Vegan in Japan

[kitacherry]

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I've been vegan for a few months and will study in Japan in a few years time. I wanted to ask about people's experience with being vegan in a country where it's not as understood or catered to as it is in the West.
Are there any guaranteed safe options at restaurants? Doing my own cooking is always an option but of course I want to experience what the restaurants have to offer too. I know that a lot of seemingly vegan dishes have bonito, dashi etc. in them.
And is there a significant population of vegans/vegetarians in Tokyo? I know of a few J-vloggers (Sharla in Japan and Taylor R are vegan if I remember correctly?) but what about native Japanese?
Thank you!

 

[mdchachi]

Your best bet for restaurants is to eat at Indian or Pakistani places. But these days there must be some options, at least in the big cities. There are also Buddhist restaurants. Living as a vegetarian in Tokyo would be fairly easy. Living as a vegan would require mostly making your own food probably.
I've never met a vegetarian let alone a vegan Japanese person. I imagine there must be some out there.
Here's an old thread that could be helpful. Vegetarian food in Japan - Japan Forum

 

[Lothor]

I attend some social events in Tokyo that are organised via the Meetup website. I've just checked the list of groups and there seem to be a lot of vegan groups based in Tokyo. That could be a useful source of information.

 

[kitacherry]

That's really useful to know, thank you!

 

[mdchachi]

This looks like a good source of info. Is it vegan?

 

[Sophies Dreams]

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I've been vegan for a few months and will study in Japan in a few years time. I wanted to ask about people's experience with being vegan in a country where it's not as understood or catered to as it is in the West.
Are there any guaranteed safe options at restaurants? Doing my own cooking is always an option but of course I want to experience what the restaurants have to offer too. I know that a lot of seemingly vegan dishes have bonito, dashi etc. in them.
And is there a significant population of vegans/vegetarians in Tokyo? I know of a few J-vloggers (Sharla in Japan and Taylor R are vegan if I remember correctly?) but what about native Japanese?
Thank you!

I would like to recommend the app Happy cow, it is a free app that shows Restaurants, cafes and more that are vegan and vegiterian.

I do belive that you can change the settings even, for exempel If you have any allergy.

I don't eat meat, chicken or fish and I have used the app a coupel of times and think it works very good in Tokyo.
The places can be a bit more pricy thou.

I hope this helps!