Curated is the only mark on JapanPass you cannot buy. It means one thing, and we hold it to that one thing: someone from our team went there in person.
✓ Curated
Most directories sell placement and call it a recommendation. We separate the two, on purpose. A business can pay for a listing tier, the same way a shop can take out an ad. That is fair, and we label it plainly. But paying never earns the Curated mark, and no amount of money moves a place onto the curated list. The mark is earned by a visit, or it is not there at all.
When you see Curated, a real person walked in, spent time, and judged it worth your trip. When you do not see it, it only means we have not been yet, not that the place is lesser.
Paid tiers, Bronze through Platinum, help a business build a fuller page: photos, a written profile, priority placement in the directory. They are a real service and we are open about the price. What they do not do is change our judgement. A curated place always sits above a paid one in ranking, and a paid page never wears the Curated mark unless it also earned it in person.
Every place below earned the mark in person. Filter by category or prefecture. When a filter has nothing yet, we say so plainly and point you back to the full directory, rather than pad the list.
The best curated finds come from travelers and from our own scouting, not from businesses buying their way in. If somewhere deserves a visit, tell us. It enters a queue, and if we go and it earns the mark, it earns it honestly.