What I am doing here is consolidating what I have found out from researching online and talking to the JTB (Japan Tourist Board tour agency - https://sg.jtbtrip.com/)
Firstly, even today (05 Sept 2022), JTB has not officially received on the full guidelines on how the "Non-guided tour" is suppose to be. What I have is guidelines from the Japan Tourism Agency (https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/) which is only in Japanese listed here https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/content/001510151.pdf. I am not going to fully go into the guidelines as the travel agencies might have a different set of them or there might be changes.
What I am going to do here is ignore the guidelines first and let you know the process assuming:
1. you need to book your hotel and flight through the agency
2. you have time to actually plan your trip
The reason for point 2 will be clear once I start explaining.
First, you need go to the travel agency to whatever flight/hotel bookings. Once that is done, the agency will provide you with all the documents you need to apply for the visa needed to travel in Japan. You will also need to get your printed vaccination certificate (https://www.notarise.gov.sg/) ready.
Now with the documents go to https://www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_ja/11_000001_00505.html and make an appointment to apply for your visa. Now that you are advised not to book the appointment earlier than 6 weeks before your travel date.
After applying for your visa, you need to wait at least 5 working days before your will know if your visa is approved.
As you noticed, you need spare time to prepare and do all this. Hence point 2 needing spare time to actually plan your trip. I also like to note from the kind staff from JTB travel agency letting me know that they are unable apply for visa on your behalf. So more time needs to be arranged to visit the JP embassy.
Also you notice very quickly the visa issue is a chicken and egg problem being its a bet whether you can actually get a visa to Japan even if you booked and got your all documents ready.
All I can really say, the whole process is going to be an abundance of problems and you need to plan at least a month in advance for any Japan trips coming end of the year. Good Luck.
