you are sharing it with other members of the public or if you end up canceling your monthly donation.

Currently, most of our Patreon donors access our episodes using either the Patreon website or through the Apple/Google podcast app. There are also a few third party apps that are on the Google Play store for Android (and iOS) users to add our private Patreon feed onto their app (so you can use their app to listen the Patreon episodes and get notifications when a new episode appears).

Unfortunately, certain apps like TuneIn Radio does not give users the option to manually add RSS feeds onto their app, thus users cannot put in our private Patreon RSS feed onto these apps to listen into Patreon exclusive episodes. FYI, an RSS feed is what is provided to you when you join our Patreon program; this link allows podcasting applications to showcase all episodes on our Patreon program so that you can then listen into them. This is out of our control, as we don’t dictate how these applications provide podcasts.

For more information on the applications that can be used for our Patreon program, along with instructions on how to manually enter in our Patreon RSS feed, please see this page: https://medium.com/@joshmuccio/how-to-manually-add-a-rss-feed-to-your-podcast-app-on-desktop-ios-android-478d197a3770

For information on how to add private RSS feeds onto Google podcasts, see here: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/3/22151201/google-podcasts-rss-feed-private-upload-support-update

If you are a Premium Platinum donor, you will notice an additional notification of the same episode in your feed. The reason for this is that Patreon doesn’t let us specifically filter uploads by your donation level; it is only filtered by the amount you donate. The only way we can restrict episodes between donors is to raise the level of donation amount; ie, an episode uploaded is only for donors who have donated $1 or more (for our Premium level donors). And if you donate more, you will see more.

This is why we have named each episode title to the donation level; ie, “Episode 203 PREMIUM: Title of Japan Top 10 episode” and “Episode 203 PREMIUM PLUS: Title of Japan Top 10 episode”. When you are listening to an episode, pick the one that is appropriate to your level of your donation so you will get the full entitled benefits.

Please note we do not upload episodes to all donation levels, unless there is a donor (or multiple) within that donation level, except for past episodes before the 100th.

For the gift cycles, please see + & ++ from above. Patreon Star donors do not get options with what gifts they receive and Patreon Platinum donors will get options with the gifts they receive. As for what gifts each Patreon member gets, that will depend on the period you are receiving your gift. You have the option to always decline your gift, should you not like any of your options.

For regards to where we ship, please see the question below on the terms of our Patreon program.

If you cancel your monthly pledge on Patreon, you will become withdrawn from our Patreon Donor’s Club. This will mean the RSS link that was originally provided to you will not work anymore (you will not be access any content on it or receive any new content). You will also lose your accumulated months to obtain a gift from us. If you decide in the future to return to our Donor’s Club, you will be given a new RSS link and your months will reset in order to receive our gifts.

Please see this page on Patreon for more information: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000126286-How-do-I-edit-my-membership-

If you are not interested in some of the features we are offering but you are still willing to support our podcast on a monthly basis on Patreon, please contact us at info@jtop10.jp for more details. If you want to support us through Patreon but without any of these benefits, you can also click the “No Reward, No thanks, I just want to support Japan Top 10” option when you pledge your support on Patreon. Please note if you want to just send us a lump sum donation without any of these benefits, please visit the homepage of our website and click on the donate button.

No, in order to get the benefits listed on this page and on our Patreon Donor’s Club, you must be using Patreon to submit your monthly donation. If you still want to donate to us but not through Patreon, you can click our donate button located on our home page of our website!

No, all payments for our Patreon Donor’s Club will be charged and converted to USD. You can still donate in a different currency; Patreon will automatically convert your payment to USD. We won’t be able to accept any other currencies at the moment (this is in accordance to Patreon’s currency policies).

According to Patreon’s site, they accept the following payments: Visa, MasterCard, America Express, JCB, Discover, Diners Club and PayPal.

We generally accept donations and participation from all those who are interested in participating in our Patreon program. However, we do have two main terms that helps us ensure we follow the rules in the 2 main countries we operate in (Canada and USA).

1. We cannot accept donations from donors who are from any countries that are sanctioned by either Canada or the United States of America. For countries sanctioned in the USA, click here. For countries sanctioned in Canada, click here. While we do not initially ask every donor to provide their home country to us when they join the program, if we discover that a donor is from any of the sanctioned countries listed by the USA or Canada, we will revoke that donor’s access to our Patreon program and refund all donations made from that donor.

2. We can ship Patreon donor gifts to all countries and regions except for the following: Cuba, Iran, North Korea (DPRK), Sudan, Syria, Guatemala, Ascension Island, Bolivia, Falkland Islands, Nigeria, Tristan da Cunha, Afghanistan, Algeria, Belarus, Bosnia, Burma (Myanmar), Burundi, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote D’ivoire (Ivory Coast), Croatia, Herzegovina, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Moldova, Montenegro, Paraguay, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Togo, Yemen, Zimbabwe. We cannot ship to these regions due to international sanctions, shipping logistics issues, or exceptionally high postage rates. If you are a donor from any of these countries and not a member of a sanctioned country as mentioned above; unfortunately, we will not be able to provide you with our donor gifts, however you are welcome to continue to participate in our Patreon donor program with all the other benefits that our donors enjoy.

As a Premium Platinum donor, you will be able to access our scripts via Google Docs through an invitation we send to your email address listed from Patreon. If you use any email addresses outside of Gmail or the Google Apps suite on your Patreon account, please contact us with your alternate Gmail/Google Apps suite email address. We will give you permission to only view the script; you will not be allowed to make any edits on the script itself.

If you are not able to access the script or did not receive an invitation from us to view the script, please contact us through Patreon as soon as possible and we will work with you to have this revised.

If you are a current Premium Platinum donor, this benefit will automatically be given to you. If you are a current Premium Base or Star donor and wish to upgrade, we will also give you this benefit immediately after you upgrade your pledge.

Please note: If you stop your Premium Platinum pledge, we will revoke your ability to view our episode scripts.

A: The main benefits, summarized are:

Premium Base- access to the full version of our Cultures episodes, access to episodes before the 200th & song list in the description of the episode

Premium Star- all of Premium Base benefits + no announcements/ads in episodes, more songs in our episodes, gifts for ongoing support and access to a bonus top 10 episode released once every other month

Premium Platinum- all of Premium Base and Star benefits + access to our episode scripts, make special/Cultures/artist of month episode suggestions, even more songs in our music focused episodes (an average of 3-4 songs more), earlier access to our gifts

Please see our chart for further details about each tier’s exact benefits.